Yearly Archives: 2007

Bible Study, Musings

A Living Sacrifice

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We’re studying Romans in Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) this year.

sarah smiles

Sarah comes with me to BSF.

This week the entire lesson was on the first two verses in Romans 12 (I know, it’s a heady pace but I’m trying to keep up). I’ve been thinking a great deal about the passage – I can do this because it’s only two verses, anything longer and my brain crumbles under the weight of my multi-tasking life.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Romans 12:1

sarah's sad

Someone doesn’t feel well.

One question from the lesson particularly stood out:

How do people offer their bodies as living sacrifices to God today?

Tim and I discussed this question at length this evening. We talked about the idea of sacrifice and how the Bible says that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). Christ came down and lived as a sacrifice for us. At first I wasn’t sure how I could offer my body as a sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. The verse in Romans says it is my spiritual act of worship.

david's push ups

David hurt Sarah’s arm and did push ups as part of his punishment.

sarah's arm

Sarah watched the Punishment Push-ups closely, being sure to point out her wounded arm.

In talking with Tim, I began to see how denying myself is a part of this sacrifice. Death to self. I say no to my desire to overeat, to ignore my children, to sleep all day. I lay down my selfish desires in order to serve God and my family. Every day there are choices that I make that require sacrifice. The Bible says these choices are holy and pleasing to God. When I deny myself and obey God’s Word, I am worshipping Him.

Acts of spiritual worship. When I go through the mundane tasks of my day (and there are many days full of repetitive, unexceptional chores) with a thankful heart, my hands are offered up as a sacrifice that is pleasing to God. He sees the small (and not so small) yielding and surrendering of my heart and life. It is convicting. My body – the actions I take, thoughts I dwell upon, words I speak – should bring glory to God.

As I finished this paragraph a song came on that I didn’t recognize. There was a long musical interlude between verses that was a bit cacophonous so I decided to switch to something else. Just before I did the phrase, “living sacrifice,” caught my attention. Sure enough, the song was Romans 12:1, by Todd Agnew from his Grace Like Rain cd. I’ve listened to this album dozens of times and never noticed this song before. I still don’t like the melody around the verses, but the words of the chorus struck me so powerfully I played it over several times:

“Jesus, we come to worship you. Jesus, we come to lift You high. Jesus, we come to honor You. With our lives. Father we come to You humbly, recognizing Your infinite glory.”

Isn’t that just like the living, all-knowing God to order this song around my blogging. He is so worthy of my praise and sacrifice. I am humbled that He loves me and notices and cares for someone as wretched as I.

I’ll have to leave verse 2 of Romans 12 for tomorrow as it’s late and I’m sacrificing sleep to blog. :)

Kathy

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Books, Daily Life, Project 365

P365 – Day 72 (Rambling w/pictures)

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It turns out when you stay home and actually spend some time homeschooling, an incredible amount of learning goes on. Hmmm. I’m going to have to ponder this a bit more. I went to the store for a few groceries but otherwise, spent the rest of the day focused on the children and school. Perhaps it is the contrast from yesterday’s busyness that makes today seem so productive. Or maybe it was our utter lack of progress Monday that spurred on our productivity today, whatever the cause I was very pleased with all we accomplished.

three boys

Look at these boys, eagerly poring over a computer screen. No doubt they are working on math drills or spelling words. Oh, wait, that’s Snoopy fighting the Red Baron. Oops, not school at all. Not pictured in the background is Tim fighting scoundrels on his Pirates game. Definitely a computer moment for the men folk.

David did his table work (Horizons math, Explode the Code, and Italics) and then sat down for an hour of reading with me (and Sarah). Points for doing school with the little ones. I love the Bible study/devotional book we are going through these days. It’s called My ABC Bible Verses – Hiding God’s Word in my Heart by Susan Hunt. Each letter of the alphabet has a Bible verse and a short story applying the scripture. The discussion section has you recite the verse three times and then go back and review the previous verses. Tonight David and Sarah went over the verses with Tim and were able to remember almost all of them. Definite points for children actually remembering something from school. Double points for scripture memory. We’ll have to keep working on the whole application thing.

abc book

Rachel and I checked math lessons. More homeschooling teacher points. Joshua and I caught up (well, tried anyway) on dictation tests. Loss of points since we are very behind and didn’t finish both quizzes. Daniel and I worked on our China log. No points as this should be done every day and we missed yesterday. We read two (long – I know this because the kids tell me, in dismayed voices, how many verses in each chapter) chapters of the Gospel John as well as Chapter 13 of Proverbs. Points for scripture. Double points for extra passages are canceled out by the fact that these are chapters we should have read over the weekend. We read several books on China and pulled out the Ancient China Treasure Chest. Points for hands on activities. Don’t we sound like a model homeschool!

Does anyone else keep score in their head like this?

By the end of it all, Rachel was begging for a break and Daniel had already slipped off to see the end of David and Sarah’s movie. Since they were watching Barbie Fairytopia, you know he was desperate. Ah, it was still good day with lots of homeschooling teacher points.

Too bad it ended with Sarah and Rachel both getting sick.

flushed cheeks SArahsarah reads

I don’t know if Sarah felt unwell or if she just sat down to read and Daniel decided to set her up with a cozy little reading nook. Whatever the case, she ended up with this snuggly spot and fell asleep by dinner time. Sleeping in the middle of the day is NEVER normal for my bunch of rowdy, rabble rousers.

rachel on the couchrachel

Rachel ate a little dinner and rallied thanks to some meds. She came down around 11 pm, asking for a water bottle. She looked flushed and felt feverish so I presume the meds have worn off. I don’t think she’s going to be up for a piano lesson tomorrow morning. Did I mention that we have been incredibly healthy, as a family, for the past six months, maybe year? Tim and I are praying for a quick recovery for the girls and protection for the rest of the family. We’re greedy that way.

Rapid change of topics (hence the ‘rambling’ title).

Joshua and David have this wonderful friendship. I love to watch them together. They wrestle and fly paper airplanes and read books on Big Blue. Lately they have been slipping outside for Swing Ball and storytelling. Joshua is weaving, for David, an elaborate tale of several kings and their exploits. I don’t know the details except for a few names I overheard, Fred and Schmedlap (sp?) and something about a chicken. The stories and game usually come to a halt when I come outside. Obviously I’m the “wrong kind” of audience for Joshua’s stories. So I content myself with looking out the window. I watch them laugh and play together and marvel at the special bond between brothers.

joshua and david

One day he might catch up to you in height, Joshua. Watch out!

david swingsjoshua swings

Just another piece of our crazy, precious life. As Tim often says, “This is the BEST family in the world.” With no offense intended to the rest of the population, I’m inclined to agree with him.

Kathy

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Daily Life, Project 365

P365 – Day 71 (Monday, what can I say)

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Busy day. It seems the children started off the day fighting and continued all morning. Is there something about Mondays that requires discord and grumpiness? I came downstairs to find Joshua and Rachel fighting over shower rights and privileges. Being mature and civilized, they carry on their arguments in quiet, but hostile, voices. It’s not very pretty and NOT what I would expect from such awesome, godly children. I’m ready to set the timer and regulate their showers if they can’t work it out in a cheerful, loving manner. I would cut them off from showers all together but that might end up punishing the rest of the family a bit too much. Whew, sniff, sniff.

Next came trouble with Daniel and David. They were arguing over cereal boxes or spoons or something significant like that. Sigh. Maybe it was pages of math – Daniel bragging on how many pages he does in his work and David saying how fast he can complete a lesson. It seems like 8:45 am is a little early to be crying for Calgon to take me away.

That leaves Sarah. I think she slept in and avoided the whole lot of us.

sarah sweetie

This afternoon Sarah found a black shawl that a friend bought her last year. I think she had originally resisted the piece because it didn’t have sleeves and she wasn’t sure how to wear it. Today she tried it on and insisted on wearing it all afternoon. When Sarah found out we were paying a visit to the friend who bought it for her, she was thrilled to show the outfit off.

sarah closeup

Somehow I completely forgot that I was watching Daniel’s friend from co-op this afternoon. Yikes! Talk about scatterbrained. Thankfully I was just pulling out from the Y parking lot when I remembered I was supposed to pick him up there. No time lost, no harm done. Then I agreed upon a time when Jennifer could come and get him, totally disregarding the fact that I was supposed to be someplace at the very time when I told her to come over. My goodness! I didn’t remember that one for another hour or so.

No doubt it was all the complaining and arguing amongst the children that drove these thoughts from my mind and rendered me completely disorganized and distracted (does it work to blame everything on the children?).

The weather was beautiful today so the children had a lovely time playing outside before lunch. I forced Daniel to do school with us (even though his friend was visiting). He was quite upset with me. Homeschool kids are spoiled! He has no idea what it is like to be on a classroom schedule with 20+ other children to work around. Of course, this meant David had a buddy for a good hour or so. He was more than delighted to have Daniel tied up and Adam all to himself.

david and adam

I had a great time praying with some other homeschooling moms this afternoon. I was even able to chat with my mom on the way there and back (gotta LOVE cell phones!!!). I was more organized than usual today (my total forgetfulness of the earlier part of the day behind me) and had dinner in the oven set to cook and instructions on the counter for Joshua to make rice. All I had to do was throw together a salad and some stir-fry veggies and dinner was set.

Enough rambling. That was our day, for the most part. Now I’m long on chatting and low on pictures. I know when to stop. Hopefully tomorrow will be another sunny day. You know things are getting a bit soggy when you find yourself reminding God, in your prayer time, about His promise not to flood the earth again. :)

Kathy

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Musings

Date Night Fun

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Date Night Choices:

1) Dinner and a movie out
2) DVD and popcorn at home
3) Theater tickets
4) Romantic walk through the park
5) Budget discussion complete w/Excel Spreadsheets

Oooo, ooo, raising hand for number five! I mean, it’s got everything.

  • Intrigue – What was this bill for again?
  • Romance – Ah, honey look, it’s the charge for my Valentine’s Day present
  • Comedy – How much money do we need each month? What a bunch of kidders!
  • Action – If we move the money around here and squeeze tight there we might be able to pay this bill.
  • Drama – Will the family survive the stresses and struggles of these financial difficulties? (insert emotional soundtrack here)

And so on. So really, two hours spent going over high finances is actually a very thrilling, date night appropriate activity. There wasn’t any popcorn served during the Budgetary Talks of March 2007 (although the children had some while enjoying a movie in the other room) but there was definitely laughter and the potential for some serious tears. Unlike other date nights, this one ended in prayer time. See how God redeems even the strangest of dates.

Maybe tomorrow night we can watch a movie and let the children work on finances.

Kathy

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David, Musings, Project 365

P365 – Day 70 (Comfort Food)

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What says comfort food to you?

Macaroni and Cheese
Chocolate cake with hot fudge sauce
Fried Chicken
Oatmeal
Chicken noodle soup
Cheeseburger and fries

In our house pancakes ranks up at the top of the list for cozy, settle in and watch a movie, sugary goodness, comfort food.

Warning – these pictures may shock and dismay!

david's pancakes

This boy can’t even wait to cut his food.

I found an article interviewing chefs and food writers on their favorite comfort foods. Their choices were a bit more elegant than our typical fare but sounded delicious. It was interesting to see how much food and family were interconnected.

We had fried eggs with our pancakes this evening. I was afraid the ravenous looks on the children’s faces would be too much for this sedate crowd so I didn’t take any pictures. I have to protect the gluttonous.

these are good!

No doubt he’s checking to see if there is room for more pancakes.

Since my change in eating the past few years, typical comfort foods are no longer part of my menu. When I have a bad day or the children (darling though they are) are testing my patience, chocolate and bowls of chips are not available to me as snack foods. I have to find other ways of dealing with my frustrations. It’s been rather eye-opening (and humbling / embarrassing) to see the patterns I have of turning to food in times of stress.

For the most part I am much happier to be off sugar and other ‘trigger’ foods, but occasionally I miss some of those good old comfort foods. Look at this face.

smiling boy

Nothing like white flour, white sugar, buttery goodness for dinner. Yum.

Tim reminded me of the words that Jesus spoke when he was hungry (and he was TRULY hungry after 40 days of fasting):

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4

Ah, the ultimate comfort food. During trying moments in life, when I feel overwhelmed and want to dive into the cookie jar, I do have something available to me that offers real solace, help, and peace – God’s Word. No calories or fat grams to worry about.

Kathy

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