Prayer for a Peaceful Home

 

Working towards making my home a haven… what an undertaking!  As you remember, for week 1 I needed to get a large candle to burn. I love the smell of a fresh candle! Yummy! Every time I spied it, I needed to offer a prayer for peace in my home. We are a busy family with a lot going on, so peace is always a good thing to pray for!

I chose a square, cream candle given to me by a friend. I don’t know why I let it sit so long. I think part of me just thought it was too pretty to burn. That’s just silly! I’m sure my friend gave me this to invite the warm spirt that a flickering candle brings to a home.

Each time I saw the candle burning, I tried to take a calming breath and say a small prayer for peace, just like the challenge requested. Let me tell you, I needed it a lot this past week. Sometimes weeks just take on a life of their own.  Yup, that was this past one. The good news is that when those weeks come, they do eventually end and you can try a fresh start the next week.

Did I get stressed? Of course. However, by the end of the week when I felt that pressure coming, I looked over at my flickering candle and felt my frown “turn upside down”. Cheesy, but true.

The thing that I noticed was the effect on my boys. Living with two wild and wacky boys that are teenager types, peace proves difficult on most days. They mean well, but they put the “boy” in “boy-sterous”. The two asked me about my candle and just got super involved. They actually lit the candle for me and made sure to put it out before we left. (Good thing, we went to an activity and it was quite a while before I remembered the candle! Yikes! Bad mom!)

Did they pray for peace or think about peace or anything of the sort? I honestly don’t know. I hope so. I think a home could use more than one person praying for peace in the home. Especially true these days with everything going on in the world. The every day world of bullies, troubled economies, inflation, and the list goes on and on.

With so much turmoil, where can we turn for peace? The home.  It is supposed to be our escape from the cares of the world. Yet it is hard to leave those worldly cares at the front door step.  We carry the weight of our trials over the threshold and into the home. My family is just as guilty of this as any other.

So I am very thankful that my boys wanted to take part and showed such excitement about the  candle.  I wonder what they will think of this week’s challenge?  Or candle burned about halfway through this week so before this month long challenge is through I see myself finding another. My thoughts: Festive Fall Flavour. Maybe an Apple Pie or Pumpkin Pie? If I can find one.

I also realized that I miss candlelight. I don’t know what it is, but it really does feel different when you light candles throughout your home instead of using lights. At one time, I hung sconces with votive candles throughout my home and used candlelight a lot. I just have not gotten around to doing that in this home. I think this is a failure on my part. After NaNoWriMo in November, I think I need to go hunt down all those sconces. Bring this feeling into my home more. The good thing is that it will give me more candles to remind me to invite that spirit of peace into my home.

On to Week 2: Play soft music everyday in your home. Choose worship, classical or another form of peaceful music that the family enjoys. Focus on using peaceful words and maintaining peaceful relationships. Remind your family to avoid seething anger, tattling, criticism or back talk. As the wife/mother, work on gentleness this week.

I’ll see you on Monday to report back on how things went!  I’ll keep the candle burning while I try the music. I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to this week because we love music. We might be freaky, but my kids actually enjoy singing hymns and will spend hours challenging each other to sing!

Feel free to join us on our journey!

–Lady O