Christian Homekeeping

I had received 2 free issues of Home School Enrichment magazine and I'm finding so much quality material that I'm actually highlighting a lot.  They have been such a blessing to me for encouragement in this offensive lifestyle of homeschooling but there are also things in there for the non-homeschooler.

One of the articles was, "Raising Kids to Stand Alone."  It is something that a lot of modern parents seem to forget to teach their children and is the cause of compromise, not only in parents and children, but in the church as well.  If we never learn to stand alone, we will cave into the norm or the crowd.  If we never teach our children, they will follow suit.  I like how the author of the article talks about rare people and gives us 4 categories:

1. Rare Person #1 - born-again believer in Jesus Christ.
2. Rare Person #2 - born-again believer in Jesus Christ who knows WHAT he believes.  Too few Christians today are able to explain to others what they believe in critical areas of life.
3. Rare Person #3 - born-again believer in Jesus Christ who knows what he believes AND is willing to stand up for it.
4. The Rarest of Them All - born-again believer in Jesus Christ who knows what he believes, is willing to stand up for what he believes, AND is willing to STAND ALONE if necessary!

The son of the creators of Doorposts (from what I understand) wrote this to his parents:


Thank you, Daddy and Mama, for purposing to teach us at home, for following through, and for pouring out your lives for us. You have been faithful to the calling God put before you.

Thank you for reading the Bible to us every day.

Thank you for reading us hundreds of books.

Thank you for choosing to build a family library instead of buying new cars, expensive home decor, or big boy toys.

Thank you for staying up late correcting our schoolwork.

Thank you for helping us with math problems (even when you couldn't remember how to do them either). Benjamin turned out an engineer, so I think you did okay.

Thank you for turning off the computer and making us play outside.

Thank you for feeding our interests and fanning the flames of "delight-directed study."  We learned LOTS about history and about God's creation without knowing it was part of "school."

Thank you for investing in our music lessons.

Thank you for allowing us to make messes (and for teaching us to clean them up).

Thank you for sorting through curriculum each year to find what worked best for us.

Thank you for writing our curriculum when you couldn't find what you needed. God has used your work to serve many other families.

Thank you for pointing us to other godly men and women for more advice and training when you'd given all you could give.

Thank you, Daddy, for doing cool stuff with us like falling trees and building fences, and for teaching me how computers work.

Thank you, Mama, for teaching each of us to write well. That must have been hard.

Thank you for not giving up.

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. - Galatians 6:9 KJV

These days flattery wins friends, truth begets hatred. - Terence

Remember when in this post, I made the suggestion to ask your child to draw what they remember you doing most?  Well, I was a bit hesitant myself in asking my child because I was afraid of what she might draw lol.  I took the plunge too and then cried when I saw what her memories of me are:



That is Katie and I in the kitchen, she is on the stool cooking and I'm holding her hand she said.  I'm not sure why I look like Tammy Faye LOL but I don't wear any makeup hahah.  =0

She said if something happened to me and I was gone, she would remember me teaching her how to cook and us smiling and having fun.  This is what I was hoping for, these are the memories I want her to have!  Sometimes we feel so inadequate in ourselves as mothers because of our many failures and flaws but it is good to know that God can make up the difference!

Women that love their children like this that they will even homeschool being a single mother, really inspire me!  I say kudos to these women and the love that is shown by their actions!

This is a poem I came across today from a single homeschooling mother and it was so touching:

Has anyone watched this documentary?  I saw the trailer and read this article and it makes sense.  Here are some quotes from the article:

Is God not capable of providing the English-speaking people a version of His Word that is correct in its entirety?  Are any of the many versions today inspired?  Is there no inspired version?  Do we just have to pick and choose?  If one Bible says homosexuality isn't so bad but the KJV condemns it, do we pick and choose which we like better?  Is it really ok if some verses are only different by a few words?  Did God inspire all the versions?

I'm here to tell you today that the 1611 King James Version of the Bible is the authoritative, inspired, Word of God!  How do you come to this conclusion?  Well, there are many factors involved but the main one is that God Himself bears witness with the KJV and there is power in its words that other versions have none of.  It is the only one in the English language that is correctly based of the original Hebrew and Greek and has NO errors of God's Words and meanings.  God truly inspired the translation of King James.

". . . ye have PERVERTED the words of the living God. . ."

Jeremiah 23:36

Here are many of the factors proving this is the inspired Bible for the English language:

1. God is capable of giving us ONE translation that is Holy and Inspired.  The Spirit of Christ in you will enable you to understand the Bible God inspired for you.  
2. Every English version compared to the KJV shows their heresy as they are FULL of error.  They take out the virgin birth, deny the deity of Jesus and are inspired by Satan himself.  They deny the very doctrines that God established and therefore they can not be God's Word, they are counterfeits.
3. Every other version doesn't say we are washed in Christ's blood!  http://www.av1611.org/wash.html  
4. The NIV removes the blood that is our redemption The KJV reads, "In whom we have redemption THROUGH HIS BLOOD, even the forgiveness of sins:" The NIV reads, "In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
5. The NIV does not condemn homosexuality - it is the ultimate non-offensive version for homosexuals as they are only offenders and the word sodomite is taken out altogether.
6. The NIV doesn't condemn Satan to hell, only to the grave - ISAIAH 14:15: The King James Bible condemns Lucifer to hell: "Yet thou shalt be brought down to HELL . . ." The NIV does NOT condemn Lucifer to HELL! The NIV reads, "But you are brought down to the GRAVE. . ." We all go to the GRAVE! Why doesn't the NIV want Satan in hell?
7. We could go on for weeks of all the heresies and errors in all these other versions but the KJV is clearly the only inspired Word of God as it contains no error from the originals.

God had touched my heart in a recent ladies prayer meeting concerning my daughter.  I thought she needs to be in Girl Scouts and then found out that was a godless organization now thanks to James Dobson coming out against it.  Then I came across American Heritage Girls and thought this was it!  However, there were some things they did (dances, swimming, worldly "Christian" music) that I just didn't agree with.

So I started praying and asking God what I should put my daughter in and He asked me why I felt I needed to?  She interacts with other Christian families' children 5 times a week at church and then attends music lessons once a week in a house full of 6 kids that she plays with after the lessons - why does she need more "social" time!?  It was clear to me as I had hit roadblocks in enrolling my daughter in more "outings" that God wanted me to teach her to be content with church, prayer meeting and homeschool activities and not training her to be out of the house so much.  After all, I'm training up a homekeeper not a gadabout!

Look around you, so many women that claim to be homekeepers are everything but!  They are out of the house so much that they bring a reproach and blasphemy to the gospel by their idleness and going about from house to house being busybodies.  They aren't help meets to their husbands, they are quite the opposite as they tear down their home with their idleness.  Homemade dinner is the last thing on their mind - its all about convenience so she can hang out with yet another busybody or some even stay at home but are not keeping the home because they are full of idleness on the internet and social 'networking'.  Anything to get her out of her house and her husband and children visually suffer!

Why, would I want to train my daughter to be out of the house too?  She isn't going to be in social groups as a grown woman, she is going to be busy with her husband, children and home and church and prayer meeting is ENOUGH time outside the home.  If I spend more than 2 days outside my home during the weekdays, I don't get my responsibilities done.  So why would I seek ways, excuses and places to go to take myself away from the one place I'm called by God to be in?  I shouldn't and don't and neither will I teach my daughter thus.

My daughter loves being home as I remind her this is her calling as she becomes a woman and she must give her all to it.  If I don't live it before her I count myself as a waste.  However, if I live it before her, I'm a benefit and she will forever remember my testimony!

She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. ~Pro 31:27-28

Listen, son; I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye, Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!"

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came Up the road, I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before you boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive - and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding - this was my reward to your for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing but a boy - a little boy!"

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.
by W. Livingston Larned

Everyone gets 24 hours each day.  Some do SO much in those 24 hours and others waste and squander those 24 hours.  What do you do?  Are you redeeming the time and doing those things that are needful and top priority?  Or rather are you doing things that really have no value on your priority list but have choked out the needful things in your life?

What if we, as women, all stopped and evaluated our time?  What would we find?  Would we find hours spent online reading, playing games, facebooking/twittering and other things that consume our time?  Are those things that you value?  Name them and make a list of what you do online and ask yourself how those things benefit you and your family.  Are they helping you become a better person?  Are they replacing what really matters in your life?  Does God and the family have to go on the back-burner because you just have to read another Facebook update?  Just who is really your God; your idol; the one you worship the most?

I refuse to let the computer and the internet take place of God and my responsibilities.  When I don't spend time in God's word daily and prayer talking to Him and I haven't given myself to my family's needs - what is taking my time?  Every now and then I've learned to stop myself and re-evaluate my life and my priorities.  Normally, if I find I don't have time to make something homemade, all I have to do is look at what I'm doing with my time and see what I'm putting before giving a wonderful, healthy homemade meal to my family.  I have counted at times, reading blogs or other time wasters online more important than God and my family because I gave my time to them more.  That is not acceptable in my life!

If you were to ask your child or children to draw a picture of what they remember you doing most, what would it be?  Would it be you in the kitchen in an apron whipping up something special for your family?  Would it be you teaching your child or playing with them?  Or would it rather be you sitting down at your computer?  Why not ask your child to draw that picture of what they see you doing the most of?  It just may be a turning point for your life.

What kind of legacy are we leaving behind to be remembered of?  What do you have to SHOW for your life?  What are your skills, talents and things you have accomplished in your life?  What will your children, husband and family and friends say about you when you die?  Will you be remembered as a mother devoted to her family or will you be remembered as a woman who all she ever did was sit around and do nothing?  What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?

We can be so busy with the wrong things and I've not only seen it in my life but others.  Some are so busy that they tell me they don't have time to teach their children, they don't have time to make homemade products and they don't have time to keep their house clean.  I'm wondering - what in the world are they doing with their time!? How can I and many, many others homeschool for hours a day, make homemade meals, keep our house clean and still find time to learn new things when they can't do even one of those?  There is nothing "special" about me or others that do such, we all have the same hours in a day.  The answer is simply that they are busy with the wrong things.

I just put this on our Motivated Mentality blog, it is an old post but one that is worth repeating:


Father,

Help me take an honest look at what legacy I'm leaving behind.

Will anyone be different because of the way I've lived my life?

Will anyone be closer to you because of the way I've used my time?

Will someone have eternal life because I've introduced them to Jesus?

Will anyone have hope because of seeing Jesus in me?

Father, the older I get (and the more loved ones who leave this life)the more I realize how short my time is.

I don't want to waste this precious life You've given me.

I know I will stand before You someday and will be accountable for how I used the time You gave me.

I don't want to wait for someday. Show me now, while I still have time to readjust my priorities.

Is too much of my time spent on collecting things that won't even be a thought a hundred years from now?

Do I waste hours on needless worry, guilt and fear?

Am I listening too much to the temptations of this world or do I recognize them quickly and move on?

What portions of my day are spent on loving You, on serving others in Your love, or on myself?

Am I spiritually balanced?

Will you be pleased with the way I'm spending my life?

Am I keeping my focus on You?

Help my legacy be a life which points to a joyful life with You, so it will last long after everyone has forgotten who I am.

Author Unknown