Count Your Blessings

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! 

https://legacyhomeschoolreflections.blogspot.com/2018/11/legacy-homeschool-reflections-podcast_19.html

Encouragement for the Overwhelmed

  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!

https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-legacyhomeschoolreflections-d3zzd/Dealing+with+Feelings+of+Overwhelm+-+11_12_18%2C+3.43+PM.mp3

Cultivating a Thankful Heart

  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.

Stuart Townend & Keith Getty Copyright © 2004 Thankyou Music (Adm. by CapitolCMGPublishing.com excl. UK & Europe, adm. by Integrity Music, part of the David C Cook family, songs@integritymusic.com)

    I confess that thankfulness and gratitude do not always come naturally to me.  It is far too easy to let my thoughts be consumed with pressures, decisions, cares, and fears.  Thanksgiving is a beautiful opportunity for us to be intentional in dwelling on the faithfulness of our Lord and remembering His hand in our past, our present and our futures.

  I certainly think that thankfulness and gratitude are positions of the heart that we much choose.  It can be so helpful to make a practice of counting our blessings and remembering what God has done.  

  Sometimes it does a lot for our attitudes if we just start thinking through our blessings and possibly even writing them down.  When I think of the blessings I am grateful for, I certainly feel blessed to have been given the husband the Lord gave me.  I prayed many years for a godly husband, and my husband, Matt, is God's gracious and kind gift to me.  He is a sacrificial and loving husband and blesses our family with his fun loving personality and sacrificial love.  

  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:

https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Reflections-Homeschooled-Homeschooling-Mama/dp/1973737825/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542054664&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=reflections+of+a+homeschooled+homeschoolingmmaa

https://www.sonyelisechristianbooks.com/product/legacy-reflections-of-a-homeschooled-homeschooling-mama/

https://www.familyrenewal.org/store/product/homeschool-support-bundle-76-00-value-only-54-95/

https://graceandtruthbooks.com/product/legacy-reflections-of-a-homeschooled-homeschooling-mama-ruth-adams/

  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.  

How We Have Been Building Our Own Family Library Through the Years

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.  

https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-legacyhomeschoolreflections-d3zzd/Building+a+Family+Library+of+Virtuous+Books++-+11_6_18%2C+9.50+AM.mp3

When the Washing Machine Will Go No Longer

  

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!