God's Thoughts in a Bottle

(Note:  This idea is one we did at the beach on our vacation, but could easily be done with sand from a sandbox, or colored sand from a craft store.)

I remember on one of my first trips to the beach picking out a little bottle, only a few inches high, filled with the tiniest shells I had ever seen and Pensacola Beach written across the side.  I don't know why, but I loved my little piece of the ocean and kept it as a decoration on my dresser until I moved out of the house.

I knew I wanted to make our own "beach bottle" while we were on vacation a couple of weeks ago.  I bought a plastic bottle from Hobby Lobby for $1, a set of funnels and sticks (which proved to be unnecessary) and brought an address label to write the reference Psalm 139:17-18 on it.

One of the boys' favorite things to do while we were there was collect the tiny shells that washed up on the shore.  We spent hours looking for and collecting them.  
  

We read Psalm 119:17-18 and talked about how God has more thoughts than we could ever count.  Isaac's hands were covered in sand.  I told him to count how many pieces of sand were on his hands.  He said, "I can't.  There's too many."  Exactly!  

We were sitting on the balcony of the condo and I told him to look out at all the sand and imagine how many pieces there must be out there.  We talked about how God has more thoughts than that and how smart He is and how powerful He is.

We took the bottles and filled them about half way with sand.  Then the boys dropped a few of the small shells they had found down into their bottles.

Now the boys have a reminded of our trip and the power of their God sitting on their dressers too.  It's not near as pretty as mine was, but much more meaningful!