Fruits of the Spirit

We are trying something new at our house in an effort to reinforce spiritual life lessons that we want the kids to remember. At our house, we focus on grace, mercy and love and how to communicate that thru our words, tone, body language, actions and attitudes. The kids seem to be surrounded with mixed messages of what AGAPE is so we wanted to create a tangible representation. I wanted to take the thought behind Random Acts of Kindness and incorporate Christian love into those actions. To make it more tangible I decorated a jar with hearts to represent the love of Jesus that compels us to show kindness and mercy to each other. I made a bow out of paper kraft raffia and attached handmade hearts with key words written on the front. Inside the jar I placed the verses from Galatians 5:22-23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." This verse is the foundation of our jar and what we want the kids to learn. Each time we catch one of the kids showing one of these attributes we put a black rock in the jar. I scattered the rocks on our mantle among our family photos to represent all the opportunities that are available for them to show kindness to each other. When the jar is full, we will review the verse, talk about some of the opportunities that they seized and what they have learned....then we get to pick a special family activity out of another small jar. We came up with a list of family activities that would be their reward for working together to fill the jar. We are looking forward to those rewards and for the kids to embrace the Fruits of the Spirit.

Here is our mantel with the jar on the right. The big frame is of Psalm 51...one of my favorites! It was a gift for Scott last Christmas.


A close up of the jar...the green tissue paper is to protect the glass from all the rocks that will be dropped in there every day...but it could represent Spiritual growth or a Spiritual foundation...


Here is a long view of the mantle so you can see the rocks. I love it that they represent those opportunities that happen every day to show someone love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. See the beautiful photo of my mom when she graduated from college? It's the one in brown...she is such a beautiful woman inside and out!

We have really enjoyed hearing the kids' hearts as they seize those opportunities and I definitely want to share that with you! I'll let you know how it goes in a few weeks.