Get Rid of Excess

"Surrendering all the excesses so we can more fully serve the Lord is foundational to the work we do in our homes."
The Heart of Simplicity introduction by Courtney Dunkin

That's it.  I didn't realize it but my life is full of excesses. 
I have extra stuff I don't need.  I eat extra food I don't need.  I live with excesses.
The excesses begin to burden and distract me.
My desire is to live a life fully and completely committed to Christ.  I don't want anything to get in the way.  I desire to walk in the Spirit (Romans 8:4, Galatians 5:16) and ask Him to open my eyes to see things as He sees them and to move my feet to walk as He directs.

However, all these excesses really tie my heart to the temporal world. 

I love books.  (What homeschooling mom doesn't?)  ;)  But all the excess is not good stewardship and the burden that comes from more stuff than I need (books & other things) distracts me.  (It is distracting/frustrating to not know where I'm going to place this new treasure because our bookshelves are full of other treasures.  It's a blessing, but one I need to control rather than having it control me.)  Often I focus on the feelings of frustration rather than living my life in the Spirit with His fruit evident in my words and actions.  (It's hard to be peaceful and joyful when feeling frustrated by the stuff and that frustration is compounded by my lack of discipline.

Likewise, food can be a struggle for me.  (I didn't really realize this for a long time.)  Sometimes I'm wanting what I want when I want it regardless of if I'm hungry, which moves food from the category of a gift from God to fulfill a need to the category of simply a way to meet my desires and make me happy.  This takes my focus off God (the Giver) and places it directly on me and what I want.  I allow my desires (my flesh) to rule over me rather than me ruling over it.

I also sometimes struggle over the other end of the spectrum.  After being diagnosed with high cholesterol, I knew I wanted to avoid medication and wanted to find a way to naturally change those numbers.  This put my focus on food, but in a different way.  Now it put food, health, and research at the foremost of my thoughts.  While I know that taking care of our health is often a matter of stewardship (and discipline) and it's good to be informed and make intentional choices, I also sensed the Holy Spirit showing me that I was starting to act as if I were the one in control and as if everything depended on me.  (Inflated sense of self and focus on self is never a good thing.)  It also increased my fear over bad health and was putting my focus on temporal things, rather than eternal.

In 100 years, I'll be in heaven praising Jesus.  Things I've done on earth with eternal purposes will matter.  Things I've done with temporal purposes won't.  So, while I need to take care of things with temporal purposes (stewardship of health, cleaning house, feeding my family, getting the brakes checked on the car, etc.), my focus must be on Christ and walking with Him as He leads. 

I need to simplify my life to decrease the clutter (physical, emotional, spiritual) so that I won't be distracted from hearing Him.  I need to get rid of excesses.  Those areas of excess often exhibit control over me.  I desire to have nothing control me but God.

Free Homeschooling Resource

I absolutely love homeschooling my girls. I also love FREE things. :) Here's a resource that I've used to download freebies. (Truly, there are no strings attached. I just download the ones I want on those days.) It's called Freebie of the Day. This website offers a different download each day of the week (Monday through Friday). They tend to be books, audio stories, radio dramas, planners, etc. You can also sign up to get an email on Sunday to let you know what's coming the next week. For instance, this week they'll offer



Monday, April 19th:LEARN THE STATES & POSTAL ABBREVIATIONS (PDF ebook)



Tuesday, April 20th:DOWN ON THE FARM - MUSIC & STORIES (mp3 audios)



Wednesday, April 21st:Home Science Experiments! (links)



Thursday, April 22nd:Raising Kids to Be Entrepreneurs (video)



Friday, April 23rd:HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. SHAKESPEARE!In honor of the Bard's 446th birthday, we have a passel ofgreat Shakespeare links & resources for you... plus one last chance to grab our great Shakespeare For The Ears collection!

Enjoy and have a wonderful week!

Catch Up & Answers Book for Kids

Thought I'd post a quick catch up. My computer time stays pretty limited, so I don't post often, but everything is going well here.

The girls (and therefore me also) have stayed busy with their school work and activities. We went to a speech and debate tournament, but had a quick change in plans and came home early when that big winter storm was coming across the country.

This week's been filled with produce coop, dance lessons, Word of Life & Awana, and speech club. The oldest two have puppet competition this weekend.

I was trying to think of something of interest to share with you all and thought I'd share with you a treasure that the girls and I have been enjoying (off and on) at breakfast the last few months:

These are great little books from Answers in Genesis with wonderful questions, answers and scripture reference.

Volume 1: 22 Questions on Creation and the Fall

Volume 2: 22 Questions from Kids on Dinosaurs and the Flood of Noah

Volume 3: 22 Questions on God and the Bible

Volume 4: 22 Questions on Sin, Salvation, and the Christian Life

I think the types of questions are wonderful - from “The serpent talked to Eve, so why can’t snakes talk today?” to "If Satan changed everything by tricking Eve, how do I know Jesus can keep me safe from him?" The answers begin with a scripture, a paragraph or two answer, and then further scripture references. For us, I read the question, top scripture, and answer and then the girls look up and read aloud the further scripture references. We normally cover a couple questions at a time.

You can find these at Answers in Genesis' website http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/Answers-Book-for-Kids-Complete-Set-The,6120,184.aspx (which is a wonderful site) but I know I've seen them other places too.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Gotta Love A. A. Milne

My girls and I absolutely adore A. A. Milne's pooh bear books. We're currently reading through House at Pooh Corner and we all laugh and enjoy the story and the characters (this is myself and my children ranging in age from 14 - 7). If you've not had the pleasure of reading them yourself, do yourself a favor and read them. They're such fun read alouds also (regardless of age). I promise - Disney's pooh is cute but just not nearly as endearing and fun. :) As far as I know, Winnie the Pooh is the first in the chapter book series and The House at Pooh Corner is the second. Now We Are Six is a poetry book. His poetry is wonderful and fun. There is at least one or two other poetry books but this is the one I have and we have read multiple times.

Enjoy a wonderful weekend!

Encouragement

A very sweet, encouraging lady from our church called to share something precious with me that she asked me to please share with other moms.

She told me that, in the Hebrews 11 "faith hall of fame", we were mentioned. I was intrigued. Through reading an older book (I forget the name but it was from the mid1800's), she was drawn to Hebrews 11:3 and a truth taught in that verse.

Hebrews 11:1-3

1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2This is what the ancients were commended for.
3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

What was pointed out in the book she was reading was that, already at that point in history (mid 1800's) people were being drawn to evolution - trying to explain the world while taking God out of the picture. What a privilege to share with our children, as we train and disciple them, that God made the world - the big bang theory and millions of years of chance are actually fantasy. As I've been reading through the Bible this year, I keep seeing how integral this fact is to our faith. God is great - He is our creator - He is our everything! (And how amazing that our wonderful God humbled Himself to come down to earth in the form of Jesus, God the Son, suffer and die for our sins so that we can be with Him forever, and then He conquered death by His resurrection. What amazing love - He created us, loves us, suffered and died to conquer death so that we can be with Him. Wow - may we never take that for granted.)

Hebrews 11 states that when we believe God's Word and how He tells us the world began, this is faith and it mentions it before mentioning all those wonderful examples of faith in the old testament. He's made a way for us to choose to trust Him and to tell of that trust and teach it to our children (that they also may be blessed by faith - Eph. 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.). What an opportunity - privilege - challenge.

May you have a wonderful day thanking God for all He has done, proclaiming Him, and discipling your children.

Missionary Geography Club

I've had some inquiries into our missionary geography club, so I thought I'd share with you what we do.


For a few years, we've hosted monthly club meetings for our homeschool community. It began when I read some of the Christian Heroes Then and Now series of books published by YWAM http://www.worldchristian.com/booksearch.asp?keyword=christian+heroes+Then . (These were scheduled in My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures http://www.mfwbooks.com/ecc_2nd.htm .) As a family we read these biographies as read alouds. The next year I offered to coordinate a missionary geography club for other homeschoolers. I presented the missionaries and (countries where they ministered) that I'd read about the year before.


Basically I read a missionary biography and then present the information to the group. (I like to tell stories, so I pretty much cover the material that way.) Normally we find the geographic places on a map and also try to have a game from that country for the kids to play at the end. Some times we have handouts with information from that country (language, money, customs, etc.) and/or info about the missionary for the kids to take home.

As I've alluded, my favorite series of missionary biographies are the Christian Heroes Then and Now Series. I have, however, used others (such as Corrie Ten Boom's books when we covered her and God's Smuggler when we covered Brother Andrew).

The year normally is scheduled as follows: Sept., Oct., Jan., Mar., and April we cover a different missionary each month. Nov. we volunteer to help with an Operation Christmas Child gathering station. Dec. we have a Christmas Around the World party. (Each family chooses an area of the world to research and present how Christmas is celebrated in that location. They also bring a treat representing Christmas in that country). In Feb. we have a missionary visiting my church's mission conference speak to the group. In May the kids present to the group which missionary they most enjoyed learning about and what they most remembered.

Hope that helps give you an idea what we do. Feel free to ask any questions.

Wisdom from Ecclesiastes - (As It Applies to Homeschooling)

I found a couple verses in Ecclesiastes that I believe I need to keep in mind while homeschooling my children. (Mind you, I need to keep everything in the Bible in mind in training my children, I just thought these verses had a neat application when applied to homeschooling.)

Ecclesiastes 8:17
17 then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.

As it applies to teaching my children, we cannot know or understand/comprehend all that's on the earth to know. Therefore, learn what God's given us the opportunity to learn and stop worrying about what we're not learning - we can't learn it all anyway. :)

Ecclesiastes 12:12
12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.

Keep book learning in perspective and live life! (This doesn't mean ditch book learning - but keep it in perspective.) Wisdom comes from God - the fear of the Lord!

Starting Points

As I wrote in a previous post http://http//adelightfulinheritance.blogspot.com/2009/03/equipping-next-generation.html I feel a leading of the Lord to truly focus on equipping my children to be lights in this world as well as equipping them for whatever God has for them in the future. In light of this, I'm looking at using Starting Points worldview curriculum (by David Quine of Cornerstone Curriculum http://www.cornerstonecurriculum.com/Curriculum/SP/sp.htm) for my oldest. If any of you have used this curriculum and would be willing to share with me what you liked (or didn't care for as the case may be), I'd be very grateful. :)
Thanks.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
In His love,
Tina

Equipping the Next Generation

As I've been going about our routine this week, there have been some interesting things that God has brought to my mind.

I've homeschooled my children all along and feel so very blessed to have the opportunity to homeschool them. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is God's will for our family and R & I both love it and are very committed to it. Our number one priority in raising our children, including homeschooling, is to raise them to love and serve the Lord.

That said, my mindset toward homeschooling has been a journey through the years. When I first began homeschooling, I thought that I would approach it the same way as I taught school. (I even called around to some of the private schools to find out what curriculum they used, so I could use the same.) All this happened when my oldest daughter was the ripe old age of 4. :)
God led me down a different path and we were much more relaxed than I originally envisioned and loved the results. I saw my daughter learning and flourishing. The amount of information she retained impressed me. My goal became to encourage my children to love learning.

Time marched on, my children grew, and not all of them loved having to work on their reading and math. God moved me into another stage. While I wanted them to love learning, I also let them know that my job is to educate them. Sometimes we enjoy what we need to do, sometimes we'd rather do other things, but ultimately it's important that we do what needs to be done. My goal at that point became to educate my children. (I still hoped they would love learning and encouraged it but I didn't make all my decisions based on if they'd "love" this or not. Math can never compete with the fun of jumping on a trampoline.) :)

This year, I've felt God leading me further on this homeschooling path. As our family has begun to really pay attention to politics and what's going on nationally and internationally, I've felt a burden to equip my children. I've assured them that this does include reading, writing, and arithmetic, but the purpose is to equip them for whatever God has for their lives.

As I was mulling this all over, I visited a blog I enjoy and read this wonderful post:
http://hskubes.blogspot.com/2007/06/are-we-raising-daniels.html It's about how God showed her this week that Daniel and his friends were taken from their homes as children and yet they were equipped to stand firm. She relates it as a challenge to herself (and to us) - are we preparing/equipping our children to be able to stand in whatever circumstances God allows in the future. (It's an excellent post, I highly recommend reading it.)

This week I was thinking over that post and also some information I'd received about something David Wilkerson had posted on his blog. I've also said for years that I truly think that God is preparing the next generation and is doing something really special within them. (I look at the homeschooling movement, how much more I see them thinking outside the box and living radically for God, the Rebelution/Do Hard Things mindset, etc.) I have a tendency to imagine the status quo remaining - things going on the way they are now - and envisioned God using them (the next generation) with things kind of like they are now, we'd all just be older. That may happen but this week I realized that He may be raising them up to be used in very difficult times. While that sounds depressing, it really isn't - it's encouraging. Imagine our children shining brightly in the midst of darkness. (Isn't that where God shines the brightest?) Daniel was able to witness to a pagan king. God is amazing, He's in control, He can do all things, and His way is always best. He loves our children more than we do and we can completely trust Him. What a privilege that He chooses to involve us and use us. What a privilege to raise our children to know Him. How we should number our days and use them wisely for His glory.
Psalm 90:12 "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

I don't know what the future holds, but I know it's been filtered through His fingers of love.

London burning

The girls and I are enjoying Story of the World, Volume 3 for our history. We especially love the activities.

Yesterday's reading included England's Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, and the plague and London fire. The culmunation of the lesson - they colored some pictures of houses similar to those in London and we set it on fire. (Of course, we were supposed to mount the paper on cardboard, attach signs, make it look really cute. I figured since we were about to torch it, we'd go the easy route.)

A quote from one of the girls (while setting fire to "London"):

"School kids have fire drills. Homeschool kids get to play with fire."

Yep - we're homeschoolers :)

Yesterday my youngest two daughters and I were reading their science lesson. (We're using one of Apologia's elementary books - zoology 1. I highly recommend all their books - they're wonderful.)
Back to the story - we happened to be reading about how God designed a birds body for flight. It turns out that the breast of the bird is actually it's flight muscles (enabling him to flap his wings). We read and enjoyed that in the afternoon.
Not long after that, my second daughter asked what we were having for dinner (chicken breast). Putting our new knowledge to work we told her we having "flight muscles" for dinner. Definitely brought an "ewwww" from her and laughter from us. (What can I say, we may have an odd sense of humor but at least we're all on the same page.) :)

Geography Fair photos

The girls had a great time at the Geography Fair. L represented India and K, R, & J worked with two families of our friends to represent India. We loved seeing all the displays and enjoying the tasty food. Here are some photos.