About a month ago, I watched War Room with my husband, mom, and three oldest kids. I didn’t know much going in other than that it had to do with prayer. It was tough to watch. I’ve felt the weight of spiritual warfare in our own house lately, and that is a big theme in the film.

One of the powerful effects of the movie was learning to think about the prayer closet as a literal thing. Sure, in the past people may have prayed in closets, and it’s even biblical. In the movie, it’s one of the central themes.

So when I came upstairs recently and found my daughter in her closet, asking me if I’d noticed what she was doing (I hadn’t), she stopped me dead in the middle of a rant when she showed me her prayer closet. Our house was built in 1935, but unlike many old houses, it has enormous closets. So my girl was able to hang posters, set up a children’s sized table accessorized with paper, writing utensils, and a Bible, and make a pile of sleeping bags in front of it for a comfortable place to sit, and still leave plenty of space for bins of clothes, linens, and seasonal stuff we stash in her closet.

To encourage all of my kids to stay focused when they pray (and remind them to do it), and to give the older ones something special to use in their prayer closet, I helped them make prayer posters. I provided them with half a piece of poster board each, some photo prints, including photos of our sponsored children, decorative paper and washi tape, and they did the rest.

The older girls chose to hang theirs in their closet, while the younger ones hung theirs next to their beds.I got enough supplies to make my own, and I hope to get to it soon. It was neat to see what the kids put on theirs and how they helped each other (since three of the kids making posters had limited or no writing skills).

Sometimes it’s hard to keep all the things you want to pray for at the top of your mind. I know I often will go days and then remember something I had committed to praying about that had slipped my mind. As a visual learner, having something to make and then look at will be a great reminder to keep the things that are close to my heart close to mind as well.