4 hours ago
I want to try something new on my blog, and attempt to share a few links every (or every-other?) Saturday or Sunday to things that I've found spiritually edifying during the previous week. I'm calling it "Sharpening Shares". Suggestions for a better name are welcome.
If I haven't mentioned it before, I experimented a bit with Instagram in January and February, and I have THOUGHTS - which will be shared later this week - but one thing I realized is that while Instagram is a convenient place to share quick articles, videos, etc., I don't actually want to share those things on there. I'm not convinced more people see shares on Instagram than on my blog, and I'd rather spend time in this space. Blogs are just friendlier, and I think those of you who read blogs are more likely to pause and find some value in a great article or sermon than all the people swiping right on Instagram stories anyway.
So here are a couple things that have been turning my eyes to Christ lately. If you check them out, I hope you find them challenging and encouraging too!
"Love Not The World" - This was a great sermon by Phil Johnson about avoiding worldliness, which he pointed out is actually a sin. I was really convicted to rethink some of my attitudes after listening to this, and this part stood out to me personally:
"But seriously, does anyone think it is a major problem across the spectrum of evangelical Christianity in America that we have too many people that are too heavenly-minded? With our faces buried in our cell phones, and our minds glued to whatever is trending on Twitter, and our televisions programmed to tevo whatever is on HBO while we watch Entertainment Tonight? A more fitting description of the average evangelical today is that he is so earthly-minded that he is of no good to either heaven or the church. And our constant fixation on every whim and novelty that is currently trending in the world is a dangerous and sinful pursuit. Fad-chasing is not and never has been a road that leads to Christ."
-Phil Johnson
Give it a listen.
Resurrection Letters Vol. 1 from Andrew Peterson - This is an old album now, but I've really appreciated the depth of the lyrics this week. I've been in an especially springy mood, despite the temperatures being in the negatives this week, and this music put me in the frame of mind for Resurrection Day!
Precepts Bible Studies - I already mentioned this in a different post, but let me take an opportunity to reiterate that I love this Bible study guide. I'm doing the Colossians one with my church, and I don't think I've ever dug into one book of the Bible so thoroughly. It guides you through the process step-by-step, with no fluff, and I'm learning a ton! I think I'll probably even buy a guide to go through on my own when we finish with this one.
Happy Sunday, friends!
The temperatures are in the negatives outside right now (Fahrenheit, during the day), and I'm realizing just how leaky the windows are in this house. Windows have been on our home improvement list for a couple years, but when the warm spring air arrives it's hard to remember these frigid temperatures. I'm sitting directly in front of our wood stove, soaking in the warmth while I type.
It's been a crazy couple weeks for me, but it's hard to pinpoint why. I had a particularly busy span a couple weeks ago, and it's taken me this long to recover. Instead of getting better at juggling the busyness as a mom, I feel that I am getting worse the older my kids get.
I've also had the weird experience of recognizing my personality shifting again. When I was first married, I discovered my extroverted side, and was always full of energy after hanging out with friends or family. Now, it seems my introverted side is taking it's turn again, because at this time period in my life, staying home sounds the nicest. I have started to love those weeks when we don't have much going on, when we don't go anywhere and finish all the homeschool work I was hoping to do, when we have time for movies in the afternoon, or art projects, or extra chapters of our read-aloud. Maybe five energetic kids would bring out the introverted side of anyone, or maybe I'm just spending my extrovert energy on them more now, as they get older. Either way, family and home have a beautiful draw for me right now.
I am finally back into a reading groove again, thank goodness, and it happens to be a classics reading groove. I am just finishing up Huckleberry Finn, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would, and I'm halfway through Mansfield Park. I used to say it was the only Jane Austen I hadn't read, but I didn't know at the time about Lady Susan, and I don't actually remember anything about Northanger Abbey or Persuasion, so I'm not counting those anymore. Mansfield Park is also more enjoyable than I expected - I was unfairly soured on it as a teenager by a horrible movie adaptation, but the book is really working for me. I always say that Emma is my favorite Austen because I relate to Emma (ie. sticking your foot in your mouth, learning hard lessons about yourself), but I am also really liking Fanny Price. I think Fanny is alot like I was as a young teenager, so my inner youth relates to her insecurities. I eventually found my voice after graduating high school, and I expect that Fanny will find her voice before the end of the book as well. The rest of the characters in that book are just painful, at least at the halfway mark.
The freezing start to this week aside, it has actually felt pretty springlike outside lately, and I've started to catch a bit of spring fever. This is probably not a good thing since spring where I live rarely arrives until April, and even then we are at risk of snowstorms until well into May. Nevertheless, I am going through all my spring morning time plans, worksheets, etc., requesting Easter books from the library, and generally getting ready to dive right into pretending it's not winter. I even ordered a devotional for myself to read in the weeks leading up to Resurrection Day (this one). The urge to start looking at next year's homeschool curricula is calling, but I am trying to resist at least until all the websites start having spring sales.
I'll end this post with a few recommendations from the last few weeks, just for fun!
1. The Third Thursday Book Club. This is a classics book club over at the Daily Wire, led by Ben Shapiro. You have to be a member to watch the book club discussions, but you can sign up for the emails for free and get Ben's notes on the classic of the month. This book club is the reason I picked up The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, and probably also at least part of the reason I'm finishing it so quickly. Whatever you think about him, Shapiro is a very smart guy, and I really enjoyed his essay on Huckleberry Finn! He made some great points. I was also gratified to see that he mentioned many of the sections of the book that I had been mentally highlighting - I don't have much confidence in my literary analysis skills, so it was nice to see I'm not totally off track. I'm looking forward to seeing what they pick for March!
2. Humility And Doxology. Have I mentioned this website before? It's basically my favorite homeschool blog. I have a theory that different types of homeschool blogs are going to appeal to different personality types, and something about this one just works for my personality. I love all her booklists and poetry suggestions, and her writing style. I immediately click on her emails when they fly into my inbox.
3. Sweatpants. I'm not usually a sweatpants type of girl, but in this cold weather and current emotional season, sweatpants are bringing comfort in more ways than one. I like these ones from Target lately.
4. Mrs. Meyers Mint Cleaner. Have I mentioned that I have a limited sense of smell since being sick last fall? I haven't been able to smell any bad smells for months (not as good of a thing as you might think), and pleasant smells are very hit and miss. Last week I even had one day where everything - everything - smelled like butter, which was a little bizarre. Thankfully the next morning I was back to smelling half the things normally again (and still not smelling the other half at all). It's incredibly frustrating to be able to smell something nice one day, and not be able to smell it the next. That happened this week with the Mint cleaner, but nevertheless, on the day I could smell it, I enjoyed it very much.
5. This song. I put together a Spotify playlist for my kids the other day, basically a bunch of albums that I wanted to listen to with them, all in one place. It's probably not the best playlist for shuffling, but it's nice to not have to scroll through fifty albums on the app to find the ones I saved for my kids. Half of the albums I haven't even listened to yet, so I started the playlist in the background while we were doing school the other day. This song came on and made me want to cry. Maybe I'm just in a melancholy mood lately, I don't know, but I needed this reminder. It's so easy to let the worries and responsibilities of life overwhelm me, make me forget where my only hope in life and death lies - with Christ Himself.
"Unto the grave, what shall we sing?
“Christ, He lives; Christ, He lives!”
And what reward will heaven bring?
Everlasting life with Him.
O' sing hallelujah!
Our hope springs eternal,
O' sing hallelujah!
Now and ever we confess,
Christ, our hope in life and death."
Happy Wednesday, friends! Hope you have had a peaceful February so far!
Do you ever feel a little lost or purposeless, or wonder what God’s will is for your life?
I have felt that way at times, especially when I get caught up in the daily tasks of my role as a wife and mom, which can at times feel monotonous. When the kids are crying over a math lesson, dinner is burning while we are busy struggling under a load of laundry, and job conflicts or people problems are burdening us emotionally, it’s easy to start thinking there is something bigger and better out there that we’re missing - especially with the call of the little squares on social media, like a siren song, altering our expectations and luring us to all the wrong things.
Well, God‘s will for your life and mine isn’t some mysterious thing that we have to figure out. It’s right here:
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.”Colossians 1:9-12 NKJV
Did you catch it? In verse nine Paul tells the Colossians that he is praying they will be filled with knowledge of God’s will:
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;”
And then he lists exactly what that is in the following verses.
“…{1}that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, {2}being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; {3}strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; {4}giving thanks to the Father…”
I don’t know about you, but I fall short of all of those things every day. But to any extent that God strengthens me to fulfill His will for my life, it is only because of what Christ has done on the cross. God alone is holy, and He took our sins upon Himself and died in our place, offering us His righteousness when we trust in Christ, so that we can stand blameless someday before the throne of God.
“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:13-14 NKJV
So you and I, when we trust in Jesus alone for our salvation, we don’t have to sit around wondering anymore if we are missing God’s will for our lives. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing with our time, whatever obstacles or struggles come with those daily tasks, we can live fully in His will if we do these things. We can pray and ask Him to equip us to…
…walk in a manner worthy of Him, fully pleasing Him in whatever we do,
…bear fruit in every good work by the power of His Holy Spirit,
…increase in your knowledge of God,
…be strengthened by His glorious might to do your daily work, in service to Him, with endurance, patience, and joy,
…and to give thanks to the Father who delivered us from darkness to the light of Christ’s Kingdom, by Jesus own blood spilt for our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
That. That is God’s will. For your life and for mine.
Sometimes it’s not a very clear answer. This is where Paul’s prayer for spiritual wisdom makes a lot of sense. We need to pray for God’s wisdom to see these things clearly when making decisions. If there is no right/wrong decision, it’s just a matter of our preference, then I think we choose to the best of our ability, and do whatever we do to the glory of God.
What do you think?
-I requested a whole bunch of winter books to read the kids, to the point where the librarians were giving me a look as I picked up my holds recently. I managed to sneak in a comment about stocking up for the spring semester of school, and ever since they have been exceptionally friendly to me. I don't know if they think I'm a paid teacher or if they suspect we homeschool, but either way, after they realized I was educating kids it's been a whole new experience. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think a regular old mom who is checking out a huge stack of picture books for her kids should get the same level of respect, teacher or not, because every mom is a teacher. If you are a mom, you are your child's first teacher, and best teacher for their entire childhood. The things you teach them, intentionally and unintentionally, are the lessons that are most likely to stick. That's one reason I have long wished every mom could go to a homeschool conference, even if they send their kids to school.
-We went over to my parent's house on a Sunday, and got to snowmobile for the first time this year! Then we looked outside and saw a moose, just standing there. It was like a painting, with the moon shining on the snow.
-I did finally finish the photo books that gave me a bloody eye, and they arrived in the mail this week. They are gorgeous. I am so happy with them! I ordered from Chatbooks, and not only is the quality even better than the last time I got a book from them over a year ago, but their customer service is top notch. One of my books accidentally got switched to softcover before checkout, and I didn't notice until it arrived in the mail. I sent them an email, and they are sending me the book in hardcover like I intended - I just had to pay the $5 upgrade from softcover to hardcover. I was so relieved to not have to buy a whole new book! That was the final thing that sold me, and I will likely be using them for our photo books next year too. Very pleased.
-On Martin Luther King Day, our family went to the stock show, which is always an event around here. We watched ranchers showing cows, we saw the sheep and pigs, but we sadly missed the poultry show. It ended up being a fun day overall though!
However, we did get completely thrown off with school the rest of the week, and there were tears from certain children and myself. Ironically, I remembered that the topic for our upcoming homeschool support group meeting at church was supposed to be "how to salvage a bad day". After the week we had I hardly feel qualified to lead that topic. Homeschool moms, how do you salvage a bad day? If you have any good articles or videos that have encouraged you, let me know!
-A couple weeks ago we had a small birthday party for Derek's 40th birthday, and we did a "flashback to Derek's childhood" theme. It was so much fun, and I'll probably try to write a post about the party soon. But I have to mention it here because for the party we bought several iconic 1980's toys, including two Rubik's cubes. I so wanted to keep the cubes perfect for the party, but they were messed up almost immediately by little fingers that couldn't resist. However, after the party I decided to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube - and I did!
I think I am more excited about this than anyone else.
But nevertheless, if anyone is interested, this is the video that I found very helpful. There was only one part that I thought he explained poorly, but I think I figured out the solution. The first cube took me a couple hours to solve, mainly because I made a couple mistakes that required me to start completely over. But the second cube I solved in 15 minutes! Now I kind of want the kids to mess it up again, so I can practice and solidify my knowledge.
That was too many paragraphs about Rubik's cubes. As I said, it's exciting to me, but not necessarily anyone else!
-We went snowmobiling with my parents again over a weekend, this time way up in the mountains, and it was so much fun! Snowmobiling is such a great way to get outside in the winter. I wrote a post about this last year, and I can't even remember if I published it, but this is another perk to living close to your parents as an adult. When they do fun things, they may just take you along! Snowmobiling is not something we would get to do at this stage in our lives if it wasn't for their generosity in sharing their hobby with us.
-I was going to go on about a book that wrecked me last week, but I think I'm going to save that for an upcoming book post/video in the next week or two. I'll keep the title to myself and just leave you in suspense.
-This week started off weirdly, with a severe ringing that started in one of my ears, with no apparent cause. I went to the doctor yesterday, and they gave me a referral for an audiologist, and hopefully we'll get it figured out. The only possibility that seems feasible right now is an atypical migraine that causes your ears to ring. I'm hoping we can figure it out, because the constant ringing is making me extra-sensitive to loud noises, and it's hard to hear voices if there is also background noise - and loud background noise is a regular thing in this house, so as you can imagine, that is making my days a little difficult at the moment!
How was your January?
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