lilly's pad

Praying with Halloween CANDY

Ok, Halloween is upon us and whether or not you choose to embrace Halloween as a holiday or event, you can still use all that great Halloween candy as a part of your youth group or personal prayer time.  And post Halloween is a great time to buy up candy to use for future prayer experiences. I use sour skittles and m&ms for end of year prayers (future post…thanking God for the sweet and sour for the past year) and tootsie roll pops for advent prayers.( are we willing to wait on God to get to the good stuff of Christmas)  Also Hershey treasures are great reminders that God came to earth as a baby as our treasure, but even better God searches for each of us because we are HIS treasure. And don't forget that candy corn is in three colors so you can talk about the trinity..Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Remember that younger students are much more concrete in their thinking and this probably works better with high school and beyond, but don’t be afraid to try it with younger students just give them more examples and guidance of what you are going for since they don’t all think in metaphor/comparisons just yet.

THESE prayers can be done with a group as a corporate prayer or as an individual prayer stations.

***These are just some ideas …see what they might spark in you and feel free to morph and change them. I’d love to hear about how you use these.

 

HALLOWEEN CANDY PRAYERS

PRAYER 1

Have a bowl of mixed halloween candy, at least one piece for each participant.

Example candy:

Small Hershey bars, kit kat bars, m&ms, mounds, regular skittles, sour skittles, tootsie rolls, tootsie roll pops, mini snickers, mars,  etc.  

Pick out a piece of Halloween candy…

Consider how your life is going right now, how is your life like that piece of candy …

Is life feeling plain not very exciting like a plain Hershey bar? Or maybe it’s feeling nutty?

Are you sharing your life, like your real self , who you are with anyone? Like sharing a kit kat bar?

Is your life an adventure like different flavors of skittles?

Is it hard ..perhaps rather hard to endure like a chewy tootsie roll…or does it have the potential for adventure and unknown like a tootsie roll pop?

Maybe it’s colorful like a handful of m&m’s with lots of great things going on?

Talk to God about your life

Take some time…consider, think about your life.

Where have you seen God at work even in the plain and boring parts.

Even in the sour parts of your life? Thank him for being there in all aspects of your life.

 

PRAYER 2 (have candy types/mini candy bars displayed as examples, empty candy wrappers, pieces of choc to taste, like chocolate chips)

Now consider you life with God, your relationship, your journey with Jesus.

Which candy reflects your life with Jesus?

Look at and Think about the candy on the table.

 

Your life with God…Is it good and rich and like your favorite candy bar?

Or maybe your life with GOD is like an empty candy wrapper with nothing inside…

Is it plain and boring like a plain Hershey bar?

Or maybe rich like dark chocolate?

Maybe it’s rocky ..you know filled with nuts …or hard to chew because of the nougat and caramel

Is your life with Jesus tasting sour like sour skittles or sweet like m&ms?

 

TALK TO GOD about this. Tell Him where you are and then tell him where you’d like to be on your journey with Him…

Take a piece of chocolate.(you can use chocolate chips rather than small candy bars to save money)  EAT IT . TASTE and SEE that the Lord is GOOD.

Jesus longs to be in relationship with you.

You just have to open the door to your life and ask Jesus to come in.

EAT the chocolate as a symbol of your willingness to start a relationship or get back on track in your relationship with Jesus.

 

PRAYER 3:

BOX of chocolates and an empty box….and you could show the clip from the movie “Forrest Gump”

In the movie Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks character says “life is like a box of chocolates, you never known what you are going to get. “

Maybe the pieces of candy that you have tried out of the box have been gross…maybe you were expecting a piece with a filling of rich chocolate and you got a piece of slimy fruit filling instead.

TALK TO GOD ABOUT THE BAD pieces of chocolate, the bad pieces, the negative pieces of your life, both in the past and going on now. and maybe it's negative pieces of God.

God’s not afraid of your feelings. God wants to hear you. God is listening.

Thank God for both the good things and the yucky things.

Ask God to show you where he is and what he is up to in your life…

TAKE the TIME TO LISTEN to God.

 

Maybe you’ve felt like an empty box of chocolates rather than a full box…

Maybe you've felt like a gross piece of chocolate/candy yourself. Talk to JESUS about this.

How does God really feel about you?

YOU ARE  NOT GROSS you are fearfully and wonderfully made. and God knew you before you were born.

When you see a candy box, and candy bars in the store, Let them remind you that God is filling your life with GOOD THINGS. Let the Candy box remind you that God is at work in your life. know that God is working and filling your life with his love…YOU are not empty, you are not a rotten, gross piece of chocolate.

God created you to be his favorite.

 

 

 

"ONE.org - Famine is the real obscenity.

if you didn't see this yesterday, check it out...reminds me of the old tony campolo ...people are more upset by the use of a cuss word than by the fact that people are starving to death...go to ONE campaign and sign the petition...i know, i know...congress is stuck in the mud...but every voice matters...

for me, beyond clicking on a link, or sending money, i'm using october to become more aware of how i view food...

i live in the land of food and wine, truly a land flowing with milk and honey. it seems everyone here is involved in some form of growing, producing, selling, cooking, etc food and wine.

i also live in one of the wealthiest parts of the nation, if not the world...the cars that drive down highway 29 daily prove my point...

so i'm learning to look and see and to be aware of all of this and how it affects me.

the blessings and the curses of the plenty

the blessings and the curses of being surrounded by food

i'm practicing living into the blessing and being grateful

and attempting, and still failing at, not over buying at the market, not wasting food that i buy

realizing that so many people go hungry every night and so many people are struggling in MY town and in OUR country just to put food on the table.

as i like to say...we all can begin with baby steps.

so go sign the petition

then do your own search of how you might help out in your neighborhood ...in napa valley there is a campaign 10-10-10...give 10 dollars to your local food bank, donate ten healthy food items to your local food bank, and then invite (facebook/twitter/email) at least 10 friends to join you!

World Vision reminds us that " More than 24,000 children die everyday — most from preventable causes such as hunger, malaria, diarrhea, measles, and pneumonia."

check out World Visionhow you might help globally with the current food crisis in africa. and as we make lunch, dinner or reservations...let's be grateful for the people who grew the food, for the people/person who fixed the food, and for the fact that we have food at all.

 

via one.org

shrove tuesday.. is .pancake tuesday!

next week the season of lent begins with ash wednesday, march 9th, but the day before we get to celebrate with our spatulas and syrup! check out some ideas for celebrating pancake tuesday with your family, church community or youth group! at YMtoday.com.

without an IHOP within a 30 mile radius...the chef and i will be cooking some pancakes at home.

check out Youth Ministry Today on facebook too! and they are recommending a great resource for EASTER and LENT (if i do say so myself : ) )check out the Journey to the Cross Prayer Experience in SACRED SPACE

pilgrimage of discovery and creativity

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many people have asked me how the heck did you get to st. helena, CA? and i have some friends who are just figuring out that i now have dual citizenship in ohio and in california.

so it began this week last year. i'd just finished the "warmth in winter" conference in nashville and driven back to cincy in 10 inches of snow.

that was sunday.

early monday morning rob and i  hopped on a plane and headed west to celebrate our anniversary with second honeymoon...it was the big 25th anniversary (which is impossible since i'm only 26! ) anyway, we chose to go to the sonoma coast and rented an amazing little house on the bodega bay harbor called "birdwatch." we planned to take some day trips up the coast and into the sonoma and napa valleys and do a little wine tasting along the way. rob said the only "un- romantic " thing he wanted to do during the week was tour the CIA...the culinary institute of america...better known to foodies as greystone. since i'm not a foodie and since i'm not addicted to the cooking channel or food network, i didn't really "get" the CIA.

 i just said "sure' let's go.

Little did I know that the tour of the CIA would begin this new chapter of adventure in our lives. Rob took the tour with another guy and his friend and they were like little kids in a candy store…you could just tell they were meant to be there!.

and if you are a foodie and love to cook..you couldn’t resist a brand new Viking kitchen on one end of the building, and an entire floor of viking everything on another, and a room for just making chocolate !

  CIA greystone reminds me of Hogwarts, with it’s thick stone walls and tower…it used to be a Franciscan winery. 

So when we got back to Cincinnati, I encouraged him to apply…thinking in my head we’d head west fall of 2011 after Hudson graduated from high school…

 

Rob had been in culinary school in Cincinnati for the past year and a half. (“Having dated cooking for 20 years he decide to give her a ring” rob) but CIA is the Harvard of cooking schools …

Since my business card reads” a pilgrimage of discovery and creativity” …and we aren’t getting any younger (according to rob) we did a world wind update of our house and planned the adventure to begin in august of 2010 instead.  Sadly our house is still waiting for the perfect people to move in, but we did find an amazing guest cottage to rent (thanks to craig’s list) here in napa valley.

We are really enjoying being close to San Francisco and being on the west coast again. Rob is working his tail off in class and I’ve continued to speak and write and travel back and forth to ohio and wherever else I get invited to go! i'm working part time at the napa valley toy company...a great place to meet people and learn what's cool in toyland!

It really is a pilgrimage…and the joy is in the journey…even when you least expect it and don’t have a clue how it all will work out in the end…

For me, it’s great to be in a place of vista and beauty and I love the fact that people think “local” and sustainable without the need of definition! I’m learning about living in a small town and in a rural setting again and realizing that it takes time to build relationships…and it takes work not to gain weight in the land of food!

So that’s chapter 1 in the saga…

More later…