My Forever Love Song

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I Love My Job!

This is not something I could have said at the beginning of my marriage, I did not understand at 19 what it meant to be a wife nor mother. But over the last 20 years, the Lord has had lots of patience with training me.  So much so that, although I still have a long way to go, I am happy to say,

I LOVE MY JOB!!!!!

The post below is from one of my new favorite bloggers. Hope you enjoy!

Home is More Than Dirty Laundry Raising Homemakers:

"Willing submission to my calling and to my husband is not hard because it
is nothing more than submission to my Savior.
And his heart beat while on
earth leaves us with the answer to life:
'Let this cup pass from me;
nevertheless,...' Continue reading here

Sky's the Limit

Great article from Psychology Today.

"A disproportionate number of children labeled ‘ADHD without hyperactivity' are exceptionally bright and creative children. I've often thought that these kids find their own inner theater much richer and more interesting than the outer theater of the classroom and, so, naturally, focus on it at the expense of classroom attention. . . The proper fix for this problem would be done at the school level, a place where I am unlikely to have any significant effect. I can, however, help these children concentrate and return their attention to the classroom."[5]

Interesting confession from a highly respected pediatrician at Yale University who treats (with drugs) many children diagnosed with this disorder .

Read the entire article here.
ADHD and School: The Problem of Assessing Normalcy in an Abnormal Environment

More reinforcement on why I am so thankful for the Charlotte Mason Method.

One of the first (and in my opinion, the most important) principles of CM:


A Child is a Born Person.

They are uniquely designed by God. No two children are the same, nor will they learn the same. Our so-called standard schooling is choking our children. Children are not in the process of becoming people, they already are people. What their niche is has already been determined by God.

What are we doing to our children by forcing them to conform to a one-size fits all system? How can they thrive in a setting with such stringent restrictions?

I'll tell you what. We are teaching them to hate school, to hate learning, to not care about what their calling is. If they can graduate high-school, many turn their backs on education. But thankfully, God is sovereign and He is faithful and He will finish the good work he began. His purposes will not be thwarted.

We have dealt with the issue of ADHD and I have never accepted it. I always believed that my now adult son has strengths and abilities that are on a higher level than what the teachers were able to grasp. He is highly intelligent, but he himself admits having a different way of thinking than most people. His zest for life and imagination were second to none in his early years. His curiosity and energy was boundless. Sadly,years of failing to conform to standard schooling left him feeling dejected, inadequate and incapable.

But glory to God, he is now learning a trade and disovering what his true interests are and for the first time just how capable and smart he truly is.

Tomorrow he's taking off for his first flight, across country, to New Mexico for tradework.  Now, the sky's the limit!

GW Treasure!

Here's what I got today...

Two Things I Love Now Together!!

Spend $15 at Goodwill and get free jeans

1.) I Love the word FREE and 2.) I love Goodwill.

Find lots of great stuff there almost everytime. Lots of times I find exactly what I "need." Once I "needed" a picnic basket. Walked in, straight to the back and viola! Picnic basket! Complete with plates, cups and utensils!! We've enjoyed it many times!

Have also found many of the good books on my never-ending, constantly growing book list. 

Now through the end of the month you can get a FREE pair of jeans after spending $15 at any Goodwill in the Southern Piedmont region (but not the outlet {huh, a Goodwill outlet?} or computer stores).

Don't know about you, but this sounds like as good an excuse as any to go to GW!



(Note to self: Find out about the GW outlet!)


HT: Charlotte on the Cheap

Using our Senses

Found this free E-Book today! Good find. Fairly quick read. (UPDATE: On second look, not so quick, acutally quite meaty!)

Particularly like Chapter 11, HOW TO WIELD THE WORLD IN THE FIGHT FOR JOY, Using All Five Senses to See the Glory of God.  Particularly interesting to me because that is how I like to find joy, through my senses of hearing, smelling, tasting (my mouth is salivating) touching and seeing the beauty in God's creation. Same technique I use teaching the preschoolers as well. Here's the quote that popped out to me:

"So the question must be faced: How do we use the created world around us, including our own bodies, to help us fight for joy in God?In God, I say! (Emphasis mine)Not in nature.  Not in music. Not in health. Not in food or drink. Not in natural beauty. How can all these good gifts serve joy in God, and not usurp the supreme affections of our hearts?" p. 173

My morning devotion answered this quite well:

"God should be your first priority, your second priority and your third..."
~My Utmost for His Highest

Piper continues....

"I assume that this joy is not idolatrous—that is, I assume it does not terminate on the works themselves, but in and through them, rests on the glory of God himself. The works “declare” the glory of God. They point. But the final ground of our joy is God himself. (p.179)"

And further...

"We don’t just stand outside and analyze the natural world as a [sun]beam, but [look along to] let the beam fall on the eyes of our heart, so that we see the source of the beauty—the original Beauty, God himself. (p. 184)."

And lastly...

"All of God’s creation becomes a beam to be “looked along” or a sound to be “heard along” or a fragrance to be “smelled along” or a flavor to be “tasted along” or a touch to be “felt along.” All our senses become partners with the eyes of the heart in perceiving the glory of God through the physical world (p. 185)."

This little snippet does not do an iota of justice to the chapter nor the book. I encourage you to read it for yourself.

When I Don't Desire God by John Piper

True Freedom

Celebrating our freedoms by remembering our past. While my love for American History is strong, it is not without recognition of the One who gives True Life, True Liberty and True Happiness.
"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."--(Romans 5:6-8)
"Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God." Galatians 4:7
"...so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:7)

Thankful this Independence Day for the True Freedom I have in my Savior !

Celebrating while Remembering

 


The Declaration of Independence

07/04/1776
 When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of governments. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative Houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.


He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.


He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to ren-der it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliance, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.



Signers of the Declaration of Independence
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
MASSACHUSETTS: John Hancock, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine
RHODE ISLAND: Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
CONNECTICUT: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
NEW YORK: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
NEW JERSEY: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
PENNSYLVANIA: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
DELAWARE: Ceasar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
MARYLAND: Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, William Paca, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
VIRGINIA: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
NORTH CAROLINA: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
SOUTH CAROLINA: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Authur Middleton
GEORGIA: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton