Filling Little Minds with Scripture: A Call for Diligence

We were out running errands today – myself and all of the kids.

I was trying think of a way to keep them occupied in a productive way as we drove, so I said, “Let's play a game. We'll go youngest to oldest. Each person has to say a verse that they've memorized. When everyone has finished we'll start back at the youngest. The game is over when someone can't think of a verse.”

My 4-year-old was eager to start. I figured he would say one of the basics like “Children obey your parents” or “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

But he didn't. He launched right into Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law.”

I sat listening to his high-pitched, lisping voice with my mouth hanging open as he rattled it off word-perfectly, including the reference.

I know where he learned it. It was one I was working on with the older kids a while back. As I always do with their school work, I had let him listen in and absorb as much as he could.

But he absorbed it in its entirety and retained it after several months had passed!

Immediately after that his six year old sister had her turn. She recited a passage of three verses (Proverbs 6:16-18). I knew I hadn't taught it to her, so I assumed she had learned it at church.

“Where did you learn that?” I asked.

“I memorized it this morning when I was reading my Bible,” she answered.

Again, I was rather flabbergasted. I hadn't told her that she needed to memorize as part of her Bible reading. But she had picked out some verses all on her own and memorized them.

I was very pleased, of course, with both incidents.

But at the same time I was sobered.

My children's minds are at the very peak of their ability to memorize and retain what they've learned.

Oh, how I need to be much more diligent about helping them to memorize God's Word!

I read a story the other day of how a lady and her children memorized the entire book of Philippians by putting in just a few minutes a day, I determined that this is something I need to make more of a priority.

My children are involved in a scripture memory program at church, and I will be honest and say that I have let that allow me to become slack in this area as a parent. I am very thankful we have a program like that! But at the same time, why shouldn't we do even more as a family?

As I already said, it is evident that even my youngest children have the capacity to memorize and retain Scripture at an incredible rate.

If Fanny Crosby could memorize 8 entire books of the Bible before she was twelve years old, my children can memorize at least one!

I am determined to work our way as a family through the book of Philippians, using “Philippians in 28 Weeks” as our guide. It will be good for my children, and it will be good for me!

Teaching our children God's Word is not going to come by accident – we have to intentionally make the time!

Blessings on your family as you raise up the next generation to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ!

The Biggest Gap in My Parenting (And How I’m Closing It)

“You need to be consistent.”

I've heard and read that phrase and similar ones many times regarding parenting.

And it's true, but perhaps parents need a little more elaboration on that phrase.

Maybe you understood completely what that advice meant, but I was missing a little piece of the puzzle myself.

Thankfully as I have sought the Lord's wisdom in my parenting, He has opened up my eyes more and more to an element that is so very crucial to my children's success.

See, when I would hear the phrase “Be consistent”, the idea that came to my mind was “When they disobey, make sure there are consequences every time.  Never turn your head and forego correction because it's not convenient at the moment.”

And that is true. If you turn your head and allow your children to do whatever they want rather than putting in the work to deal with things when they arise, you are not doing yourself or your children any favors.

However, if that is the only connotation to the phrase “Be consistent” there is a massive gap in what our children really need!

If that is the only connotation, the focus is 100% on discipline and correction.  Parents end up spending all their efforts correcting misbehavior. Instead, it's better to pour most of our efforts into proactively teaching our children.

I admit that I made this mistake when I first had children.  I wanted so badly to “get it right” so I was very careful to “be consistent” about correcting bad behavior.

But what I didn't understand was that I was putting the cart before the horse.  I was expecting to teach my children through correction.  But if I would have put more time and effort into the teaching part there wouldn't have been nearly as much need for the correcting part.

So now when I think of the phrase “Be consistent”, I tell myself that I need to be consistent in focused teaching.  I need to put intentional time into helping my children understand exactly how to do the many things I hope for them to learn.

For example:

• We can role play how to do things like share or how to use kind words.
• I can work alongside them as they clean their room until their brains have developed enough to understand how to get from point “messy” to point “clean.”
• I can redirect them when they kick their shoes off in the middle of the floor and teach them how to be a tidy person instead of waiting till I get irritated by the messy floor.

There are so many more examples I could give, but do you see how so much of our child training ends up being done through correction because we don't put the work on the front end of teaching them to begin with?

The more our interactions with our children are based on correction, the more they will hear the message, “You failed again.” So many zealous parents end up having strained relationships with their grown children because they unintentionally taught them that they are a disappointment and a failure.

But if we as parents could more intentionally focus on upfront connection, there would be far less correcting to do. AND, when there is correcting to be done, it can be given in the form of gentle reminders (remember when we learned how to do xyz? Now's a good chance for you to put in practice what we learned!) rather than lectures and reprimands.

I am sure if you start brainstorming, you can think of areas where you are constantly having to correct and discipline your child.

Think of ways you can teach and practice the things you want your children to learn before the need for correction arises!

Here are some fantastic resources that explore this topic more:
(affiliate links included)

1. Motivate Your Child: A Christian Parent's Guide to Raising Kids Who Do What They Need to Do Without Being Told

2. Discipline that Connects With Your Child's Heart

Win Over $3000 Worth of Homeschool Curriculum!

The annual Build Your Bundle curriculum sale begins next week (I'm just a tad excited!), but the organizers thought they'd kick it off with a huge giveaway.

They're giving away ALL the curriculum that's in the sale (over $3,000 worth of digital curriculum!)

If you're already familiar with the Build Your Bundle sale, and you're looking forward to it as much as I am, use the green button to speed along straight to the entry form.

The Build Your Bundle curriculum sale will be offering bundles of digital curriculum at 86% to 96% off.

This is not a joke!  I have purchased hundreds of dollars worth of curriculum the past couple years for pennies on the dollar, and am so excited for this year's sale!
There will be a number of different bundles available, including:

• Character training resources
• Elementary curriculum
• Charlotte Mason curriculum
• Upper level curriculum
• And More!

And if you'd rather pick and choose your own sets, you can Build Your Own Bundle and still get everything at about 90% off!

Plus, everyone who enters the big giveaway gets a coupon.  Seriously…a coupon for stuff that's already 90% off – that's my kind of sale!

Can't wait to see who wins this one!

5 Things My Mom Never Stopped Doing for Me

As a mom of small children, it is sometimes tempting to look forward to the days when my life is not so exhausting.  Taking care of the needs of children is a 24/7 job, and I'll admit that while I don't want to “wish the years away”, I do sometimes look forward to the day when things will get a little easier.

But even though the days of diaper changes, constant snack-making, chauffeuring, and refereeing arguments may come to an end, a mother's work never ends until she leaves this earth.

Now that I'm grown, I think sometimes my mom works harder than ever in her role as mother.

Here are 5 things she has never stopped doing for me, and possibly does even more so now that I'm a grown woman with a family of my own:

1. Pray for me

I know my mom prayed for her children all throughout our growing up years.  She prayed that our hearts would be tender toward God's working in our lives, that we would choose good friends, and make wise decisions.  She prayed for our physical safety.  She prayed for our futures.

And now that the future is here, the things she needs to pray for are possibly more important than ever.

Her children now have families of their own, and the number of people and needs on her prayer list have multiplied.

So while she no longer has any children in the nest, my mother's job of prayer has never ended; it has only increased.

2. Encourage me

When I was little, it was mama who would tell me not to worry about the girls at school who were being mean to me.  It was mama who told me what I great job I did at my piano recital. It was mama who smiled and told me to go for it when I wanted to write a song or write a book or start a lemonade stand.

Now that I'm grown, it's still mama who lifts me up when I'm discouraged and points me to the truth of God's Word that I need to meditate upon.  It's still mama who praises me when I'm excited about an accomplishment.  It's still mama who doesn't try to stop me when I decide to pursue some crazy idea, but believes in me instead.

Yes, my mother is still my encourager.

3. Care for me

Whether it's fighting my way through morning sickness during pregnancy, or dealing with a chronic illness, my mom is the first one to see how she can take care of me.

She'll make food for my family or watch my kids so I can rest or help me clean my house.

Just like a little child wants their mama when they are sick, a grown woman still finds much comfort when being cared for by her mother.

I'm thankful my mom has never stopped taking care of me when I need it.

4. Inconvenience herself

Moms of little children are inconvenienced every day in many ways – foregoing sleep, spending time cleaning up messes rather than relaxing with a good book, or making an emergency search of the house to find the library book their child lost.

Now that I'm grown, my mom still inconveniences herself in many ways.

She picks up the phone even when she suspects it's a last minute request for babysitting, and she says yes even though she really is too tired.

She sits at home by herself late at night while my dad comes to bail us out of a broken-down car situation.

She welcomes me into her home any time of the day or night, even if it means foregoing her plans to accomplish some much-needed things on her to-do list.

Mothering a grown child is not convenient, but my mom keeps plugging along at this motherhood gig anyway.

5. Listen to me

A good mom listens to her child's disappointments and excitements, even when they seem ridiculous.

Whether I was crying about a popped balloon as a child or a burnt supper as an adult, my mom would still listen without dismissing my distress as unimportant.

If I call my mom with something trivial, even if the phone call is interrupting her day, she listens to me ramble on without showing any impatience or disinterest.

What an awesome mom!

I hope I can be like her some day when my own children are grown.

I Finally Figured Out How to Schedule a More Fulfilling Life

My life is flying past, and I feel like all I am doing is just trying to keep up with living!

Why is everything I do just a pointless cycle of taking care of the urgent?  “Oh, sorry kids.  No park today.  Gotta get this taken care of.  I know we'll have time another day.”

But we never do.  There is always something else that has to be “taken care of.”

I was tired of it.

I grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and started feverishly writing all the things that were swirling in my mind.

I want:

TIME

-time to spend with God in Bible reading and prayer
-time to spend with my kids, undistracted
-time to spend with my husband nurturing our marriage
-time to be a real face-to-face friend
-time to minister to others
-time to stop and smell the roses
-time to quit feeling frantic, rushed, and always behind
-time to stop feeling grouchy due to that frantic and rushed feeling

HEALTH

-so I can have the energy to take good care of my family
-so I can be the one ministering rather than always needing to be ministered to
-so I can enjoy life more fully

And that was it!

All I really wanted was two things.

Nowhere on the list was earning money, because that's not what is going to bring fulfillment in life.
Nowhere on the list was watching a great movie or laughing at the latest meme going around on Facebook or browsing Pinterest.

I just want time and health for the important things in life – PEOPLE.  MY PEOPLE.

I determined that if an activity didn't help me meet those two goals, it was out.  Gone. Removed from my life.

At the same time, I knew that there are “necessary evils” in life – the bills have to be paid, we all have to eat (even though I hate cooking), and we need to clean up the house because we can't really enjoy one another's company very well in a filthy house.  But I figured that even though those had to stay, I would still be able to enjoy doing them together with my family as long as the other unnecessary things were no longer allowed to steal my time.

As I began to try to place these two goals into a nice, neat, scheduled box, though, I realized that they just didn't fit.

I wanted to have some sort of schedule detailing exactly how I was going to find time for the things that really matter.

But life doesn't fit into a box.

I scribbled and scratched, crossed off and re-wrote, and it just seemed pointless.

“Even if I get this all laid out, it's still going to be different every day,” I thought to myself.

I knew some days I would need to spend more time cleaning. Some days the right thing to do would be to drop everything and go play outside with the kids.

So I did away with the schedule and adopted a new rule for living.

Each activity I do during a day must be preceded by this question:”Is this helping me reach my life goals?”

If I'm debating between two things, that question provides much-needed clarity.

For example, when I pass by my husband's workplace on the way home from the store, I debate to myself, “Go home and clean the bathroom or stop and say hello to my husband?”  I must confess that often the urge to spend time with the dirty bathroom is stronger than the urge to spend time with my husband.  I feel like I need to “accomplish” something, so I opt for a tangible thing that I can cross off my list.

But is that really what I want?

When I think about “the list” – I realize that no! It's not!  I want more time with my people!

I've been living with this mindset for about a month now, and oh! I can't tell you how much more fulfilling it is!

Update: Over time, I've developed a planner that keeps me on track doing the things that really matter. Not only do I have plenty of time to spend nurturing relationships with the people I love, but there is almost always time left over for me to cross a project or two off my list to give me that sense of accomplishment that I did something. Never in my life have I spent so much time with family and friends, kept my house so clean, and accomplished extra side projects to boot. This is the planner that makes it all happen!

What is it that will give you a fulfilling life? When you focus on the things that really matter, you may just find there will be time for some of the extras too!

Help Your Child Develop Thinking Skills with Laser Maze Jr.

One thing I have been wanting to spend more time on in our homeschool is helping the kids to work on thinking skills.

I have one child in particular who will give up as soon as they have to think too hard about something.

I needed to figure out how to stretch this child's “thinking muscles” in a way that would not be a battle of the wills between us.  I needed to help this child want to exercise those muscles.

I have moved all of my homeschooling posts to christianhomeschoolfamily.com. You can go here to read this post at the new site.”