"these commandments.. are to be on your hearts"

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. 

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Brian and I have often talked about finding more ways of adding God's word visibly in our home and more readily "on our hearts". For his anniversary gift, I decided to brainstorm ways that I could bring the spirit of this passage into fruition for our family.

After browsing the wood section of the art store, I settled on a long wood plaque on which to paint the "greatest commandment". This would then be set on the doorway of our house. For this project, I stained the plaque, wrote out the words with a pencil, traced over them with a black paint pen and then sealed it with polyeurothane.  

In honor of our seven years of marriage, I chose 7 small clipboards to display other scriptures in various parts of our house. The wooden boards ended up costing only a dollar each and I used the same stain on them as I used on the plaque.  When they were dry, I wrote out a few verses on card stock and clipped one to each board. 

After he opened his gift, we decided together where the best places would be to hang our boards.  It felt right for them to be near the doorways of each room and they often landed next to the light switch. This was a natural place for us to look and read them as we travel to and fro between rooms.

I love that the clipboards allow for interchangeable verses and either Brian or I (and little Jameses, eventually!) can switch them up whenever we feel it's time. I've noticed that the amount of time you spend looking at the board depends on the place, so I put verses that I'd like to eventually memorize on the boards that I spend the most time looking at.

After having our clipboards up for almost a week, we both have already been greatly encouraged by these life-giving reminders throughout the day. Just yesterday, during a toddler tantrum, I looked up and read "Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.". I felt on the verge of loosing my temper but when I read those words and let them sink in, my heart was changed. I'm looking forward to much more of that.