II. The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing

Mathew 5:3"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

In Chapter 2 of A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, we find what lies at the heart of the issue in many of our lives:  putting anything else in the place where God ought to be.

Whenever sin entered the world, the right order of things became scrambled.  We became rebellious towards God and put idols on the thrones of our hearts. 

Whenever we have accepted Christ, we are no longer slaves to sin, but are now slaves to righteousness--to Christ himself (Romans 6:18). He has taken back him throne in our hearts.  Our lives--every moment and each and every action--belong to him now.

In The Pursuit of God, Tozer addressed the story of Abraham and Isaac.  I had always looked at this story to be more about obedience to God that anything else, but Tozer says that whenever Isaac was born in Abraham's old age that "his heart knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous."

Of course, Abraham must have been terrified by God's request.  Offer my son, who I've waited for so long for, upon an alter as a sacrifice?  I'm sure his heart was anguished at the thought.

Obviously, God never intended for Abraham to actually slaughter his son, but he requested his obedience anyway.  Why is that? 

Tozer states "God could have begun out on the margin of Abraham's life and worked inward to the center; He chose rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over with in one sharp act of separation.  In dealing thus, He practiced an economy of means and time.  It hurt cruelly, but it was effective."

God chose to removed Isaac from the throne of his father's heart swiftly, so that he could be put back in his rightful place in Abraham's heart.  Abraham had come to making everything about his son, and out of love God turned his world upside down with a single command.  This wasn't done to separate father and son, but in order to have Abraham face his priorities and rearrange them.

And we do the same as Abraham did today.  We worry so much about our reputations, our children, how we homeschool, our jobs, etc., that we don't even realize it when we've shooed God off the throne of our hearts and put all of these other things in his place.

So why do we cling to our idols?  Money, possessions, people in our lives, jobs, security, entertainment, etc.?

If Christ lives in us, then we shouldn't be ruled by the stuff in our lives.  Jesus referred to how much control things have in our lives when he spoke to his disciples in Mathew 16:24 "If any many will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it."


Within American Christianity today, there is this unsettling sense of entitlement.  It's taught in many churches as well as over television, that if we will become a Christian that we can prosper, have our best life now, and that all is apparently sunshine and rainbows. 

Most people refuse to speak about what God says concerning things out of fear of being labeled as homophobic, a hatemonger, or the like. 

To speak out on the issue of abortion, even other "Christians"  will criticize you, saying to "judge not" or ask you "where is your grace?" 

We need to wake up.  Christ did not redeem us so that we could have our best life now.  In fact, if we are truly submitting to Christ and following his charge to make disciples (Mathew 28:19), chances are that we will face adversity.  We may lose our stuff, the security of having extra money, our home, our friends and family, and our reputation to those still in the world.  Yet, we can count it all a blessing whenever we face persecution, because our reward is in heaven. 

One of the benefits of when God puts us through the refining fire, and we lose everything, is that we depend fully upon him.  Suffering strips away all of the superficial, and reveals the truth.  His grace is sufficient for us, and in the end God's thoughts and laws is all that matters.

Romans 5:3-5
"Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured our his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."


We all must count the cost of following Christ.  We will lose some peoples esteem, relationships with friends and family, and may suffer financially if we are adhering to the Gospel.  But in the end, the only one that matters is God.  If we have done as he has charged us, though many people may hate us and say all types of slanderous things about us, it is all worth it.

We all place too high an importance on things from time to time.  Pray that God rips them from the thrones of our hearts so that we can turn, repent, and follow him once more. 

Bubba's 2nd Birthday

This past Saturday, our son turned 2! 

We had a small party for him at our house, with family and a few friends.  He had a great time. 

He started off the day with a clown cream horn for breakfast.


He was too excited to see his birthday cake.

 

After changing his mind numerous times, he finally decided on the SpongeBob décor. 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, it was a great day celebrating our son!  

 

Week 5 of MFW Learning God's Story

Another great week using MFW Learning God's Story!  We did a few art projects, made some yummy chipotle ranch, and read about several types of trees.  Warning:  This post contains affiliate links.  That means if you use the link to buy something, we will be paid.  This money goes to support my family.

Memory Verse:

Proverbs 21:23-

"He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity."

This verse was a great one for our whole family to focus on this week.  We've had a lot happen recently, and it was a good reminder to watch what we say.  Squirrely Girl and Miss Bear have continued to do well with the memorization, and are relating day to day life back to our memory verses and bible stories.  It makes my heart happy whenever I hear them pray for God's help in these areas!

We've also started doing a little something with our memory verses this week.  I love the CM Scripture memory system, and we made our own simple version.  You can read about it here. 






Language Arts:

Squirrely Girl reading her previous phonics lessons.

Squirrely Girl has continued with the MFW phonics.  I thought it was odd that they included -ing, -ang, and -ung together, because I thought it would be confusing.  She didn't seem to have any problems, though!    Her handwriting has already improved dramatically the past 5 weeks.   


Miss Bear is working on her ABC handwriting sheets as well as number words sheets.  I used a highlighter to make her a copywork sheet for this weeks memory verse, and I've already seen improvement in her handwriting as well.

Math:

This is week 2 of working numbers and counting.  This was needed more for Miss Bear, but Squirrely Girl had a good review with larger numbers.  She also used some leaves, rocks, and seeds we found on our nature walk to work on addition, which was great practice. 

Science:

 After reading the recommended reading for trees, we did several art projects, a failed science experiment, and read in our Fun with Nature about several species of trees.



We've also continued to examine our beans that are sprouting. (We didn't soak them until Monday!  We had a lot going on last week!)  I'm not adding that stuff until we finish it, but Bubba has loved looking at the beans.  Kids were all amazed to see the tiny plant starting to grow! 

 

Art:
One of our art activities was these tree ring paintings.  I put several shades of paint onto a plate, and the girls used their foam sponge brushes to get some paint.  They then pressed the sponge onto their paper and twirled it around, giving the great tree ring effect.  We all had a lot of fun with these!

We also made these My Years in Tree Rings pages. 

 We had talked about how trees grow a ring each year.  We then made these pictures with a ring for each year they'd been alive, and things they thought were important for each year.


Lastly, the kids made these tree crafts.  All three of them love when I tape contact paper onto the sliding glass doors.  This is something that even Bubba can mostly do himself.

Handicrafts:

Squirrely Girl started working on her first needlepoint project this week.  You can find these projects at most craft stores, and I'm sure Amazon has them as well.

 

How was your week?  How do you like to incorporate art into the weeks lessons?

Skinny Chipotle Ranch

A week or so ago I made yogurt in the crockpot for the first time.  It was a huge success, and we've been using it in smoothies and eating it for breakfast.  I'd seen recipes that substituted yogurt for sour cream, but I'd never tried any of them.  With so much yogurt in the fridge, I decided that it was time to give it a go!

This chipotle ranch is sooooooo good!  We've eaten it with veggies, chips, and even as a spread on turkey sandwiches!  I used more peppers, because we LOVE spicy foods around here, but you can add more or less depending upon your preferences.

Even Squirrely Girl loved it, and she despises ranch!  Miss Bear said it was a little too hot for her, so next time I'd probably make two batches at different heat levels.  Bubba ended up eating it despite thinking it was hot.

Skinny Chipotle Ranch

 

• 2 cups plain yogurt
• 2-5 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce,
• 1 Packet Ranch dip mix (I used Hidden Valley because I had it on hand.  You could make your own mix to make this even healthier.)
• Several tablespoons of adobo sauce (to your preference)
  
  Measure out your yogurt into a bowl. 
  Dice up your chipotle peppers.  Add them, plus a few tablespoons of adobo sauce, to the yogurt.
  Add Ranch dip mix.  Stir until combined.
  

We ate ours just after mixing it up, but it tastes even better after its had a chance to sit in the fridge.  The flavors meld together so nicely! 

ENJOY!

 

{Easy} Memory Verse Book on the Cheap!

One of the things I absolutely LOVE about My Father's World is that it is Gospel-centric.  We're doing MFW Learning God's Story right now with Squirrely Girl (6) and Miss Bear (4).  And I have nothing but good things to say about it!

Something that starts in Week 3 is the memory verses from the book of Proverbs.  I had already written all of the verses out on index cards for the year, and I had initially planned on putting them into a storage box to follow the Charlotte Mason Scripture memory system. 

Instead, I decided to implement something I'd seen others using for other cards and such:  a photo album.


You can find photo albums pretty cheap at dollar stores.  We happened to have a couple empty ones on hand, so this ended up being a free project for us!



I let the kids pick one out, and we just added a monkey name tag to the front. 








I'd already printed our memory verse for the school year out and laminated it, so I added some Velcro onto the back and stuck it on the inside cover.  That way, we can change it out next year.  There are enough pages in this photo album to last us for at least a few  years, if we're only including one verse per school week.  If we need to add more, I still think we can manage 2 years worth of verses in this one book.

For now, I'm writing the dates for the week the verse goes with on the memo lines.  I'll also add ways that it's applicable and such later on. 

This takes up a little less space than a memory box would, and I think its also a little easier for us to do.  We can read our verses that we are reviewing from the album, and I can pull the weeks verse card out to hang on the fridge.  I'm loving this so far. 

How do you store your memory verses?  Does a scripture box work for you?  I'd love to hear how you make your cards more accessible in the comments!

I. Following Hard after God

In a previous post, I talked about how I had just finished reading "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer.  It was really a great book on pursuing a deeper, more meaningful relationship with God.  This is something that every disciple of Christ desires and strives for. 

I'm finding so many ways that Tozer's writing is applicable to my life today. Hope you enjoy.

 

 

I.  Following Hard after God

"My soul followeth hard after thee; thy right hand upholdeth me."
Psalm 63:8

• "Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow."
  It's amazing to me how much importance we tend to put upon ourselves.  We seem to think that all of our efforts are somehow credited to us.  But it is not so. If we think of God, it is because He has done a work in our hearts.  When we accept him, it is because He first pursued us. We wouldn't even be able to comprehend a single verse from His word if He hadn't first opened the eyes of our hearts. 
  
  Out of His amazing love for us, he has chosen to work in our hearts so that we might know him. 

• "Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him.  In our sins we lack only the power.  The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition."
  
  Whenever we have truly become regenerated in Christ, our souls leap for joy in the recognition of our Creator.  A sense of rightness, a familiarity that is instantaneous. 

• When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself.  The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation.  In the "and" lies our great woe.  If we omit the "and" we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing."
  
  Pursuing only God is extremely fulfilling.  We are all guilty of adding our own desires onto God, but when we strip all of that away we are left with only the longing for God Himself. 
  
  This may seem detrimental to some:  to make our God our all at the expense of all else.  However, when we forsake everything else, we are able to find the deep joy in knowing that God is our everything.
  
  It's so easy to misplace our priorities.  If our main motivator for pursuing Christ is to prosper, or gain peace, or be free from trouble, what happens when we achieve our goal?  Or, what if we fail to find what we're looking for? 
  
  In life, we will have trials and suffering.  There will be days that everything goes wrong and our patience has been worn over thin.  What do we do when we aren't living "our best life now", despite all of our efforts?  (Don't worry, I'll be addressing the unbiblical ministries of many of today's leading teachers in the future)When we pursue God simple to be close to Him, we find that even when we are sick, even when we are suffering, even when the kids are testing our patience and we feel like giving up, we still have God.
  
  When we are sick, we know that God is caring for us and waiting for us at the end of the road.
  
  When we face persecution for following God, we are able to know that He is fully there and fully understands.  In the end, our reward is in heaven.
  
  And when our patience is gone, we know that we have a Heavenly Father that we can run to.  How wonderful to know that when I am at my wits end, my God can fill me up with his love and patience! 

These are just a few of my thoughts about the first chapter of The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer.  What are your thoughts on the book?  How is the wisdom found in this chapter applicable to your life? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Week 4 of MFW Learning God's Story

We had a blast this past week with MFW!

One day, we decided to have a Jammie Day.  The kids really enjoy the days that we all stay in our pajamas all day.  We hadn't had one in awhile, so Squirrely Girl asked if we could have one. 

Our memory verse of the week came was Proverbs 9:10"If you really want to become wise, you must begin by having respect for the Lord.
To know the Holy One is to gain understanding."

 

Again, I was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which my two girls were able to memorize the verse.  Squirrely Girl and Miss Bear both brought up the verse throughout the week, and connected how when we read our bible stories and devotions that they are getting to know God better.  It really touched my heart to see them strive this week to be more intentional. 

 

 

 We also spent some time a couple of the days at the neighborhood park.  Kenzie also spent some time drawing in the sand.

This week, we also made some homemade yogurt in the crockpot... and it was a huge success!  We've been eating it for breakfast some mornings with some fresh fruit and yogurt, and for snack we've been making smoothies with it some days!  The girls were amazed how the milk turned into yogurt so easily.  We'll definitely be making yogurt regularly around here.



The Hubby also plays guitar, and all the kids like to use their guitars to try and play as well.  None of them have really learned how to play as of yet, but we're thinking that this is something we will be adding to our week this year!

 Bubba was too funny.  He refused to smile.  I guess he's just working on his rockstar look!
















We took a trip to the zoo as well.  We walked around and looked at the animals and plants, and talked about how butterflies, bees, and other animals help with pollination.  My mother also helped the take apart a flower and look at the pistil and stamens.  She was impressed with their knowledge, and Squirrely Girls use of the terms photosynthesis and pollination. 











All in all, this was a great week!  How was your homeschool week?  What did you do outdoors?

Small Space Homeschooling Part 3: Homeschool Room

Ok, I have a confession to make:  We don't actually have a homeschool room!  Eek!








We're living in an apartment for awhile, and thus have a lot less space.  Since we no longer have an extra room to use as our homeschool room, I've had to get a little crafty with how to store all of our homeschooling goodies.  I've addressed how we do workboxes as well as the way we are storing our curriculum and related materials.

We actually just homeschool at our dining room table.  In a corner of our dining area, I have our calendar, Hebrew calendar from MFW, a spelling list, and a pocket chart.  On the side of one of the bookshelves the girls also have a clock they made from one of their workbooks.

    
On the other wall leading into the kitchen I used a little bit of the self-adhesive dry erase laminate that I bought from Hobby Lobby.  I had this on hand, so I figured I'd use this for now, and replace when needed with an actual board.

The border is just some cheap ribbon that we had in the kids craft bins.  I believe I found it for $1 at Dollar Tree.

 
 

 

I also made this little magnetic sign for our front door, that their friends in the neighborhood know when they're not allowed to play.

Small Space Homeschooling Part 2: Books and Manipulatives.

Living in a small space means getting a little creative with how we organize our homeschool materials.  We're currently living in an apartment and no longer have an extra room to use as our school room.  That means revamping my organization for all our homeschool goodies.

   In Small Space Homeschooling Part 1 I shared our portable workbox with you.  That's where I place all of our materials needed for the coming school week.  It has helped make our days so much more enjoyable. 

Books:

Most of our books are on these bookshelves in my son's room.  For the most part, Bubba keeps from messing it up too bad. 

Up on the top we have a basket of arts and crafts kits.  This includes their art kits, weaving sets, and embroidery stuff.  I believe we also may have a couple of fashion design workbooks in there that belong to Squirrely Girl.

The top shelf houses books that specifically deal with our school year.  It includes current workbooks, textbooks, and many of the science and living history books we'll be using for the year along with My Father's World Learning God's Story  Our Unifix cubes and pattern blocks are up there as well, as well as Squirrely Girls  leveled readers.

The next two shelves house a good part of our other books that we use during reading time.

The second to bottom shelf is where we keep a bunch of our manipulatives.  They're numbered because we used to used these as our busy boxes and I just haven't relabled them yet.

• Box 1:  Holds some of our Language Arts work.  I have laminated various work heets that I sometimes add to the girls Daily folders.  We have some rhyme strips, punctuation strips, and antonym/synonym strips in here.
• Box 2:  Holds our geometry stuff.  We have some flashcards, drawing sheets, matching cards, and another set of pattern blocks.
• Box 3: Holds some of our Math stuff.  We have beans, marbles, number cards, ordering cards, craft sticks, shape buttons, a calculator, a set of 10 ten frames, number magnets, addition and subtraction flashcards, number bond bracelets, and more. 
• Box 4:  Holds pipe cleaners, string, and beads along with some pom poms.
• Box 5: Holds some of our alphabet work.  We have magnetic letters, alphabet puzzle cards, alphabet puzzle, upper and lower case matching cards, and some flashcards. 

The bottom shelf has some personal dry erase boards and a basket of coloring books, which I rotate out from our collection that we've accumulated.

 

Other Stuff:

This is our game closet.  I cleared off two of the shelves to accommodate all of our homeschooling stuff.



Here's the binder where I keep worksheets divided by week.
This makes pulling out our stuff for the week so much faster.

This is where we keep the kids nature journals, their reference binders, and a couple of my binders with reference sheets and weekly work in them.


The Clear 3 drawer Sterilite organizer holds their crayons, scissors, pencils, and markers as well as some drawing paper.  One drawer also has some laminated handwriting worksheets, as well as some activities that I'd like to eventually get to.

Do you have any tips on how to organize your school stuff in a small space?  Let me know how in the comments!

1st Grade Math

We're only a few weeks into MFW 1st Grade, but I thought I'd share with you how we are doing math.  Squirrely Girl (6) has been working on her addition and subtraction facts since Spring, but it's been more laid back.  Bear (4) is still working on her numbers, but is able to do some simple addition and subtraction with the help of manipulatives.

I've seen quite a few people saying that they didn't care for the layout of the Math for first grade.  Personally, I don't mind the way the topics are arranged, but we are definitely supplementing because right now much of the work is just too easy for our little Squirrely Girl. 

We've been following along with the MFW lesson plans in The Complete Book of Math.  So far, the lessons are just a review and a little too easy for our 6 year old, but our 4 year old is keeping up well.  For now, this is working for us, but I'm evaluating mid-year if we need to buy something more challenging.

My kids love to do worksheets, so much so that sometimes they even request them on our off days!  So, we've been supplementing their math with worksheets we find online, as well as the Brain Quest 1st grade workbook as well as their Kindergarten workbook for Bear. 

 


In addition to the worksheets, we also incorporate a lot of hands on math practice.  We use our addition and subtraction flashcards along with a manipulative.

Some of our manipulatives include:

• Unifix cubes
• Pattern blocks
• Marbles
• Beans
• Coins
• Shape buttons
• Colored craft sticks
• Number bond bracelets
• Legos
• Dice
• Dominos

I also found this great little Count and Balance Scale at a yardsale!  It has numbers that can be hung on either side.  The girls love using this and seeing how many ways they can make it balance out!


I love yard sales!  We have found some awesome things to add to our homeschool from them!

 

I also made a set of 10 "Ten Frames" for the kids to use!  I did these by hand and laminated them, and as you can see I feel the need to decorate like crazy! I just think they're more fun that way!  The kids like choosing theirs for the day. 

We've used these for counting and adding with manipulatives, but we've also used them alone to talk about tens.  Squirrely Girl has gotten pretty good with knowing how many ten frames she needs to make her numbers, and then she'll grab single manipulatives for the ones.  It's really helped her to visualize place value. 




What do you use for First Grade math?  What manipulatives do you use?