God's Peace

This weekend I went to a competition in Galveston for a club called FCCLA (Family, Career, & Community Leaders Of America). My friends, Darby, Vanessa, and I entered a community project we did at our school. This all started because we wanted to do something that would make an impact on our school, but we didn't want to start another "no bullying" campaign. The word "bullying" is so overused. It is a word that no longer has a meaning. But, the problem still exists, so we decided to tackle this issue from another angle.

     We decided to come up with an exciting way to get students to be kinder. We came up with the idea to make a video using our preschool class. We are in a block class at school that allows us to run a preschool. We used the kids to make this video:

We knew that if we wanted to get the attention of our peers that it couldn't be us in the video, which is why we took this approach. We showed the video to everyone in our school. We then sat at a table for a full week, at every single lunch. Students came and signed the poster/pledge and got a bracelet that said "One Word One Moment One Life". The challenge is to see how far you can go in a day without saying any mean words. On the first day we ran out of all 500 bracelets & had to order more. We had over 1000 people take the challenge. God was at work for sure.

After all this took place, it was time to get ready for our competition. We made a tri-fold board pictured below & we began to make a script for our presentation. It was hard work. This was one of the hardest & most rewarding thing I've ever done.

So we presented using this tri-fold board & our video. We had two judges. Ok, so you're probably wondering where is the part about God's Peace? Isn't that the title of this post? Yeah, ok, well here it is: About 20 minutes before we went in to the room to present, we sat down and decided to pray. We were really nervous and were afraid of forgetting our lines. So we prayed, and when we were done, we just sat there and looked at each other. Darby said, "Do you feel that?" We all nodded & just sat there in awe at the power of prayer. I have prayed for peace many times before, but never had I felt it so fully. All of my fears rushed from my body, and I was overwhelmed with a spirit of peace. It was amazing. I don't know how else to describe it, except to say that I felt this warmth on my body.

After we prayed, we joined the rest of our friends. These other two girls from our group were about to go in to the judges. Their call time was before us. They were both freaking out, like they were literally having a panic attack. So, I asked my friend Darby to go pray for them, because I was setting up our project. She did, and the same thing happened! As soon as Darby finished praying for them, they looked up at her and said, "Wow, I feel so much better!" How awesome is that? Whether you know it or not, God's peace is real. He will give it to you. All you have to do is ask. Now, you might not feel it as obviously as we did, but regardless it is there.

Remember, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind!

So, don't choose to settle for a constant feeling of fear and anxiety! Choose the peace of God! Nothing else will satisfy you!

In Christ,

Jessie Childs

P.S
We made 1st place in our competition & are heading to state!!! Praise God!!

P.P.S.
We made 2nd place at state and are headed to nationals!! God is so good!