Parenting Seminar Link!!!

Here is the link to the Parenting Seminar!!

http://www.gcchurch.org/index.php?pID=180

Will post more when my mind is going one direction!

Box Day Part 2!

Well - we got all messed up last week! The 2nd box came early, then the week went crazy..... But - here are the promised pictures!

The new curriculum has been great in a lot of ways - but a whole lot more involved than we were used to. That has made for some adjusting. We haven't fully recast our day yet, but I am finding less time for things around here for sure. It has become quite busy all of a sudden - which I guess is good.

We had a chance to attend a parenting seminar at church that served to help as I try to figure out how to best serve our family with this schedule (again.... will I ever get this right?) - and, while convicting at times - "He gives more grace"!!!! It is wonderful to be reminded of our task as parents - with the gospel right behind it. It was a great seminar - I know they recorded it, so I will post the link when it becomes available.

We had a sermon at church that really encouraged my heart on Sunday - here is the link :

http://www.gcchurch.org/index.php?pID=37

It was on the perfection of God, and how His perfection comforts us in all of life (that is the very brief synopsis - Aron explains it much more thoroughly - sports illustrations aside :) ). Hope to be posting a little more regularly!!

It has been awhile!!

Today is box day 1.......

We were finally able to order our curriculum for the year, and the first of 4 boxes came today. I am telling you - it is better than Christmas presents!! All of a sudden after 6 weeks of school when we were at the "Do we HAVE to do school again today??" point, EVRYONE wants to do al their books right away. And I get to say - Nope - not until next week :).... I will take pictures of our big box day (2 at the same time!) on Wed and post them so you get an idea what it looks like! Glad my kids love books!!

Verse of reflection

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Run.... reprise

We have been blessed this past week in so many ways!! I mentioned to a friend that it feels like we are going through a stretching mixed with refreshment time. It seems that as we are challenged each day there is a blessing waiting in the wings. God is wonderful that way. I am excited as we reflect on everything He has done over the last year - looking backward really does give you hope for the future. And then.......

We were made aware of something yesterday. It was not unexpected (as in outside the realm of possibilities), but it hit me like a hammer. It felt like something snapped inside. I had been so excited about some of the ways God had been working - so confident that He orchestrates all things (and that is still the truth - especially since He doesn't change even if circumstances do). I had watched Him do things I couldn't have planned myself if I wanted to. It was bittersweet, but the things I was observing could only have been planned by Him. But when this came - no - not this time. Not planned by Him. No. I cannot accept this - not this. In other words - when I could see fruit He was sovereign. When I can't see how this is going to work - He is not. I put "Come Weary Saints" on and cried.

"I will say it's good that you afflicted my that I may learn your holy ways and to trust in you at all times. You are always good. You are always faithful. shining like the sun and rising up with healing in your wings"

I am looking forward now to the end of this newest chapter.

"Oh let your will be done in me. In your love I will abide. For I long for nothing else as long as you are glorified. So quiet my restless heart in You."

Praise God!

Another Encouragement from Of First Importance

I love "Of First Importance". It is a blog that sends its posts out in daily emails. This week has been especially sweet to me! As I have contemplated my "inadequacy" these posts have really served my spirit!!

“The Lord reveal himself more and more to us in the face of his Son Jesus Christ and magnify the power of his grace in cherishing those beginnings of grace in the midst of our corruptions, and sanctify the consideration of our own infirmities to humble us, and of his tender mercy to encourage us.

And may he persuade us that, since he has taken us into the covenant of grace, he will not cast us off for those corruptions which, as they grieve his Spirit, so they make us vile in our own eyes.

And because Satan labors to obscure the glory of his mercy and hinder our comfort by discouragements, the Lord add this to the rest of his mercies, that we may not lose any portion of comfort that is laid up for us in Christ.

And, may he grant that the prevailing power of his Spirit in us should be an evidence of the truth of grace begun, and a pledge of final victory, at that time when he will be all in all, in all his, for all eternity. Amen.”

—Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1998), 127-28

http://firstimportance.org/

Of First Importance - encouragement

“Whence is it that, when assaulted with temptation and compassed with troubles, we have stood firm, but from a secret strength upholding us? To make so little grace so victorious over so great a mass of corruption, this requires a spirit more than human.

This is like preserving fire in the sea, and a part of heaven even, as it were, in hell. Here we know where to obtain this power, and to whom to return the praise of it. And it is our happiness that it is so safely hid in Christ for us, in one so near to God and us. Since the fall, God will not trust us with our own salvation, but it is both purchased and kept by Christ for us, and we for it through faith, wrought by the power of God, which we lay hold of.

That grace which is but a persuasive offer and in our power to receive or refuse is not the grace which brings us to heaven. But God’s people feel a powerful work of the Spirit, not only revealing to us our misery and deliverance through Christ, but emptying us of ourselves, as being redeemed from ourselves, and infusing new life into us, and afterwards strengthening us and quickening us when we droop and hang the wing, never leaving us till the conquest is perfect.”

—Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1998), 116-17

http://firstimportance.org/