Over two years ago, when my oldest was in first grade at a local public school, and I began exploring the idea of homeschooling, the term "morning time" kept coming up in various places where I researched. Some homeschoolers term this "morning basket" or "circle time," but the principle of the concept remains the same, …
How we schedule our homeschool year-round using sabbath weeks
We just finished our sabbath week break from our homeschool, and I thought I'd share how this works for our family in case others want to consider it. For the most part, we school year-round. This is very flexible, and depends greatly on our summer traveling schedule accompanying my husband to camps and mission trips. …
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Motivation behind our goal-setting; the empty promise of self-improvement vs. growth for the purpose of blessing others
It's February, so maybe the talk of goals and new-year-new-you has died down a bit, but the self-imposed pressure can still linger, right? Those who are successful are sharing about their victories in their goals of weight loss, new habits, new learned skills, etc., and the temptation to do something and do it well is …
My Word of the Year for 2022
It never fails; when I go through the process of my powersheets (from cultivatewhatmatters.com), a theme begins to show up through what I journal and sketch as I pray through a focus for the upcoming season. Contrary to the past several years, I didn't really have a lot of big, audacious goals that came to …
Obedient, cheerful generosity over practicality; some post-Christmas reflections
The post-Christmas blues. It hit me even harder than usual this year, which is weird because I had it all planned to be the opposite. You know, I had planned on leaving the decorations out until the twelfth day of Christmas, and keeping the Christmas music playing, and other similar festivities. But, for some reason, …
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Where is joy really to be found? Cheerfulness in our duties
The Proverbs 31 woman. When you read those words, what is your first reaction? (If you've never read it, go take a moment and read it first.) Perhaps an anxious overwhelm and biting of nails as you wonder how you could possibly imitate her? Or do you swing in the other direction and smirk with …
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Advent Traditions and Rhythms
It’s that time of the year when our schedules fill up quickly, and we usually can slip into one of two ditches if we are not careful. One ditch involves never slowing down long enough to consider and choose family rhythms and traditions due to the feeling of being overwhelmed by all the things. When …
What do Christian faithfulness and Christian friendship have in common? Part 2: True encouragement in friendship
In Part 1 we talked about Christian faithfulness and how obedience in our work glorifies God. One of the ways our work can be God-honoring is through it's implications for how it affects the church, too! I've been learning through this webinar that one of the greatest ways we can encourage others around us is …
What do Christian faithfulness and Christian friendship have in common? Part 1 – Faithfulness in our work
One of our pastors preached on the parable of the talents recently, and the truths in this teaching seemed to coincide with several ideas that God has been teaching me lately regarding faithfulness in my work. Be sure to check out the sermon here. If you're not familiar with this parable that Jesus tells, it …
Two responses to fear
I found it interesting recently in my reading through the book of Mark 5 the reaction of fear that appears on two different occasions. The first occurs at the beginning of Mark 5, when Jesus crosses the sea into the country of the Gerasenes. He immediately encounters a demon-possessed man whose condition seems hopeless - …