Please click the link below to join me for this episode of the "Legacy Homeschool Reflections Podcast." On this episode we will be talking about focusing on the most important things this Christmas season. I pray you will be encouraged!
Hello Friends! I hope that you all had a blessed Thanksgiving celebration. We enjoyed a day on the farm with lots of yummy food and times of sharing what we all are thankful for. Well, we are full swing into the Christmas season now, and I wanted to make the topic of this post all about keeping Christ at the center of our Christmas celebrations.
The holidays seem to come and go so quickly, and it takes real intentionality to not get too busy to really worship our Savior and have our focus on what the holiday is really all about. I hope that the following ideas will be helpful and spur on some new ideas for you to keep Christ as the focal point of the season in your family. These are just ideas, and some of them may work for you one year and others another year. This list is not intended to make anyone feel pressure to check off a list. Instead it is just an offering of ideas you might pick and choose from.
1. Play Handel's Messiah and other sacred Christmas music in your house and car. Last year the children and I did a study on Handel's Messiah during our morning circle time, and it is incredible how much Biblical truth is packed into that musical work. It is worth really listening to it and noticing how Handel used so much Scripture in writing the Messiah.
2. Read Christ-centered Christmas books. I remember one Christmas, when I was still single, I was looking ahead and dreaming of one day being married with my own family which led me to purchase a Christmas picture book that I put back in hopes of one day having children to read it to. After marriage, I added to our Christmas book collection which has grown to be quite a stack now. I recommend reading books to your children that will remind them of the true reason for Christmas. You might check out a book like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Candy-Cane-Inspirational-Christmas/dp/0310212472
3. Avoid Being Too Busy Outside Your Home So That You Can Enjoy Peaceful Moments Inside Your Home. I think deep inside we all long for the simple moments of Christmas like sitting by the tree and enjoying the lights while sipping hot cocoa. What often happens is that many other opportunities are screaming at us and we end up running here and there and missing the quiet joys of just being home during the most wonderful time of the year. I think it is helpful to evaluate which activities are top on your list of priorities and leave room for rest, stillness, and togetherness at home.
4. I LOVE having nativity scenes in the house and outside. It is such a powerful reminder of WHO it is that we are celebrating this time of year. Years ago my husband began giving me individual pieces to our Willow Tree nativity scene as gifts. Over the years the collection has grown quite large, and it is by far one of my favorite decorations. It is always very special to pull it out each year.
Another nativity scene that we bring out is our Little People nativity. That set has been with us for many years and has provided much joy to little people year by year.
Last year we gave our youngest child the toddler version of the Playmobile nativity as well. I look forward to one day having these out for our grandchildren to play with.
5. Decorate your tree with ornaments that point to Jesus. When I was a little girl I had a star ornament with a picture of Jesus in the center. I think I made it at church, and it was very special to me. I had my own tradition that the Jesus ornament needed to be towards the top of the tree each year. These days the Christian book stores and Hobby Lobby offer many good ornaments and decorations that remind us of the birth of Christ.
A few years back I ordered a set of ornaments from Ever Thine Home called Adore Hymns. These ornaments beautifully display different Christmas hymns on each individual one. I LOVE them, and they also made a nice gift for our piano teacher. https://everthinehome.com/portfolio/adore-hymns-8-pack/
6. Provide your children with crafts centered around worshiping our Savior. Hobby Lobby usually has good options on pre-packaged nativity sets and such.
7. Make a paper chain with a Bible verse written on the inside of each link. Tear one link off each day of the month leading up to Christmas and read the verse as a family.
8. Serve and give to others in need. This is a good way of helping our children think of spreading the love of Jesus instead of just focusing on themselves throughout the season.
9. Read Aloud the Christmas Story as a Family. Reading the Christmas story is one of those sweet family traditions that unites the hearts of one generation to the next. It takes us back to days of old as we move into the future before us. It is God's eternal truth and is always good to hear again.
10. Go Through a Drive-Thru nativity display. Our family has enjoyed doing this, and it definitely puts the spotlight on the birth of our Savior. I think it is a great tradition as well as a Christmas Eve service. I know our children have enjoyed the services where we have gone and lit candles on Christmas Eve. It is a sweet time to just be still, reflect, and adore Jesus Who is the reason we celebrate.
I would love to hear how your family seeks to keep Jesus at the center of Christmas. I'm sure you also have some great ideas to share. May we all together kneel our hearts in adoration of Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Lord has really been working in my heart concerning this area of gratitude. In I Thessalonians 5:18 we are told to give thanks in everything.
In recent months I have been facing the frustration of waiting for direction and answers to several big decisions, and honestly it can be exhausting and discouraging to live in the realm of uncertainty. Through it all, however, I have been reminded to choose to give thanks. I have not mastered this, but I can say it is an area where I feel the Lord is pruning my heart attitudes and gently reminding me to choose to have a grateful heart. When I am feeling anxious, it is an opportunity to choose once again to trust the loving heart of my Father and embrace gratitude for all the blessings He has bestowed upon me.
For this post I thought it would be encouraging to look at what strong men and women of the faith have had to say on this topic of cultivating gratitude and thankfulness. I am going to start with sharing from Joni Erickson Tada, a lady who is well acquainted with suffering. If you have not heard, she recently received a second cancer diagnosis and will be undergoing surgery soon. You can read about it through this link: https://www.joniandfriends.org/blog/new-cancer-diagnosis/ Here are a few things that Joni shared:
“When I received the unexpected news of cancer from my oncological surgeon, I relaxed and smiled, knowing that my sovereign God loves me dearly and holds me tightly in His hands. What good is it if we only trust the Lord when we understand His ways? That only guarantees a life filled with doubts.”
“Jesus is ecstasy beyond compare and if new hardships draw us closer to Him, I'm more than content with it.” —Joni Eareckson Tada That, my friends, is the perspective of a lady who has cooperated with the Refiner's Fire in her life. That kind of faith and trust has come out of over fifty-one years of suffering and knowing first hand the faithfulness of the Savior. That kind of wisdom is rare and beautiful. Please join me in praying for Joni as she battles cancer for a second time. As I was growing up I remember my Daddy having a set of Charles Spurgeon books on his shelves. Back then I was drawn to the pretty pastel covers on these hardback books, but in recent years I have learned what great wisdom is contained in the writings of Spurgeon. I truly love and appreciate his writings and his beautiful way of showing us the beauty and magnitude of the Savior with the only reasonable response, out of believers, being to follow and obey our Lord Jesus Christ. Here is what Spurgeon said about gratitude: "He who would serve God must begin by praising God, for a grateful heart is the mainspring of obedience. We must offer the salt of gratitude with the sacrifice of obedience; our lives should be anointed with the precious oil of thankfulness. As soldiers march to music, so while we walk in the paths of righteousness we should keep step to the notes of thanksgiving. Larks sing as they mount, so should we magnify the Lord for his mercies while we are winging our way to heaven."
When I was a little girl my Sunday school teacher taught through a flannelgraph series on the life of Amy Carmichael, and ever since I have been challenged by her example and seen her as a hero of the faith. Here is something she said about trusting that Lord is working through every circumstance in our lives: "All the paths of the Lord are loving and faithful" Psalm 25:10 I have pondered this verse lately, and have found that it feeds my spirit. All does not mean "all - except the paths I am walking in now," or "nearly all - except this especially difficult and painful path." All must mean all. So, your path with its unexplained sorrow or turmoil, and mine with its sharp flints and briers - and both our paths, with their unexplained perplexity, their sheer mystery - they are His paths, on which he will show himself loving and faithful. Nothing else; nothing less."
- Amy Carmichael
If you know me very well then you probably know that I also greatly appreciate the life of Elisabeth Elliot. Here is a hugely convicting quote from her on choosing gratitude:
It is uplifting to read what great men and women of the faith have had to say about trusting the Lord and giving Him thanks in all circumstances. I hope this has been encouraging to your heart. May we all enter into Thanksgiving week thanking the Lord for His faithfulness, His mercy, and His loving kindness. Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
This week's podcast is about cultivating a heart of gratitude, and I share some of the blessings I am thankful for. I would love to hear from you; what are you grateful for? I hope you all have a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving week!
On this episode of the Legacy Homeschool Reflections Podcast I talk about recognizing what is creating feelings of being overwhelmed and some practical steps to help us manage our stress levels. I remind the listeners that our confidence must be rooted in Christ alone. I pray it will be a blessing to you!
If you are enjoying this podcast, I would so appreciate it if you would leave a quick review or star rating on iTunes. That goes a long ways in helping others to see the podcast. Have a blessed week leading up to Thanksgiving! God bless!
Fall colors, pumpkin spice, cooler days; what is there not to love about this beautiful season? I REALLY love fall, and this month I have been thinking about this song of thankfulness. I think it is so beautiful and conveys such an important message that my heart needs to dwell upon.
My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who bore my pain;
Who plumbed the depths of my disgrace
And gave me life again.
Who crushed my curse of sinfulness,
And clothed me with His light,
And wrote His law of righteousness
With power upon my heart.
My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who walks beside;
Who floods my weaknesses with strength
And causes fears to fly;
Whose every promise is enough
For every step I take,
Sustaining me with arms of love
And crowning me with grace.
My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who reigns above;
Whose wisdom is my perfect peace,
Whose every thought is love.
For every day I have on earth
Is given by the King.
So I will give my life, my all,
To love and follow Him.
In addition, I am so blessed to be the mother of my seven children. I grew up wanting to have a large family, and while I do not have a mega-sized family, I do have a large family and am very blessed. Each one of my seven blessings adds their own uniqueness to our family, and I love each one in their own special way. Truly the greatest treasures in this life are not things; they are relationships with the people we love. Each of my children has a huge part of my heart, and I am praying for them that the Lord will lead and guide them through the seasons of their lives. I am honored to be their mother. Yes, right now I am pouring out myself and often stretched thin with all the responsibility of raising seven children, but I cannot imagine anything more worthwhile to pour all my heart and energy into than raising the next generation for the glory of God.
In thinking of treasured blessings I am so grateful for the gift of a godly legacy my parents gave to me. They raised me to know the Lord Jesus from my earliest days and discipled me to follow Christ as I grew older. They used the powerful tool of home education to teach me the ways of the Lord as we would lie down, rise up, and walk along the way according to Deuteronomy 6:6-7.
Last year I published a book that tells the story of my journey through homeschooling in the early pioneer days of the homeschooling movement. The books goes on to share about my heart to disciple my own seven children as I carry this legacy of home education and family discipleship into the second generation. If you would like to read the book, you can find it through these links:
Moving onward in my list of things I am grateful for, I am so eternally grateful for the hope I have through my Savior Jesus Christ. I know that no matter what disappointments befall me, I am never without hope because the Lord will never leave me nor forsake me. My hope is in Christ alone for all my todays and all my tomorrows. As the old song says, "Many things about tomorrow I don't seem to understand, but I know Who holds tomorrow and I KNOW Who holds my hand."
I am reminded that I do not have to have all the answers for my tomorrows today, because I know Who holds my tomorrows and I trust His loving heart and His faithfulness towards me. The faithfulness of the Lord endures forever! He is the faithful God whose wisdom and love know no limits. His heart towards me is ever only always good!
I am also thankful for the ministry opportunities the Lord has given me in different seasons of my life. As a young lady I was heavily involved in church ministry through music, teaching, working with children, and much more. When I had a lot of young children, my ministry was primarily just to them. It was everything I could do to just meet the needs of a house full of children.
Last year, however, the Lord began opening doors for a new form of ministry. With the encouragement of my husband I published my book, began a podcast, and took on a few speaking engagements this year.
I grew up in a pastor's home and have always had a vision for being involved in kingdom work. Even though serving the Lord has looked different in various seasons of my life, it is always a joy to serve Him and share His goodness with others. Whether that be through playing music, teaching a lesson, caring for my children, or writing and speaking. Life is exciting when we are a part of promoting the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Life becomes boring when we just live for ourselves. It truly is a privilege to serve the Lord and share His truths first in my home and then beyond as the Lord opens doors.
These blessings would be toppers on my list, but I could go on with SO many other things that I am thankful for. Here is a sampling:
*Health
*Home
*Church
*Friends
*Family
*Beautiful Days
*Vacations in Ohio!
*Hymn Sings with Friends
*Learning to Can This Year
*Times Sewing with My Girls
*Hymns that encourage my heart
*Amazon Prime that makes my life easier (:
*The changing of seasons each year
That is just a start to the things I am grateful for! What are you CHOOSING to be thankful for as we enter into Thanksgiving next week? There are so many blessings even in the small things that we often take for granted. Will you share with me some of the things that are on your gratitude list? May the Lord help us all to cultivate more gladness and gratitude in our hearts so that we can be good representatives of His goodness to others.
Today's podcast is all about the topic of building a family library of virtuous books. I share about some of our journey in selecting books for our children as well as some book recommendations that you might enjoy in your home.
Hi Friends! We have had another interesting and busy week on the farm. In recent family news, I am happy to report that we finally said goodbye to our Samsung front loader washing machine. We have had a large capacity Samsung washer and dryer for at least eight years now, and we have been very rough on them. If you have a large family, then I do not need to explain how laundry multiplies in the larger than average family. I feel like we are running laundry all.the.time My report on our old Samsung set is that I have not liked it. We have had machine malfunctioning on a fairly frequent basis. I have had many times where either the washer or the dryer is out of commission for days before my husband can work on them. Whenever this happens our family laundry backs way up. In all fairness to Samsung, I do know that we have used our machines far more than average use, but even still, it has been a headache to deal with broken machines so often.
This past Monday I realized that we once again had another episode of the washing machine being out of commission. I waited all day for my husband to look at the machine, and when he was able to check things out he was not sure what the problem was. This time the machine would not even spray out water to start a new cycle. Basically it would not even start. At this point my husband decided that enough was enough with this machine and that we needed to get a new washing machine.
He did a little shopping at Lowe’s and found some good options that we were considering. The largest capacity washer that he found was a 5.3 cubic foot which is what we thought we would go with. On my errand day I wanted to look at the options, and then we were going to decide upon something.
That day I happened to need to make a return at JCPenney’s, and when I entered the store I noticed that Penney’s now has appliances. I thought it couldn’t hurt to look while I was there, and I was surprised to find that they had an LG 5.7 cubic foot washer. This is the biggest we have ever heard of or seen for a household washer. This machine was out of the price range we were considering, but the blessing is that Penney’s is running their Black Friday sale for all of November, and we were able to get forty percent off! This all turned out to be such a blessing! I am really thankful I had that return to make or I would have never thought to look at Penney’s. The Lord sometimes directs our steps in unexpected ways; what an encouragement it is to see His leading and provision.
We had our new washing machine delivered today, and we have a massive amount of laundry to catch up on. It does not take many days of ignoring the laundry for us to be under a mountain of dirty laundry. The good news is that this new washer holds more laundry than anything I have ever seen outside of a laundry mat. I am hoping we can fit a fair amount in our old Samsung dryer, but we may upgrade our dryer at some point as well. Based upon consumer reports, that I saw, it appears that far more people have been happy with their LG machines than with Samsung. I am really hopeful that this machine will be far more dependable for our family and that we will be able to accomplish more laundry in a shorter stretch of time. It was pretty amazing how much clothing I was able to push into the drum on my first load. I just hope we can cram it in our dryer when the cycle finishes.
While we are on the topic of laundry, I wonder what laundry systems and products you like to use? Here is my current favorite laundry soap. I buy this huge jug at Sam's, and of course I love anything that is lavender scented.
I have several children who are old enough to help with laundry now. Some of them take care of putting their own laundry in the machine and getting it going, and some of the younger ones help in other ways. I have plenty of helpers who can put clothing away. I have one daughter, who is not old enough to manage a lot of laundry on her own just yet, but she can definitely help some. She has a daily chore of spending twenty minutes in the laundry room each day after lunch. What she does in there is dependent upon what is needed that day. There are usually always clothes she can fold, she can straighten our shoe shelf, pick up the floor, sweep, or attend to other tasks. This is a good way of training her to be busy in the laundry room, and it helps me to know she will be working in there for that set time each day. We have a long ways to go in learning to better manage our laundry, but these are a few things we are doing, and we are also hopeful that this new washing machine is going to be a huge help in getting more clothes washed at once.
I am also thinking that getting the larger machine may give me new motivation to get a clothes line up. It would be great to take some of the clothes, from the huge loads going in the machine, and hang them up to dry outside. I may have to talk to my hubby about that one. :) Do you use a clothes line?
I would like to share one more thought before I close out this post on laundry. I was thinking about how laundry is just this cycle that goes round and round and seems to never end. It is one of those mundane tasks that seems meaningless but truly is not when done for the glory of God. I have heard some moms say that they like to pray for the members of their family as they fold their clothes, and that is certainly a way to redeem the time spent in the laundry room! Also, I have found that I enjoy listening to my Bible on my phone or a good podcast while working on the laundry. It makes the task seem less burdensome when I am feeding my heart with Biblical truths.
It is tempting to see some of these homemaking tasks like preparing meals and washing clothes as not of great significance and as a burden since they have to be done over and over again. I want to encourage you, Mamas, that our children are watching us; when they see us choose faithfulness in the mundane, they are learning lessons about sacrifice, perseverance, and faithfulness from our example. Much of life is made up of the mundane, but we can redeem the dirty and the daily for the glory of God when we, by God's grace, persevere in faithfulness. Nothing is small or insignificant when done for the glory of God.
Blessings to you and happy washing in your household!
