27 Jul
Some of you may be wondering how my closet decluttering is going…I am here to tell you that five minutes a day is easy, and I basically quit last week because my closet is almost as good as I want it! (And I got busy with something else!) Five minutes a day is amazing, so now I’m going to move on to another part of my house; probablythe master bedroom. (Actually, I started that today.)
Happy decluttering!
27 Jul
I haven’t posted for a while now because my husband and I were busy contemplating adopting a waiting child from the Philippines; we think God is saying “No,” or “Not right now.” In the meantime, however, I was SUPER busy with paper work, phone calls and emails, trying to collect as much helpful information as I could about this little boy’s medical history, as well as what kind of resources it would take to raise him. (Also, nothing else seemed worth writing about at the time, yet I didn’t want to write about a possible adoption if it wasn’t going to become reality.) So . . . now that our decision is in the past, I can write again! (Are we going to adopt someone else, you ask? We don’t know…we’ll see what God has planned.)
15 Jul
I’ve been reading Give Them Grace (by Fitzpatrick and Thompson), and today I read…
“So much of what we’re advised to do as parents is so that our kids will feel good about themselves…
…if we persist in seeking to build our child’s self-esteem by praising them, we make them into our own image, boys and girls who idolize the benediction, adults who are enslaved to the opinions of others, and parents who pass on the lie to the next generation…
The one encouragement we can always give our children (and one another) is that God is more powerful than our sin, and he’s strong enough to make us want to do the right thing.”
I’ve witnessed parents making their child’s self-esteem the highest priority all the time (or so it seemed), and I’ve got to think that that mindset severely limits what they’re “allowed” to say to their child or expect of them! (And it seems like this kind of parenting and whiny children go hand-in-hand. Hmm.)
But…I’ve often realized in retrospect (after dealing with one of my children) that the reason I expected what I did of him or her was based on what MY human/sinful nature would want. I truly am sometimes just raising my children to be like ME instead of CHRIST. I am so thankful that God’s power is greater than my sin!
Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus can be purchased from CROSSWAY BOOKS.
13 Jul
My mother-in-law just bought a large drying rack for us at a garage sale, so Barrett decided to have a little fun with the laundry…
He actually made me come outside to see with my eyes closed!
Kids know how to have fun, don’t they?
And here’s the new drying rack that instigated the creativity. (Evidently, our two-year-old even helped with this one!)
13 Jul
I read this yesterday; I like the imagery…
(From The Valley of Vision)
12 Jul
If you’d like to do more SINGING in your FAMILY, but aren’t sure how to go about it, check out THIS LINK to find out how my husband (with no music degree) teaches songs to his Kindergarten/First Grade class at church.
This is also how he teaches the Fighter Verse songs to our kids at home, and we now know hundreds of Scripture verses that have been put into song. And if anyone says that having to sing them isn’t good enough, I would ask them if they could recite 400-500 verses on the spot. My kids can, by singing the songs! (Now, LISTENING to the WORDS you’re singing–that’s the next step, and should not be neglected.)
A little adverstisement: You can purchase CD’s of family-friendlyFighter Verse songs HERE and scroll down to the bottom section of the page.
11 Jul
I’m really liking this book, as it’s a good reminder of things I should already know…
“Even though our children cannot and will not obey God’s law, we need to teach it to them again and again. And when they tell us that they can’t love God or others in this way, we are not to argue with them. We are to agree with them and tell them of their need for a Savior.”
“The promises of life for obedience are not meant to build our self-confidence. They’re meant to make us long for obedience and then, when we fail again, they’re meant to crush us and drive us to Christ.” (From Give Them Grace, by Fitzpatrick and Thompson)
How often do I look for a quick fix to sibling squabbles so I can get back to what I was doing instead of taking time to speak to them about their hearts? Too often! I need this for myself!
9 Jul
I just started reading a new parenting book called, Give Them Grace (by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessics Thompson), and I really liked the part I read today. But first, an introduction to the book…
The authors say that “the premise of this book [is] that the primary reason the majority of kids from Christian homes stray from the faith is that they never really heard it or had it to begin with. They were taught that God wants them to be good, that poor Jesus is sad when they disobey, and that asking Jesus into their heart is the breadth and depth of the gospel message.” They go on to say that we’re basically giving them moralism—“’Say you’re sorry,’ ‘Be nice,’ and ‘Don’t be like them.’” This occurs because we as parents have “a wrong view of the Bible.” It isn’t about US and what we should be DOING, yet that’s what we often teach our children when we leave out the gospel story.
So what I read today was that there are different forms of rules and obedience, and while they are important to teach and essential for children to learn, they DO NOT in and of themselves bring about salvation and true righteousness. Also, it’s easy to confuse this kind of obedience with being saved, which may lead to laziness in rehearsing the gospel story to ourselves and our children. Here they are…
Initial Obedience – Teaching them to obey no, stop and come to me, “concepts that will protect them from harm and enable them to begin to function within the family and society.”
Social Obedience – Basically learning to say please and thank you. But remember, “…the social conventions of any particular culture don’t have anything to do with one’s standing before a holy God.” (But if they refuse to obey these, they probably haven’t learned the first “level” of “initial obedience.”)
Civic Obedience – Instructing our children in “the laws of the land in which they live” and teaching them to obey those laws. But again, only Christ’s righteousness will bring true peace and neighborly love.
Religious Obedience – Teaching them the practices of the faith—praying before meals, singing in church, etc. Obeying these may be “the fruit of real faith, but we must never assume that because a child closes his eyes when the family prays, he’s regenerate.”
I see these as “hooks” on which to hang the obedience-concepts that our family is working on, and they will also help me be more clear in my mind when I am talking to my children and praying for them!
8 Jul
Well, I’ve gone and gotten my kids all excited about “emptying” the house before our trip. To their credit, they helped get rid of A LOT of stuff today, and two of them even continued organizing what is left of their own personal things. And this is after getting rid of 14 grocery bags of give-away stuff this morning. I should have counted the sacks for garbage, too…I do know that we’re almost out of grocery sacks now (and we bring home at least ten every week!)
BUT…we don’t have everything put back after emptying and rearranging a few dressers and shelves. We actually got rid of TWO dressers in the last two days (that were not empty), but what’s left from them either needs to be gone through or put in a place that is still cluttered, as in, too full! So it’s not looking great around here. I think I said to my kids at least three times today, “No free time until this place won’t give Dad a heart attack when he comes home!”
“So,” you ask, “why are you on the computer?” Because my legs hurt and I need a break! (It IS fun, though, and my reward for finishing will be painting the living room!)
7 Jul
Maybe August is going to be my “Super Simple Month.” I read the following today on a blog called “unclutterer” that I read every so often, as this blog sometimes pertains to my life; sometimes doesn’t. Here’s an excerpt from this last April, the author’s”Super Simple Month.”
“To me, a Super Simple Month is defined as no travel for work, one social engagement a week or less, no shopping except for necessities, and no new large projects (craft, writing, organizations, etc.). The goal is to finish some items already in progress on my to-list, relax as much as I can with my family, and be as low-key as possible.” Read more here.
This sounds great, but it can’t be July, as I’ve committed to working as hard as I can to declutter my house! And since we homeschool year-round (except for this week, since I’m learning the art of decluttering as I go), August is not a big get-ready-for-school month. (In fact, I’ve already promoted my kids to the next grade level, and they’ve already started some new books.)
Also, one reason I hate coming back from a vacation is because I have to come back to a house full of clutter that is constantly whispering to me that I’m a failure–a failure to deal with all the stuff! (But my emotions don’t differentiate between being a failure in a specific area and being a failure in general!) So…(here’s something I just thought of this week), I’ve decided that I really need to declutter my house before we go up to the North Shore (of Lake Superior) this August. Maybe I’ll actually look forward to coming home to a neat, simple, serene environment! (I’d better seriously get busy!)
~ Simple Diligence ~ 