Morning Time.  In my imagination, those words conjure images of children cozily grouped on a couch (usually cream colored) with knitted blankets (also cream colored) in front of a fire while sipping hot chocolate (and managing not to spill any on all that cream color).  The mother is seated in the middle of them (no one is jostling for position on the couch) and reading some wondrous tome to them, and they are listening with enraptured expressions.

And in slides reality.  We are sitting on the wood floor because if we sit on the couch no one manages to sit.  There is a lot of jumping and standing on heads and because everyone wants to sit in one particular seat, there is some arguing too.  We do have a snack and sometimes a drink, usually with many instructions about leaving straws or cinnamon sticks inside of cups and please don't dip your snack into your drink because it drips on the floor and makes it sticky.  Often, there is yelling and tears during what I want to be the best part of the day.

During the last two weeks I have done some praying specifically about our Morning Time.  And it came to me that I wasn't setting up the expectations for my children.  They were getting out of control, but had I ever told them what they were to do during this time?  Maybe.  I don't remember.  Chances are pretty high if I don't remember, they definitely don't remember.  Unless it is something crazy like a promise to go to Chuck E. Cheese.  They need reminders.  Often.  I have started giving a longer reminder on Mondays and then brief ones throughout the week just of what is expected.

It is going better.  There is definitely some training that needs done and some expectations that belong better in fairy tales (or Anne stories) than they do in real life.  I am trying to slow down and just enjoy these small moments we have together each day!

Scheduling

I am a scheduled person by nature.  I have been called *ahem* uptight.  I don't think I am actually uptight; I am simply a lover of routine.  My observation has been that both my children and myself thrive on predictability and a plan for the day.

One of the troubles that I have had is actually getting started in the morning.  All through high school and college, I enjoyed getting up early, and in college, I actually scheduled early classes every day so that I would be done not long after lunch.  In fact, I managed to schedule in such a way that I had Fridays off!  Now, however, some of that love of getting up has been lost.  I believe it probably has something to do with sleep deprivation and a little boy who believes that his own bed is not nearly as comfortable as the one in our room.  This school year, though, I knew things had to change.  We weren't finishing school until it was almost time for Joel to be home during the last year, and that is ridiculous.  Compounding that, we always seemed to be doing math in the afternoon, which did not work well for anyone.  So I buckled down, made a schedule, and implemented it the first week of our school year.  It has been fabulous.

I get up every day at six now (I know, not even that early!) and exercise.  (One of the offshoots of this schedule is that I am actually consistently exercising...not one of my favorite activities!)  I make breakfast for everyone if it is not something I already prepared the previous afternoon and then go for my shower if it is in the oven.  Some have claimed craziness because I am making breakfast for everyone, but there is a reason behind that.  Our children love breakfast, and they believe that it should consist of at least three different selections, usually to be eaten in the slowest way possible.  All three of their choices are usually relatively unhealthy and don't keep them full past 9:00.  So, now I make a healthier breakfast that keeps us full until 12:00 and there are no choices so breakfast is finished in a timely manner.

The children are also doing daily chores now.  Dishes, laundry, sweeping and vacuuming, as well as several other things are helping them learn to do simple housecleaning, and it's helping me do some basic prep before everyone is ready to sit down to work.  We try to finish all chores by 8:30 and head to the playground for an hour.  Everyone focuses better when energy is burned first!  And when we return, math is done first.  Pnut goes first as she usually has a worksheet to do after her lesson, and then Pilly goes.  Once that is done, Morning Time is done together and then everyone goes their own way to complete the rest of their book work, and we are consistently finishing before lunch.  The Little Boy is getting some time to learn some letters in the sand, and he has been great at then going to play on his own or listen to Pill's stories until she is done.  He has his favorites too!

Scheduling seems on the face of it to fly against the freedom of homeschooling, but in reality, it has given us greater freedom because we have more extra time.  It also gives me the motivation to get up in the morning because I know what happens on the days that I don't, and it is giving me a more consistent Quiet Time in the afternoon as all of our "musts" are finished!  We are in week six, and this year has been the most enjoyable yet!

Remembering

"Anne took Davy on her knee and did her best to straighten out this theological tangle also.  She was much better fitted for the task than Marilla, for she remembered her own childhood and had an instinctive understanding of the curious ideas that seven-year-olds sometimes get about matters that are, of course, very plain and simple to grown up people."  

Anne of Avonlea, page 134 

 

When I was growing up, one of my great delights was going to the grocery store with my mom.  We went to a Weis, and the aisles were done in alternating brown and cream stripes.  My sister and I had a game that we found very entertaining that involved not stepping on any of the cream stripes as those contained sharks which would rip off our legs.  We would leap up the aisles at an alarming rate with no regard for other carts or the obvious stress that we cause our mom.  Some aisles didn't have the stripes but rather just random brown blocks, and those really presented a delightful challenge.  I imagine that it was soon after we started this game that our mom started going to the grocery store by herself.

Obviously, our behavior at the store left much to be desired, but that is not the point of that memory.  The point of it is that I remember it.  I remember what it was like to be a child.   I think so many people grow up and quickly forget what those feelings of childhood are like, that desire to imagine and discover, that unabated thirst to learn.  I have other memories of sorrows and angst, of events that brought joy, and of great peace.  As we move through this journey of parenting, I try to keep those memories fresh and to look at things through my children's eyes.  They are young, without the experience of age, and cannot be expected to react in an adult manner to situations.  Part of my job as their mother is to guide without squelching and to help them see truth.

That is my challenge to you, reader.  Remember.

On Pets

L: "I would like to have a butterfly for a pet."

Me: "You can't.  Butterflies can't survive in captivity.  They need to be free.  Most animals need to be free."

E: "There's only a few, like cats and dogs, that you can keep for pets."

P: "I could keep a very tiny elephant for a pet!"

Wednesdays With Words-Faith

 

Last week I mentioned that I have started reading a book called The Importance of Faith in Counseling.  This is a book directed at biblical counselors, but there are still things that are convicting to me as a person, not just as a counselor.  On the first page of the book, Jay Adams said

"Ever since the fall of Adam, man's problem has always been the attempt to please God without faith."

And it is true.  Often I try to do things right without examining my heart for the faith needed to carry these things through.  I try to get away with obedience in place of faith.  In many ways, this book is reminding me of things just learned in Trusting God.  Perhaps the Lord is trying to teach me something!  On page 10, he explains further why it is so important to have faith with obedience.

"So faith is essential to achieving anything that God commands you to do.  Attempts to please God that are made apart from faith become like the works of the scribes and the Pharisees; they are dead 'works' (Hebrews 6:1, 9:14).  They are dead because the scribes and Pharisees lack the faith that gives life to their works."

 And finally on page 12 he brings the faith and obedience together:

"Dependence on God, however, is not some sort of substitute for obedience.  The Bible  does not teach quietism in the Bible.  Rather, faith is the dynamic through which the power of God is tapped by the believer so as to obey.  By faith the believer does what God requires in His strength.  He must obey.  Neither is faith a substitute for obedience.  True faith is intimately connected to obedience."

I am enjoying and continually being challenged in my everyday walk with the Lord through these materials He has brought into my life!

Wednesday With Words-Trusting God

 

I finished Trusting God by Jerry Bridges earlier this week.   I had slowed down on chapters 12 and 13 and so I was going on to read chapter 14 more to finish the book than to actually enjoy it.  I was, therefore, taken by surprise by how much I needed to read chapter 14, Being Thankful Always.  Due to some struggles lately, it was a very timely chapter.  

I thought I would just share some quotes from different chapters in the book that I found to have a great impact on my heart.  

"The fact that God ordained our days for us should also give meaning to every day, not just the special or exciting days of our lives.  Every day is important for us because it is a day ordained by God.  If we are bored with life, there is something wrong with our concept with God and His involvement in our daily lives.  Even the most dull and tedious days of our lives are ordained by God and ought to be used by us to glorify Him."  p.179

 That was very challenging as sometimes the days can all run together and nothing exciting seems to happen.  Although, the older I get (all of 29 right now), the more I appreciate those "boring" days.  Excitement does not necessarily equal a fun time!

This paragraph was so encouraging to me, not as something new but as something comforting.  It is one of those things that I know but need to be reminded of:

 "To derive the fullest comfort and encouragement from Romans 8:28-and thus to give thanks in all circumstances-we must realize that God is at work in a proactive, not reactive, fashion.  That is, God does not just respond to an adversity in our lives to make the best of a bad situation.  He knows before He initiates or permits the anxiety exactly how He will use it for our good." p.207

There were several wonderful Scriptures that I also read during this book, and one that I love is this:

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!"  Isaiah 49:15

A mother has an inborn love of her child, but through selfishness she can turn away from that child.  The Lord never turns away!

I have now started a book called The Importance of Faith in Counseling by Jay E. Adams.   It is a dovetailing nicely with Trusting God, but it is rather specific to biblical counseling so I am not sure yet if I will share quotes from it.  We'll see!

Wednesdays With Words-Birds, Beast and Relatives

 

A few weeks ago, I completed My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.   The best word to describe it is delightful.  I don't remember where I heard of it, it was on a blog somewhere, and I am so glad that I came across it.  It is the recounting of Mr. Durrell's childhood years in Greece on the island of Corfu from 1933 to 1939.  I laughed quite a bit and reveled in the colorful descriptions of his family and the surrounding island.  It was supposed to be a naturalist's take on the flora and fauna of Corfu but his family kept coming into the story.  I was very happy to find that there is a follow-up book in Birds, Beasts, and Relatives.  I believe there is one more after that, but our library does not have it.  I did check out another of his books that he wrote about his later life.  I may end up buying them because I have enjoyed them so much. 

His descriptions are eloquent and bring a picture to my mind right away.  An example from the chapter I just finished "The Pygmy Jungle"

"Then, whistling for Roger, we went off through the sunlit olive groves, striped with shade, the whole island, spring-fresh and brilliant, lying before us.  At this time of the year, the olive groves would be full of flowers.  Pale anemones with the tips of their petals dyed red as thought they had been sipping wine, pyramid orchids that looked as though they had been made of pink icing, and yellow crocuses so fat, glossy, and waxy-looking you felt they would light like a candle if you set a match to their stamens.  We would tramp through the rough stone paths among the olives, then for a mile or so follow the road lined with tall and ancient cypresses, each covered in a layer of white dust, like a hundred dark paint brushes loaded with chalk white.  Presently we would strike off from the road and make our way over the crest of a small hill and there, lying below us, would be the lake, perhaps four acres in extent, its rim shaggy with reeds and its water green with plants."

 It has been neat to read also because he describes in some detail the lives of certain tiny creatures, and today I was thrilled to read of the diving bell or water spider.  I read about that spider last year with my eldest in her reader, but her readings did not contain the depth of description and vivid imagery that he provides. 

The other offshoot of these readings is that I am trying to convince my husband to move to Greece.  He pushes back with nonsensical things about cost of living and how I don't like the hot weather.  In the below freezing temps we've been having, it sounds downright amazing!

Wednesday's With Words-Can You Trust God?

 

 I am reading through Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.  It has been a very challenging book and has made me appreciate God's sovereignty and wrestle with some issues I have had with trusting God.  I am finding a wealth of information to write from every chapter in my quote book, and I have to remind myself not to copy entire chapters.  I have appreciated the book so much because Mr. Bridges is very real about the troubles we face as we go through life and does not in any way try to sugarcoat anything.  He says on pages 15-16:

"Yet, I acknowledge it often seems more difficult to trust God than to obey Him.  The moral will of God given to us in the Bible is rational and reasonable.  The circumstances in which we must trust God often appear irrational and inexplicable.  The law of God is readily recognized to be good for us, even when we don't want to obey it.  The circumstances of our lives frequently appear to be dreadful and grim or perhaps even calamitous and tragic.  Obeying God is worked out within well-define boundaries of God's revealed will.  Trusting God is worked out in an arena that has no boundaries.  We do not know the extent, the duration, or the frequency of the painful, adverse circumstances in which we must frequently trust God.  We are always coping with the unknown."

This rang so true for me because that is the crux of my struggle.  I want to trust God, but I don't know what is going to happen.  So what I really want is control.  I want to trust God as long as I am controlling what happens.  Control is just an illusion though.  We fragile humans have no idea what will happen in the next moment let alone have enough wisdom to work out the plan for our lives.  We can no more control the working out of our lives than the rising of the sun each or even our next heartbeat.  That is why I was able to take comfort and encouragement from this passage from page 16 also:

 "In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through eyes of faith, not of sense.  And just as the faith of salvation comes through hearing the message of the gospel (see Romans 10:17), so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone.  It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God's relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances.  It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity."

 I am not going to ever know what is coming next or what the purpose of each trial is (besides conforming me to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29), but I can know God through His Word and that is in what I take comfort.  It will not always be easy.  Life is hard and full of joy and pain, but I rest in the Lord and His promises.  I can rest in Him because He is sovereign and He knows the end of the plan.

A Most Exciting Time of Year

It is time for a most exciting time of year.  It has nothing to do with this, however:

 The ice and snow around here have just been crazy.  Our area is expected to get another 6-12 inches tomorrow.  I'm not sure where we will put it!

No, the true excitement has to do with this:

I've started hunting down books.  I usually just collect for next year, but I thought I would also make the list for when E is in year four.  We had a very profitable trip to a local bookshop yesterday, profitable for me and the bookshop!  I love looking for new books!  It kind of keeps me going through the long months of February and March.  Those are the months I know we are almost done and that we should finish well but oh, we have been at this for such a long time.  The new books help me remember how exciting learning is and to take the time to enjoy each moment of it!

Wednesdays With Words: The Prayer Factor by Sammy Tippit

When I was at LBC, I took a prayer class, and one of the books we read was The Prayer Factor.  I decided to reread it around the turning of the year, and I was bowled over by how practical and challenging it was.  I highly recommend it to all who are following Christ!

"But my experience has found miserable people in both communist and capitalist countries.  Quality of life is not derived from circumstances, cultures, or political ideologies.  Quality of life is found in the Kingdom of God.  Romans 14:17 states, 'For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.'"

 Challenging words about contentment!