Wisdom And Righteousness

When a lesson is caught…

He hands me the small yellow square - a message scratched out by a five-year-old on a yellow sticky note. He says, "I wrote Mommy Loves Daddy, because you do" and I smile. It is the same thing a woman leaned over and said during church fellowship time, that when I walked in and that love of mine put his arm around my waist while we sang hymns, that my daughter noticed and her eyes sparkled. Sometimes it is scary that they will learn more from what they see in us than what I try so hard to teach … [Read more...]

True Education

I read a post on A Holy Experience and feel like it was meant for me - a term I threw around a few times this weekend at my women's conference being used right there in the post, as if to taunt me.  I remember what I want my children to learn most of all today - His compassion, His Mercy, His Grace to His people.  That there are people that God gave needs to, and others he gave an abundance to, and if we would just open our hands, to let go of our grasp on the abundance, and … [Read more...]

The Staff of a Shepherd

A tree dies and the real dying begins.  A knife cuts deep and when thick wood finally begins to take shape, the knife continues to peel back, sawdust pieces hitting the floor.  The frustrating friction of sand makes it worn and smooth, rough edges removed.... Lord, this task can be so hard.  I don't want to lead these little sheep in my fold, the babes looking to their mama and me having to show them you in each moment, me failing in so many moments. I don't want to be their shepherd......  … [Read more...]

The Journal

When anyone asks about why I choose homeschooling, I try to do my best to explain to them that we yearned for a "one-piece life" with no division between secular and sacred.  A life lived to glorify God Sunday through Sunday.  Now that I am in the thick of it, I have found that sometimes our one-piece life gets lost in the laundry and all that is clean is our underwear.  Maybe that's too wild of an analogy for all of you...  :)I went to a conference this weekend that was so … [Read more...]

Stretch Marks

I glance sight of them when I lift my arms to brush my hair in front of the mirror.  My shirt lifts around the midline - and there they are - stretch marks.  I think about how the skin at one time was stretched, pulled to it's maximum capacity swollen with baby and just when it felt like it may rip right open, the skin stretches again, this time with scars we call "stretch marks". I hesitate. Isn't our spirit the same way? We pull and plead, tug and stretch until we feel so far out of our own … [Read more...]

Thanks Giving

Not sure how to celebrate God's provision and the gift of Everlasting Life this Thanksgiving season?  What better way than with Thanks and Giving trees?  Loving this great tool for November from the blog: Chocolate on My Cranium.  Check it out! … [Read more...]

Routine….

With a week break from CC class, you would have thought we would be over-prepared for presentations, but on Tuesday morning when Becca asked right before heading out the door to CC, "What are our presentations supposed to be on today"  I realized I spent too much time designing lapbooks over break.  :)We threw something together - Becca talking about her baby picture album - a complete full album, all of which takes place in only the first month of life.  The next three kids not … [Read more...]

When The Ground Shakes

I get up early in the wee hours of the morning to bake the cakes for my son turning five, when it hits me - I am celebrating a birthday with my son, a blessed year of joy with him, while another mother travels to receive the remains of her son, shot in the midst of battle in Afghanistan.It doesn't seem real - this moving on, when others are standing still, praying for that call, hoping beyond hope that somehow they are wrong, and it was someone else's boy..... I push blue frosting across a … [Read more...]

Letting go of the Labels….

I passed a hill the other day - a naked mound with five trees.  Nearby, a forest of trees stood mocking the vacant hillside that once harbored the same forest.  Years ago stripped bare of all trees but five, it stands exposed.I thought of what the hillside was missing - about all it had lost.  How time and man had decided to take away that which God had first blessed its ground with.  I mourned for the hill in a way, identifying with the feeling of what could have been, should have been.  … [Read more...]

The Only Rule: Touch Everything!

Friday is our "unstructured school day".  After our core work (Bible, Writing, Reading, Math) we headed to Madison to the Children's Museum.  Oh what fun!  The kids had a blast painting on a clear board with watercolors, building, climbing, fixing, breaking, creating, discovering, and just getting dirty! … [Read more...]