Messages for Mamas

I posted this on my Facebook status, but wanted to elaborate here.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Colossians 3:23-24

I think we all (including myself) occasionally need this reminder. When I am serving my family, I'm serving the Lord and I need to walk through every task throughout every day, not as if it's a burden, but as if it is a privilege to serve my Lord through serving my family. When I first learned this lesson as a young Mom, there would be days that I would repeat to myself over and over (usually while doing the much dreaded task of laundry) that "When I'm serving my family, I'm serving the Lord." I think that often the attitude in which we serve our family is very indicative of the attitude we also have while serving the Lord. Especially when He asks of us things that we don't necessarily want to do.

"Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless." Philippians 2:14-16

Some translations use the word grumbling in place of complaining. I think it's easy to get frustrated with changing diapers, washing clothes, cleaning a room for the 2nd and 3rd time in a day, taking care of meals, paying bills....the list could go on and on. It's a LOT of work to be a Mama. What we have to remember, though, is that just like any other ministries (and maybe even more important than others), the ministry of motherhood, is one that He has called us to. Being a Mama and wife is a calling. When we walk through life grumbling and complaining about the tasks that are involved as a wife and mother, we are complaining about the very thing that God has called us to.

"As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right." 1 Samuel 12:23

While the previous verse is speaking about praying, it also serves as a reminder that when we sin against others it's as if we are directly sinning against God. That means that when you've snapped at your children or your husband, you've snapped (yelled, etc.) at the Lord.

By the same token, Matthew 25:40 says, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’" Which also means that all of the good things we do for our family, we do unto the Lord. When we serve our family with gladness, we serve the Lord with gladness. I heard a definition several years ago that really stuck with me. It was that Obedience is doing what you're told, when you're told with a right heart attitude. I believe I read that in relation to parenting, but I've learned over the years that often I need the very lessons that I'm trying to teach to my children. If I raise my children with a rotten attitude, have I truly been obedient to the Lord. Is that really what He was asking of me?

The Word of God also tells us to "Choose you this day, whom you will serve..." Joshua 24:15

We must die to our flesh (our selfish selves) daily and with our attitudes we make a choice who we will serve each day. Who will you serve today?


P.S. If you ever get a lesson that proves to you that you're doing things wrong, handling things in the wrong way, it is soooooo important to remember that Conviction comes from the Lord to lovingly teach us to walk in His ways. Grab those lessons and learn from them. However, if those lessons make you feel guilty, like you're not good enough or make you feel like a failure, remember that guilt is not from the Lord and it can often be bondage that keeps you from being able to move forward. Take on the lesson, learn from it, ask the Lord to forgive you and work your way to walking out what you've learned. Remember that we don't learn everything overnight. We don't expect our children just to hop up and walk one day, it takes practice and little by little you will get there.

We Need Each Other

I learned a long time ago how much we Moms need each other. We need each other to be honest about how hard this job is. We need each other to bounce ideas off of and to hear what has and hasn't worked for you. We need to sharpen each other (Proverbs 27:17). We need to hear what everyone is cooking. How you're saving money. We need to know that we're not alone. 7 years ago the Lord showed me that my primary ministry would be to other women. He's provided small ways here and there for me to walk that out. Within the last year I have longed to walk in the purpose in a more tangible way. A friend and I sort of resurrected a group within our homeschool covering to minister to and gather with other homeschool Moms of elementary aged (and below) children. Yet I have still longed for a deeper way to fulfill that call within my own church body. I'm so thankful that God has asked us to serve Him and our church as the directors over the early childhood department (K5 and below) at our church. We love working with the children, working alongside each other and very often he opens doors for me to encourage another Mom or to introduce them to a new friend, etc. We have enjoyed this season so much and have been so blessed by the opportunity to serve. I am so excited to share with you, that the door has opened for me to step further into ministering to women, especially Moms. Our church will be starting a Mom's Group. Our official kickoff will be in November. We'll meet once in November and once in December and then pray about whether or not we will expand it to be more often after the first of the year. I will more or less be there to facilitate and plan. We may have a devotion or discuss a certain topic or have a guest speaker, but our plan biggest goal is to provide an atmosphere that will allow the Moms of our church to get a little break while getting to know other Moms. Just wanted to share with you all how excited I am about this next step and also ask you to commit it to prayer. I don't want to walk through anything that He's not right in the middle of. (Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.. Psalm 127:1) So, please pray that I will walk out His will and that He will send the women that need this and that they will be blessed and strengthened by it.

Doing Some Scheduling

I've been revamping our schedule a bit. I do this at the beginning of every new school year. I don't quite have a full schedule in place, but I do have a new chore system in place and a new laundry schedule. The chore schedule is going to take a longer post, but I wanted to go ahead and share how we're changing our laundry system.

We have a good sized laundry room and we've always just taken all of the clothes there, sorted them and washed when we washed. Some system, huh... Well, we are soon to be remodeling that laundry room and moving all of my sewing and embroidery down there. This is what necessitated the change, along with the fact that the aforementioned lack of a system was not working. From now on everyone will have a hamper in there rooms and there will also be one in the bathroom. So, here's the schedule:

Monday - Kelsi and Keeli
Tuesday - Mom and Dad
Wednesday - Bathroom Hamper (Mainly towels and washcloths from the bathroom and kitchen)
Thursday - Mason
Friday - bedding

We've also been using Carbona Color-Catchers (we use Shout color-catchers sometimes, too, but prefer Carbona). They work great and are enabling us to sort less. We still bleach our whites and won't put a dark or red new item in with lighter ones. If it's my laundry day it's my responsibility to complete all of my laundry from start to finish (Wash, dry, fold and put away). Mason is 9 and for the most part is able to do his laundry alone. I will occasionally supervise, but for the most part he's on his own. Everyone will wash their own bedding on bedding days and on hamper day the girls will put the clothes in the washer, then move to the dryer. Mason will take them out of the dryer. I will fold and we'll all put away. I feel certain this is going to work beautifully. I have no idea why I didn't think of it before! What's your laundry system?

Homeschool Curriculum 2011-2012

It's late, so this will be a fairly quick post. First I'd like to just tell you a brief philosophy of our homeschool. I desire for my children to be prepared for whatever God calls them to do, so it is important to me that they get a good education, but I homeschool, primarily, for Spiritual reasons. I desire to spend as much time as I can using life lessons to teach my children to walk with the Lord. That being said we are not and probably will never be a family that "schools" all day long. I look for curriculum that has a lot of good information that can be used in a short amount of time. There is one primary exception to that this year and I'll explain that as I go.

Kelsi and Keeli's 8th grade curriculum
Teaching Textbooks Math (This is our exception. It takes my girls anywhere from 1-2 hours to do one lesson. However, it's a VERY thorough curriculum, takes all of the guesswork out of it and my girls really like it.)

Notgrass American History (We will be using this for Literature, History and Bible. However, we are pairing this with a presidential study and will be taking two years to go through this with that study.)

Apologia General Science

Wordsmith

Easy Grammar Ultimate

Vocabulit

Keeli is also still working through AVKO Sequential Spelling. She LOVES it and we have seen an AMAZING improvement in her spelling ability since we started. If you have a struggling speller, I highly recommend trying this.

The girls are taking a break from ballet this year. They LOVE ballet and are very sad to have to take a break, but the karate studio that housed their homeschool dance classes was flooded during the April 27th tornadoes. This caused the teacher to have to move her classes to a farther away town and move it to a day and time that was just impossible for us. We are hoping she will be able to move back next year. However, it's enabling us to spend some time doing things the girls have been wanting to do. They are going to be learning to cook more and bake more as well as do more sewing and crafting, so we're very excited for the extra time.

Mason's 4th Grade Curriculum

If you didn't already know, I'll be transparent for a moment, ALL of my children read late. I read a book in my early years of homeschooling entitled "Better Late than Early" and boy am I thankful I did. I tried to teach them to read at the "normal" time and it just seemed that I hit brick wall after brick wall, but then there would be a random light bulb moment and suddenly they would be interested and everything would just click. For Kelsi it was the middle of 2nd grade, for Keeli it was much later, due to her dyslexia and auditory processing issues and thank you Jesus, Mason has FINALLY decided that it's time. He's having major revelation every single day! Just wanted you to understand why he has some of the curriculum that he has.

Explode the Code workbooks (Last year we did the online version and he enjoyed it, but it advances you based on what it considers the students readiness. That decision is based on accuracy and speed. Mason was very accurate, but slow and could not get past book 2, so this year we are back to the workbooks and he's flying through them.)

Spectrum Sight Word Workbooks

A Reason For Hanwriting

Modern Curriculum Press Math

Modern Curriculum Press Plaid Phonics

MCP Spelling Workout

He will be joining the girls for History and will be doing Unit Studies for Science.

I don't have our schedule finished yet, but I'm thinking this schedule should take Mason 2-3 hours per day and the girls 3-4 hours.