Every Child Has A Unique Design

For the home-educating parent, the personality, strength, and limitations of children will be constant factors in the learning process, touching on every aspect of family dynamics and child-rearing.

How a child lives and learns— and how a parent teaches and trains—will be unavoidably shaped and affected by these issues.

Even as we have children with learning disabilities, physical limitations, or spectrum issues, we need to look deep inside at their potential and personalities to see how we might strengthen them to have a vibrant life.

Read more about this in Awaking Wonder.

Tea Time Tuesday: Be Kind, One to Another

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There have been many times in my life when I was worn to the bone and didn’t even realize how much. But when someone treated me with unexpected kindness, my heart was touched deeply and hope began to bubble up in my heart, again. Breathing rest and peace for a few small minutes filled me with an ability to keep going again. One such time, on a cold and wintry night, our doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone. There stood a very pregnant woman holding a heavy box, with flowers poking out from inside.

“May I bring this to the kitchen,” she practically whispered.

In the kitchen, she began to unload the box: A fresh loaf of homemade bread, a homemade chicken pot pie, a mixed salad with pecans, feta and tomatoes, a bunch of mixed flowers and a lovely card at the bottom.

She said, “You give to people all the time. You have sick children, hosted our women’s group and so much more. The Lord put it on my heart that you might be in need of some personal kindness and encouragement, so I made all of this today for you.” I was happily stunned.

Who needs your thoughtfulness, kindness this week? How can you display it to your children? Your friend? Your husband? Choose at least 2 people you might show the kindness of God who are in need of His benevolence.

God bless you, my friends to sense the kindness of God in your life.

God Has A Long-Term Perspective

God doesn't grow us in character and joy quickly. He has a long-term perspective for me. He sees the training process over a period of years and is always seeking to move me ahead in my character.

It is in being faithful to our own set of tests that we become mature and fitted for the ministry he has called each of us to accomplish. If we aspire to be a general, so to speak, spiritually, then we must first pass the training and tests of life as a private.

Read more about this in Dancing With My Heavenly Father.

What Does It Mean To Mentor Your Children?

Can you imagine how different Christianity would be if the disciples had just been given a book to read and to be tested on at the end of the reading instead of having a personal, in-the-flesh, loving friend-mentor?

This begs the questions for us: Are we the people we want our students to become? If your student becomes like you, what will he or she be like? What would we need to change to be the model of what we hope to nurture them to become?

Parents who choose to mentor their children actively initiate them and seek their overall well-being and long-term development. It is a lifelong relationship that is active, intentional, life-giving, responsive.

Mentors do not just disseminate facts, they embody a force of life, love, and inspiration. They become personal in their relationship to their "students."

Read more about this in Awaking Wonder.

Tea Time Tuesday: Patience: A Treasure to Hold in Life

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“But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” -Isaiah 40:31

Oxford dictionary defines patience as: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.

As I look back, it seems I have spent more time waiting for something to happen than anything else—waiting for hard times to get easier, waiting for answers to prayer, and all of this waiting requires patience—the fruit of the spirit we are studying this week.

All of us are in a waiting game right now in some way or another. As a young woman, I waited impatiently to graduate from high school so I could break out and go away to college. Then to graduate from college. Then to get married. Then to get pregnant (multiple waits), then to have a baby sleep through the night, then to have all of my children out of diapers. You get the picture. Still I am waiting impatiently.

I believe that a when we get to heaven and understand more of God’s purposes, we will understand that there was even a cosmic reason for our needing to wait for answers in our lives.

We read in Isaiah, "Yet those who wait on the Lord will gain new strength, " (40: 31)

Darkness is but for the night, but joy comes in the morning, we read in the psalms.

And so, all of life in a fallen world will require us to be patient, to rule over our impatient spirits, to rule our spirit. We do not walk by emotions, or desires, but we learn to walk in obedience to the path God has given. Then, His reward will be sure and generous.

Ruling over ones spirit by patience is such an amazing concept. To take charge of our emotions, to worship instead, to subdue, to control one's spirit is the foundation for all sorts of spiritual reflection of the reality of Christ in our lives.

Just remember today, the Lord is with you and loves you and He will show you His ways as you patiently wait for Him.

Calling Every Moment Of Your Life Holy

I like to picture what the feasts in the Bible must have been like. In the time when Jesus lived, meals were not nice, orderly things. I imagine dusty garments, loud arguments, pungent spices, and stinky feet. Jesus' ministry not only allowed for these meals; it took place in the context of them.

Not all holy moments are somber and serious. If Jesus discipled His apostles in the midst of food, drink, laughter, and mundane moments, I believe we should too. Instead of viewing them as spiritual "downtime," we should see them as the times when God is most likely to work.

Our laughter can glorify God as much as our thoughtful meditation. Serving pizza to a houseful of teenagers can strike spiritual gold.

To separate the spiritual from the ordinary is to say that Jesus is not King over those everyday moments in life. When we give our whole lives to Him—food, drink, work, play, body, spirit, and family—we glorify God by living into the beauty He meant for us.

Read more about this in Mom Heart Moments.

Valuing The Mess Of Life

Rhythms of time made sacred by family devotions in the morning and long conversations in the evening, planted seeds of faith and a love for theology.

Creating a daily life as a feast and delight in knowing, growing, and learning to serve by practice in serving shaped character.

Music lilting in the shadows, and the laughter over my children’s antics gave a sense of the blessedness of love, of God’s life made tangible in the food and touch and air of our home.

We must value this “mess” of life and exhibit joy within for children to feel it is indeed a joyful place to dwell.

Read more about this in Awaking Wonder.

Tea Time Tuesday: The Lifegiving Shalom of God

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Tea Time Tuesday

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” -John 11:27

The world news is dismal, chaos seems to pervade our lives from every side. The world is a place of violence, hopelessness. But we do not have to live in this false reality. Jesus promised something quite different.

Perhaps you are like me. No matter what season of life, I am in need of peace—to settle my heart, to quell my fears, to calm my thought patterns. It seems at all times and stages of life, I have a pile on my shoulders: tasks, responsibilities to accomplish, conflict in life and with others (including family), stressful times, lonely times, managing family, friends, ministry, deadlines. Always something that bubbles up.

Just before Jesus crucifixion, He told His disciples that He would leave them peace in the midst of this chaotic world—a peace beyond what the world promised or could provide. Then, He made very clear they were not to allow their heart (thoughts, feelings, innermost being) to be afraid or troubled. This would indicate that there would certainly be things that could trouble them or cause fear—but that they had agency, capacity to turn away from being troubled or afraid, a choice to enter into His abiding presence of peace, in all circumstances.

Several times, after his resurrection, when He was present with them, He repeated again and again—peace I leave with you (John 20:19, 21, 26). It was something He wanted his beloved friends to experience. Peace is the fruit of the spirit. It has changed me again to study and ponder the real depths of Shalom—peace in Hebrew. God wants us to enjoy the fullness of life, quietness, a rest, a sense of flourishing every day because of His reality.

I am a walker. I walk miles each week always, if possible, in nature. I hand over the issues of my life into the hands of the Holy Spirit—putting needs and desires in the file drawer of heaven.

Seeking to cultivate and abide in this peace has given me a new sense of companionship with Him. Join me today on my podcast as I reflect on this fruit of the spirit.

History Will Be Different Because Of You

To many, my decision to stay at home, buried in the rich soil of housework, homeschooling, character training, disciplining, and the myriad responsibilities of making a home, was a fruitless sacrifice, a waste of intelligence and abilities.

Fruitless? Only by the world's standards. By God's it is a worthy sacrifice that will yield a harvest of righteousness.

History will be different because of you and the small sacrifices you make today, tomorrow, and the next day — moral character will be stronger, biblical family values preserved, and God's name honored.

Future generations will follow the Lord and build on biblical foundations because of the choices and sacrifices you have made.

Make no mistake, your investment will last for all of eternity.

Read more about this in Seasons of a Mother’s Heart.

Recognizing The Fingerprints Of The Artist

Wonder is the vehicle that nurtures spiritual formation by engaging in the miraculous, the sacred, the intricacy of our world around us. We ponder the personality, inspiration, breadth of the One who crafted all of the sublime natural art we behold. We respond in awe and worship.

A child fashioned by a wonder-filled life will cultivate inner strength, an inner confidence in his own ability to think, evaluate, know. But those who influence children must fight to make time for the imagination to have space to work, to have time to engage. Recognizing the elegant and complex design of human beings, we understand that each has capacity to think, to create, to acquire mental muscle, to love, to have agency to act in life.

Read more about this in Awaking Wonder.