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Books and Bikes

Posted in Learning at Home, My Children, My Thoughts with tags , , , , on Tuesday, June 15, 2010 by Becky

When the heavy load of school time is over, then he goes and takes out his calligraphy kit, his notebook and spends hours drawing, writing, inventing.

He goes to the bookshelf and takes out two books, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci  ,who will be (I can already tell), his best friend this summer and a huge one full of Leonardo’s paintings and drawings, and he enjoys this time;  and I see the fruit of a Classical Education at hand. He is following the masters, he has been exposed to them, he knows he can find the best teachers in the books around our home, and he enjoys doing so.

But his best teacher is his Dad, and  now his little sister comes and asks him to  ride her bike with him, he agrees, he has learned this from Dad. He always comes to him.

So Big-brother comes and teaches her to ride her pink bike without the little training wheels, and she smiles, and he does too. And behind the scenes, my older daughter captures the moment, she loves to do so. She comes out from the living room where she has been, behind the piano trying to play by ear a new favorite piece, and grabs the camera and follows the wheels, the smiles, the feet, the joy.

I smile, I have learned by God’s grace to love the simple things that happen in our daily lives. I am grateful, for there could be no other better place for me than this, my home, and God has given me grace to understand that.

I am excited that our summer is here; summer in our home is not meant to put the books away, but to take out our favorite ones again; summer is here and it is about enjoying our children’s play and capturing the moments and keeping them in our hearts.

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A Mom in the Making

Posted in A Song to Sing, Just Us with tags , , , , , on Saturday, May 8, 2010 by Becky

It was us promising to love each other forever, until death due us apart. Two sinners entering into a God honoring covenant. Two forgiven sinners ready to live a life of sanctification together.

And God blessed us with children, one by one they came into our lives and we are all now walking in the Covenant, loving our Maker.

It’s been almost 18 years, and I still wonder at the miracle:

I did become a wife and a Mom.

I longed for this since my childhood, and the Lord heard me and answered me.

Today I am still a Mom in the making, and I am amazed; God uses sinner women like me, washes them and uses them to teach His Word to little souls, to nurture lives that will live eternally.

Isn’t God’s Grace incomprehensible?

This Mother’s Day weekend, I will be reading Praise Her in the Gates by Nancy Wilson because I am still a Mom in the making.

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Teaching the Word of God to Our Children- part IV-

Posted in Guests, Learning at Home, The Word with tags , , , on Friday, May 7, 2010 by Becky

My sister is here again, with her last post on Teaching the Word of God to our Children. Thank you Sis, for all the encouragement, the reminders, and the time that you have put on this. I love you!

As I was thinking on my last topic on the Importance of Teaching God’s Word to Our Children, all I could think was this: it is important because God commands it. Because if we treasure knowing God’s Word as the most valuable thing we posses, then we would naturally want them to know it and treasure it.

Obedience is better than sacrifice. We can sacrifice all our vacations, expensive clothes, fancy meals at restaurants, to be able to send our kids to the best school in town, but if the Word is not preached constantly… is there a benefit? Our kids need to hear the Word, read it, live it and see it through us every day.

We need to put our energy in the heart of our kids. Trust in the Lord and not in our own understanding but acknowledge Him in all our ways.

When they go to church, they need to learn how to behave, to not wonder with their eyes and  to pay  attention to what is being preached, we should then, ask them questions about the sermon. When having a family devotion, we should expect them to take part. we also need to teach them to pray at the youngest possible age (if they can talk, they can pray); so teach them to pray often before they start their day, before a test, if they are upset, and also when they are happy. Teach them to go to the Lord for every need and want so that they will know how to live by faith and have their prayers answered.

Teach them during school, to be teachable, to work hard in all their subjects, and use every opportunity to show them their God and marvel at Him. Teach them to be respectful of their authorities; when they cheat, point them to Christ, point them to repentance, to the importance of learning how  to resist temptation and equip them to learn how to avoid the path that seems at times irresistible to take.

Explain them your own temptations, your weaknesses, how much you need a Saviour, how He saved you, how merciful He was with you. Tell them about the love He has for you, help them to pray for you and you pray for them.

Help them to understand the fear of the Lord, and how they will be truly happy if they are friends with Christ. Guide them with their friendships so that they choose those that are friends with Christ. Explain them of habits that they take at a young age and how it will affect them when they are old. Explain them the importance of reading the Bible, and how there is no other Book like it.

Pray for them every day. And know that God does as He pleases and shows mercy to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.

We need God’s grace to raise these children, we need His wisdom and the fruits of the Spirit to be evident in us every day, and we need His work in our lives so that we can show Jesus Christ to them.

Norma.

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Marriage and Wine

Posted in A Song to Sing, Just Us with tags , , , on Saturday, May 1, 2010 by Becky

Marriage is a gift from God, and so is wine. Both are symbols of God’s blessing throughout the Bible.

Marriage and wine, both are costly, and both should get better over time.

We have learned to invest in our marriage, we travel together and leave the kids behind, because we know that we need to invest in our vineyard. There are times when you need to go away with your spouse and work hard in your land, you need to pull together weeds and after a long day of work, sit and drink from the fruit of your labor, from the richness of your marriage. From the fruit of your vineyard…

Keep on reading here

I am posting this from my iPhone!
I am sorry is not pretty.

Have a joyous weekend!

Becky

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Teaching the Word of God To Our Children -part III-

Posted in Guests, Learning at Home with tags , , , on Friday, April 30, 2010 by Becky

As you read this my Sister and I are enjoying a God-given opportunity to be together. To laugh and talk and enjoy long conversations.

This is the third part of this series,
the first part can be found here.

Teaching our kids is a great job given to us by God himself. He gave them to us, He entrusted their education to us! And very often that is an overwhelming thought because we see in us many faults, many mistakes, much sin, and our own inabilities while being expected to do a good job!

Now I am asked by God to train these children so that they are industrious, honourable men and women, godly in all that they do, follow God’s commands and treasure His law in their heart,all these by showing Jesus Christ to them, being a model of God’s character in me,and that through my marriage they will see a model of God and His church, and when they learn about Christ, they can understand it easily, because they had a good model to follow.

If this is not overwhelming enough, I do not know what it is. But it should be overwhelming at times; it should make us realize that it is not by what we do or not do, but because of God’s mercies. It should bring us to our knees every day crying to God for his strength, for His wisdom, for him to be the One teaching our kids and that we might be just an instrument useful to Him.

It demands from us to trust and obey, to lean on Him and to die to self every day; and to be a witness to those inside our house who really know us… the good, the bad and the ugly. There is an opportunity to live what we preach with an audience that learns from watching. They will study if our priorities are what we say they are.

Teaching our kids should be a challenge and a great passion because with God’s grace, we have the privilege to preach the gospel of Christ every day to our children and bring them up in the fear of the Lord.

What is the purpose of education? Is it to create moral kids that know how to behave? Or do we teach our children with their souls in mind? Which books are your kids reading? Which clothes are they wearing? How do they honour their parents? Which movies do you allow at home? (And I’m not talking just about secular movies, but even those that called themselves “Christian”) Do you teach them to always be on guard about their souls? Do you teach them to search their hearts? Do you teach them God’s doctrine? Do they know why they believe what they believe? Do you teach them history with God in mind? What about Science? Can they defend their faith against someone who wants to seduce their faith? Do your kids know their own temptations? Do they know yours?

Christian education needs Christian parents.

We need to know who Christ is; we need to study good doctrine if we want to fight the lust of our own flesh! The Lord has to be our passion, our desire, our most precious treasure. The more we know Christ, His doctrine of justification, sanctification, forgiveness, sin, death, resurrection, total depravity, irresistible grace, election, mortification of sin, holiness, know the Old Testament , understand  the doctrine of covenant theology, baptism, the sacraments, God’s character, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, His love, His patience, His judgement,… There is so much to learn!

“Knowledge without repentance will be a torch to light men to hell.”1 As we teach our kids all these, we are to teach them repentance and pray that God will grant it to them. We can yell, scream and cry all we want, but is God alone who can change a heart and give it life. The more they know, the less excuse they will have before God.  Do they know that? What a great privilege to be born in a family where the word is taught, but also great responsibility comes with it.

Do we want godly children? Let’s be godly parents!

Norma


1. Thomas Watson

The picture shown above is from a great
housewear shop in Boston, MA

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Teaching Our Children God’s Word.-Part II-and When Light Meets Daily Life IV

Posted in Guests, Learning at Home with tags , , , on Friday, April 23, 2010 by Becky

Friday is here, and so is my sister. This is the second part of this series; part I is here.

So grab your cup of tea and enjoy while you read.

The images on this post are also from Claire B.
Light meets our Daily Life...
His perfect light meets us even in the kitchen, over some muffins,
and a godly conversation with our children.

Teaching our kids God’s Word, is a great privilege which we often take for granted; many often figure that our children’s spiritual growth will come out from Sunday School and that as long as they are familiar with Bible stories (Noah’s Ark, Daniel in the lion’s den, Jonah, Adam and Eve, David and Goliath…) and have a favourite one, we are doing well. Oh! How little we value God’s Word! How little we treasure His law! And how little we fear His teachings!

If we could focus in teaching our kids God’s Word, read it reverently, and when we pray, pray focusing on what we are saying, studying faithfully, and asking Him to open our eyes and the eyes of our kids to understand what we read, to change our hearts, and to see Jesus Christ throughout the Bible as the only hope for us. Many read as a habit, routine or even as a hope that if I do all that I need to do, I’ll be good with God. Do we read to our kids, not just the story of Daniel as a cool story with lions in it with angels and a great miracle? But a story where we see God’s sovereign hand throughout the whole book, teaching us that God does as He pleases, and He bends the heart of whomever He wants to bend. We can see God’s character, God’s mercy, God’s providence, God’s wrath, God’s forgiveness… Much about God’s character is shown to us through each of these stories.

We see Jesus Christ, the promise the hope.

Why not teach our kids ALL about God? We are often afraid that they are too young and that they may not understand. But they understand! They need those truths now that they are young; they need to understand them now and anchor them in their hearts. We are obliged to do so if we profess to be Christian parents. They need to fear God and be wise.  We need to teach them stories written in the Bible like the one in 2 Kings 2:23-25 to understand the dangers of mocking others. We need to teach them that Jonah, was not a fantasy story, but was real, the people he was asked by God to preach to, were sinners; and we can see God’s sovereignty, God’s judgement, God’s faithfulness, His patience, His love, His wrath! God does as He pleases! We can trust this God in the Bible and teach our kids, that they too can trust Him.

We need to show them who God is in everything we do and say. We need to be a witness of Christ inside our doors, before we are a witness to the world. We need to live Christianity in the secret of our house if we want our kids to follow Christ. If the world is more persuasive than their religion, they will follow. But when they know Christ, love His laws, know the doctrine to defend their faith; then Christ, His love and His forgiveness will be far more persuasive for them than any treasure the world may offer.

That is why, for as long as we are parents, we need to bring our kids to the cross, bring them to the knowledge of Him who died for them, explaining their need and dependence in Him. Forget for once about self-esteem and teach them to find their value in God alone, in that sovereign Lord who does as He pleases. They will know who you are talking about. They will know that Lord is in control of all and their souls can rest in Him. If they are good at something is because God made them good, therefore that must use that for God’s glory. If they lack abilities, also the Sovereign God gave them that so that they will not boast in themselves, but go to Him and ask.

We need to bring them to Christ, to the cross and to their need and absolute dependence on Him every day, every hour, every minute of the day.

May God give us grace to live our lives showing all that Christ is to our family.

Norma.

***************************************************************

Tomorrow, Claire B. will be here. She is the photographer, the eye and soul behind the camera on this week’s posts.

This blog entry can now be read at the new blog.

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An Image, A Memory, A Life Lesson

Posted in My Thoughts, On The Go with tags , , , on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 by Becky

This place where life seems so quiet, where life seems to happen in slow motion, is one of my favorite places which we have visited in the world.

San Miguel de Allende, México.

The colonial style of the architecture, so many beautiful colors, incredible doors, the rocky and narrow roads. It is like walking in a painting.

People fill the market  square, the plaza around the Cathedral, the balloon vendor is there with kids running behind him; the poor begs and, the rich gives him some coins. The woman with rough hands sells her hand-made baskets, the reeds are so fresh, that as she walks by, we can perceive the aroma behind her.

The elotes (corn), and Mexican candies, the smell of the air, but we keep on walking, that is what you do in a place like this, walk slowly, watch, and then we stop and take a rest.

And this is where the magic of the place happens, when we stop and take a rest. I love it because of the memories that we have created there.

When the six of us stop at the first cafeteria to sit and relax, and talk for hours, over great coffee and pastries. I fall in love with the place.

We ate in the restaurant that is on the roof of the cathedral, the view is magnificent, but the faces of my children around the table are majestic. My husband holds my hand, and looks at my eyes, we know we are blessed. We are creating memories that will be like food to our souls in the years to come.

Our conversations and laughs in the quiet of the streets and the slow motion of all, are some of the best memories I have. Images and memories both running deep in our souls.

I have thus learned, this life lesson: it is when we sit together to talk with no rush, that we construct the best memories, we feed our relationships; when we look eye to eye and just love being there, together, life seems more beautiful, and “that place” turns into my favorite one.

May your memories be created  in slow motion.

My dear friend, Claire B., prompted us to write about one memory, one image, one life lesson.  This post is linked to her post. Thank you!

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