November is National Adoption Month, and I'm thrilled to have Naomi Quick as my guest poster today! She is a homeschooling mom of six, and the author of Don't Waste Your Wait: Embracing the Journey of Bringing Your Child Home. You won't want to miss her insights into the connection between homeschooling and adoption. Naomi is also generously giving away a copy of her book to one person! Enter to win your copy at the end of this post. We decided to homeschool when we were pregnant with our first child. As a homeschool graduate at 17, I could appreciate the benefits of home education. Benefits such as children being able to learn at their own pace, using teaching methods tailored to a child’s strengths, and incorporating the foundational ... Read More...
Dear Mom Burdened With Endless Needs
As I folded the weekly mountain of laundry the other day, my son sat on a chair next to the bed and read his Bible chapter out loud. Among socks, shirts, and underwear, I was transported to the story in Numbers 11 where the Israelites are complaining about only ever getting manna to eat in the wilderness. And Moses had had it up to here with their whining. He began crying out to the Lord, claiming how unfair it was of God to burden him with all their needs. Hmmm, sound familiar? "Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth?" he asks. When my kiddo got to the part where Moses said, "If this is how you're going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me," he burst out laughing. In its context it was a rather hilarious ... Read More...
The One Thing You Must Do to be a Great Homemaker
My family and I recently experienced an unexpected move. Things were just settling down after another unexpected event, the passing of my father. We had fixed up the school room with a new coat of paint and gotten everything organized. Then, we learned that the owner of the house we've been renting for the past two years since moving to Oklahoma wanted to sell it, so we moved into another development about three minutes away. And for the past couple of weeks, I've mainly been consumed with unpacking, organizing, and decorating the new house, trying to get "a place for everything and everything in its place". If you've read this blog for a while, you know my struggle with anxiety, fear, perfectionism, and allowing myself to rest. Having ... Read More...
To The Mom Who Believes Her Work Is Ordinary
One of the biggest lies these days is that your act of mothering is unimportant. That what you do every day is so ordinary, you can easily be replaced with a daycare worker or teacher. That you should be doing something else more significant, more valuable. This lie from the pit of hell has been packaged and sold in various forms to women over the last five decades. The most blatant is that motherhood is synonymous with slavery and if you have children, your life as you know it will be over. Okay, changed forever, yes, but not OVER. The truth is that mothering is Kingdom work, and essential to the Great Commission. This is why it is so viciously attacked. Feminists might be sowing the seeds of discontent, but the enemy of our ... Read More...
5 Ways God Uses Our Kids To Teach Us
I sat there straining to hear a video I was looking forward to watching, over the shrieks of my exuberant children. This wasn't the first time I'd tried to concentrate while being painfully aware that it was pointless, because whatever I was trying to accomplish would be trumped by the urgent needs of two small humans. "Mommy, I need more toilet paper!" and "Mommy, there's a bug crawling on the floor!" are just two of the infinite interruptions I met with while writing this post. But something was different that day. As I sat there at the computer, I felt something inside me just rip. It was a strange mixture of annoyance, resolve, and desperation. At that exact moment, I felt the urge to slam the MacBook shut, grab my car keys... ... Read More...