Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Devotions on a Tuesday morning...

My pregnancy hormones have been waking me up at 5:30 every morning now for a while. Most days I just lay in bed and try to fall back asleep, but that hasn't been working the last couple of mornings.

Since today was our first day back to a good "school" schedule, I decided to go ahead and hop out of bed at 6:00 to get the day started on the right foot. I was mostly excited about a chance to have some devotions before any of the kids woke up. As I was gathering up my sweater and socks, a squinting eyed little three old came running into the room for a morning snuggle. I put aside my Bible study desires and replaced them with the practicality of the spiritual act of kissing a precious little red-headed girl's nose with a Piglet stuffed animal laying nearby. There's nothing like starting a day with the sound of innocent giggles.

We spent the next 30-40 minutes playfully greeting big brother Andrew and the baby, fixing morning drinks, and saying goodbye to Daddy. I hadn't given up on devotions. I just knew it would have to be a little less of a "quiet time" and more like "wild west worship time". Thus is the life of the homeschool mom of many!

I finally sat down with my Bible and a few kids, who had been given things to keep them busy for a few minutes. And here was my devotion time:

Timothy 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;

"No Macy, you can't come up here on Mommy's bed with a Danimals yogurt drink." Macy promised to be careful and not to spill, but I set aside the yogurt on my nightstand for her to finish when she was ready to get back down. It wasn't worth it for her at the moment. Being close to mom superseded her need for the routine morning treat.

2. Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

Andrew says, "Hey mom, one time I was in the bathroom and once I was done going, I realized there was no toilet paper..." the story went on in detail...ick.

3. As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine ,

Macy thought she would copy her big brother's story about the toilet paper and make it her own. She had some original thoughts though, and added a monkey and a Bible to her version.

4. Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. 5. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

Andrew started remembering the questions he obviously been storing up for quite some time, so I suggested that they go find some coloring and puzzles to occupy them in the school room so Mommy could finish my Bible time. They left for a few minutes, so I sped through the rest of the first chapter of Timothy. As I heard the baby wishing Mommy was present in the mix there in the school room, I whispered a prayer:

Honor and glory forever to you Father! You are surely the eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God! (v17) I'm yours today. Use me to teach your children. Help me to remember obedience to You (that's patience, love, tenderness, selflessness)... obedience!...obedience!... Amen.

Maybe tomorrow they'll sleep til 6:30. But that just wouldn't be nearly as much fun now, would it?

Monday, January 5, 2009

Just David


Even though it's been a month since we finished Just David as our read-aloud, I want to take a moment to pass along a recommendation. The book was written by Eleanor Porter, who wrote Pollyanna. It's a touching story about a boy who is raised in an unconventional way (sound familiar?). He is thrust into awkward relationships with people who don't understand his strange (but very positive) outlook on life and the world around him. I got a bit impatient waiting for quite a few chapters for SOMETHING good to happen to this poor little boy, but once things finally started to look up for him, I didn't mind the build up. It was a good balance in the end between the bad things that can happen in this fallen world and the good that comes from a pure heart. This is a very sweet book, and it had us squeezing in extra reading time each day towards the end because we just had to see how it ended.
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