I thought I’d share a few ideas from our homeschooling days of ways you can use those colorful plastic eggs after Easter as part of your “crisis-schooling”- or maybe just to keep the little people in your house busy for awhile. (And if your little people have turned into big people, I have a few ideas for teens, too, so skip to the end!)
Friends, it finally dawned on our kids last weekend that we would not be able to go to church this Sunday. “Wait, you mean we’ll be stuck at home on EASTER SUNDAY?? Mom, it won't be Easter if we're not at church! That’s never happened before! This is not okay....
Where was I as You entered the city? Was I walking near You while the people shouted Your name? Was I leading the donkey or walking beside You, Feeling important because those who had gathered finally knew who You really were? This was what we’d been...
CONGRATULATIONS!! If you’ve made it this far, you deserve a milkshake or something! The posts in this series have been quite a bit longer than I usually write, but the information on this topic is just so important, I couldn’t figure out how to shorten it. So thanks...
It is the year 2020. The coronavirus has taken over the world.
School is cancelled. Church is cancelled. Birthday parties and weddings and doctor appointments- all cancelled. You know what isn’t cancelled?
Science Fair Projects…
Well friends, one of the good things about being at home indefinitely is that it frees up my evenings for reading! I entered the month of March with several of my February books unfinished, so I wasn't sure how this month was going to go. Fortunately, I have had...
I will never forget the first night we brought Sarah home from the hospital. She was screaming her little head off and then doing this weird gagging thing, like a cat with a hairball. As her face turned purple, we panicked and called the nurse line, and all I could think was, “How in the world am I supposed to keep this little person alive?!”
Parenting teens in the technology age can feel a lot like that.
It’s scary and dangerous and there are so many unknowns. It can be hard to know where to start and even harder to control. We want to protect our children and give them independence at the same time, all without causing World War III in our homes. Is that even possible?
In Part 1 of this series, we covered some things you can do before your teens enter the digital world. Today I want to share some things we have learned as we’ve navigated this challenge with our teen girls over the past few years…
I should be honest with you. If it were up to me, our kids would never have gotten phones or texting or social media. Ever. Between the danger and the drama and the addiction, I would have been happy to pick us all up and move to the Amish country. Fortunately for our kids, Jeff is way cooler than I am, and he was able to convince me that technology- and social media- are likely going to be a part of their lives forever.
“We have a choice,” he told me. “We can deny them access now and risk them sneaking it behind our backs or having to figure it out on their own in a college atmosphere, or we can choose to navigate this road alongside them, allowing them to make their mistakes with us by their side to guide them, and if necessary, protect them.”
Yeah, I married a good man. I think I’ll keep him.
So anyway, here are eight things we recommend you do BEFORE you give your teen access to social media…
I wish I had a dollar for everyone who has said to me, “Oh, I could never homeschool my kids. I don’t have the patience!” or “I couldn’t do that; I would kill my kids!” The truth is, NO ONE has the patience to homeschool, and all of us get frustrated with...
Embrace these moments, I heard Him say. Don’t dread them. Savor them, treasure them, immerse yourself in them. For you are right, they will be gone in the blink of an eye, and you don’t want to miss any of it because you are too wrapped up in your own pity party.
Lift up your eyes, open your hands, and receive these little gifts of joy. You can’t make time slow down, but you can slow yourself down enough to embrace it.
Where are you, Lord?
As the wind and waves of my circumstances swirled around me, I couldn’t even concentrate. How are we supposed to handle this, Lord? What do we do now? How are we possibly going to get everything done? Help me, Lord!
Help me!
An image popped in my mind of Peter standing out there on the water, storm raging around him, arms outstretched towards Jesus. “Lord, help me!” And that’s when I remembered our Peace Shoes from Sunday.
“Peace is not the absence of chaos, but a calmness in the midst of it”… and boy, was I in the midst of it! I wish I could say my first response to the craziness was fixing my eyes on Jesus and finding something to be grateful for, but it wasn’t.
Not even close.
It wasn’t until I was neck-deep in the waves of my chaos that I remembered where to lift my eyes. But in that moment, when I finally looked up, I saw Jesus. And something began to change.
I remembered that peace doesn’t come naturally to us; we have to choose it…
We think our hands are open, willing to receive whatever the Lord has to give. Yet, so often when I come to God believing that my hands are open, I am already clutching something else in my grasp.
“Lord, heal me!” I cry, reaching out in faith for healing.
“Lord, guide me!” I plead, seeking answers and direction.
“Lord, empower me!” I say, looking for opportunities.
And the whole time, I think my hands are open. I believe He will answer, and I know He is able to give me what I’m asking for. Surely I will receive it, according to my great faith!
Only, I don’t realize I cannot receive anything because my hands are already full. If I look closely enough, I begin to see what fills them up…