FAITHFUL fridays :: {God proving himself faithful}

TGIF all!!! I personally am thankful it's Friday.  I love LOVE love a weekend to spend with my family and this is a long one because of Labor Day!!!

Alright grab your cup of coffee (mine is in hand) and snuggle up and chat with me.  I want to be raw and honest (because that is not like me right? ;)).  Can I share with you what is on my heart? I do not share because I want an overflow of positive and encouraging comments or to throw myself a pity party.  I share with the hope that someone else is going through or has gone through what is on my heart and God can encourage you through me and me through you.  

Do you have a roller-coaster faith? Do you think it shows a reflection on your love for God when you do? Why do you think our faith is always changing...sometimes progressing and sometimes regressing? Sometimes I struggle to find where God has been faithful in my life.  All of the time I struggle with the reality that God sees me...cares for me...and works in my life when there are huge crisis' going on throughout the world.  When families are being chased from their home by the world's most powerful terrorist group.  When women and children are being kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.  When countries whose history of Christianity goes back to the beginning are becoming overtaken...so it seems there were never Christians present.  Places where Jesus stood...where his disciples preached...where their feet touched the same dirt...now Christians are running away from that dirt...that history and many are being killed.  Because I let myself get to this point of thinking whether or not God really takes the time to orchestrate my day while there are Christians being persecuted and I sit here in a warm house with coffee and happy healthy children...naturally I let it sink into every bit of my life.  My role as a friend.  I have gained some amazing friends and honestly I think I try to hard to keep them.  Then when they pull away I worry worry worry that I did something wrong and will no longer have their friendship.  What about my role as a wife? I don't measure up to the world's standards and I definitely don't measure up to most Christian wives in serving their husbands. My role as a mom? It's driving me crazy!!!! I should be doing "this" so that Benny Boy doesn't throw temper tantrums.  I should implementing "this" because of Williams whining.  I should be teaching like "this" if I want them to excel while learning at home and it goes on and on and on!  And then we are moving.  Moving to a much smaller, older house and daily I struggle with my pride in that.  We have a beautiful home...it's gorgeous....it's big and has the potential of being bigger.  It's new.  And I struggle with what people will think when we move to a house that looks like a cottage.  

So I get angry at myself.  I get angry at myself because I get lost a little.  Why do I let Satan creep in this much and allow me to question whether God is really faithful in my life? Because I fail to daily recognize where God is faithful in my life...I slowly fail at trusting Him.  Everyday I choose to not see His faithfulness and rejoice through it, I allow my trust of Him to slowly diminish.  How can I see Him faithful? In the everyday circumstances, in the beautiful sunset, in the smiling faces surrounding me...

Why do I struggle seeing His faithfulness? My weak flesh...my selfishness with my time...my sin.  What is the cure? His Word.

Ann Voskamp writes it perfectly...

"Yes. It’s His story that wounds us and it’s His story alone that heals us and sadness always needs more Story. The fullest comfort comes from the fullest story. And the fullest Story is the Father story and I stay in it because it’s knowing the end of the Story that wipes away the tears". 

I know it...yet I fail to preach it to myself daily. 

"The Word became flesh..." meaning the Word became Jesus who was there in the beginning, who is one with the Father and Jesus is alive so the Word is alive.  I fail to still marvel at the written Words in the greatest book ever! I fail to recognize it as the greatest book ever...

So do I think I am spiritually immature? yes.  Am I? I don't think so.  I think spiritually immature would be not letting this stage in your life bother you.  I personally would rather live in a state of constantly being reminded of my dependence on God than ever feeling "set" in my faith.  

So on Friday's I'd love to have some guest bloggers on here telling how God has shown Himself faithful in their lives.  If you have a story send me a message at staciebphotography@gmail.com

Here is one of my favorite blogs in my life where I rejoiced in God's faithfulness...enjoy...

http://simplyrenovated.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-sun-rises-and-it-beams-through.html

Sometimes I write a blog basically to just write out my heart or sometimes I get a little "high" on my horse and think people actually want to hear my opinion..ha! funny....

I read a blog post yesterday and I have to say...I felt like I was writing it myself.  

If you want to read it before you go on here go ahead and check it out here.

I feel like the blog was written incredibly tastefully.  Women's ministry has been the same for quite some time now and I am not saying it needs to change but I am saying there are specific reasons my generation isn't there.  I cannot and will not speak for the women in my generation but I will tell you what I crave and desire.

I have a huge desire to see women of different generations create lasting relationships in our church.  Here's the problem though...we're both scared of each other.  The women in my grandma's generation were taught to be to themselves.  They were raised on legalistic religion and mentoring wasn't a part of that...and neither was growing spiritually in public (speaking, mentoring, teaching etc.).  The women in my generation are hungry for it all and want to speak about it and be involved and speak out! Those are two drastic differences.  

I have created a friendship with my mentor.  During our pre-marital counseling we were advised by our pastor to find mentors.  So we just thought we would take it into our own hands and picked a couple we thought would be a good couple to mentor us.  They agreed...but it didn't work out.  So we asked another couple and they didn't want to and we asked another couple and they felt they weren't called to that.  So we finally got our senses together and prayed about it.  Together this couple (who we really didn't know that well) was laid on both of our hearts.  We asked them...they prayed about it and we've established a lasting relationship and friendship with this couple for more than two years.  My friend..my mentor has been a HUGE influence in my life.  Somehow I encourage her and she tremendously encourages me.  Was I intimidated? yes! Was she? yes! But we moved past that and I wouldn't trade our relationship for the world.  This is what I desire for the women in my generation.  To be mentored and to mentor.  Through her I can learn all about being a woman of God...a godly mother, wife and friend.  And we still talk about Jesus all of the time. 

It's in women's ministry that we think we need to cater to "women".  So we need pink, pretty, lace and frilly things with fat free meals.  We need pretty pens and books and "relaxing" schedule. None of this is bad but personally what I want? I want to come to a conference or a retreat with an empty notebook and I want to leave with no more room left in that notebook.  I want to be fed Jesus! To me this is precious time away from my family and I want it to be worth it.  I want to be encouraged as a daughter of Christ...not how I need to be more like the Proverbs 31 woman.  All my life I was taught about her and all I ever felt from that passage was that I needed to be better...I should be up before my family and getting household chores done before they awake not while they are awake...never once was I taught about the heart of the proverbs 31 woman.  I figured that out on my own years after I was married and honestly didn't crack the Bible open to that specific chapter...I want to be equipped to mentor, to teach the gospel to other women and to be a true disciple...I want to learn how to truly study the Bible and apply it to my life as a follower of Christ...not just as a mom and submissive wife.  Because truth is...IF Christ is at the center of your marriage...He guides you in how to be a godly, submissive wife...and IF Christ is at the center of your life...He will guide you in how to be a godly mother.  

There's this woman in my life...she is a mentor at heart.  She has a passion for it and she was obedient to God in following his instructions.  She prayed for women to mentor and God would place names on her heart.  She would write them down until God said "done"..and no more names were given to her.  She put so much energy and time into 4 women's lives.   She opened her home on a weekly basis and poured her heart into us and showed us the love of Jesus.  She organized a weekend away where there was no schedule except to watch some conference clips that filled our notebooks with Jesus! I feel like this is what the women in the church need.  How do we get it? 

We are quickly approaching our second year of homeschooling and thought I would share how I'm getting ready and the best advice given to me this past year :)

You can basically look back through my blog this past year to see that it was a struggle.  We chose to home school because 2 out of the 3 kids in school didn't want to be there.  I had one breaking out of his classroom, running down the hall screaming to be with me.  Well after 4 months of it I decided during Christmas break we were going to try to home school.  

I had my "ideas" of what it would look like.  Basically in my mind it needed to look like public school right? I needed to get the kids up and start right away with calendar work, counting, and work all day until 3.  It didn't take me long to realize that was not the case...I have a dear friend who mentored me through it and really helped me shape our lives around teaching the kids.  Here are some of the best pieces of advice given to me during this past year...

Just like everything else in life we cannot compare the way we teach our children.  We are each different and have different roles even in our parenting.  I have a friend who has a special needs child...she is not going to teach her son the same way I teach mine.  I have another friend who has a child who is above her years in standards...I cannot teach my boys the same way she teaches her children.  So first and foremost...

DO NOT COMPARE YOUR HOME SCHOOL TO ANYONE ELSE'S

Homeschooling doesn't and shouldn't look like "school".  In fact we are still working to not call it school..but to just allow the kids to learn as we live. Yes there are books and letters and such but put them into games and make those books about your life...you are teaching! So second, DON'T THINK HOMESCHOOLING NEEDS TO LOOK LIKE PUBLIC SCHOOL

You can do this! The world may say you can't and the world may say your kids will be socially underdeveloped but you are not here to please the world.  You are here to raise your children and teach them.  You may get comments about not having a degree or even people telling you you are crazy.  You'll even get other moms saying they could never do it, making you question your ability to do it.  LISTEN TO GOD AND YOUR KIDS.  My oldest LOVED school...now...he really doesn't care to go back right now.  He loves being home. 

It's okay to take a day off.  In fact it's okay to take a week off or one day off a week.  We didn't finish all 36 weeks last year but you know what? William is reading well...really well and he loves it.  He started writing and he loves it.  He discovered that he loves learning about animals...all kinds.  Zakary came out of his shy shell.  Yes! He is still shy but that is his personality.  He is excelling well and his character is building wonderfully.  Both of my kids know how to run a house a little, learned about saving their money and the most important thing in running a household...making coffee. 

TAKE A DAY OFF ... OR A WEEK

Lastly for now...it's okay to cry.  I think it's normal to feel like you're failing your kids but it is also a sign of caring.  When you are upset about teaching your kids or worried about not teaching them enough...take a breath, pray and tell yourself you love your kids and you care for them and you want them to excel.  To help this...make a list of reasons you are homeschooling.  Post it somewhere for you to see it and read it to yourself...and remember, "His mercies are new every morning". 

CRY IT OUT!

 As the year is fast approaching I am a little nervous but also excited.  I did get new curriculum this year and it can be so expensive it puts a pit in my stomach.  But I found two core subjects that are versatile for different ages.  I wanted something that Will and Zak can read together but that I can put into different age levels.  So we bought The Mystery of History for our History (Core study/what everything will center around).

This study has four different volumes and caters to the grades of K-8th grade.  It has a pre-test, a lesson and an activity and you do 2 lessons per week.  It also has instructions on how to teach these lessons to the different age levels.  

For Science we bought Apologia Science which is the same idea.  There are 7 different books and this caters to the grades of K-8th as well.  They do not go in a certain order and they have workbooks for the older child and for the younger child. Because William is so obsessed with animals we decided to start off with creatures of the sea.

To help myself with THREE different schedules this year I made myself a binder...

In this binder I have it separated for each child.  I have the goals I'd like to see in them for the year and the schedules and weekly schedules planned out (only for the first few weeks)...

No joke here...all of these were found on pinterest.  I searched Homeschool Planner and these templates popped up.  

I will be putting this cute image on the front of my binder and this will be a daily practice...

and daily...in the morning I want to meditate on these...with this...

Our theme this year is The Fruit of the Spirits.  We choose a theme to focus on and really place on our hearts.  Last years was Love...everything you do...do it out of love.  

My talented sister designed these for the covers of the boys' binders...

The week before we "officially" start we are going to focus on this verse.  I found, again on Pinterest, activities and print outs on this...

William learned cursive last year.  I want to make sure it's something he keeps up on ;) 

For the extra subjects (for Zak, Matt and Ben) I turned to this cute little site called

www.1plus1plus1equals1.com

where you can download seasonal pre-school packets and a Kindergarten one

Also there is www.teacherspayteachers.com where you can download seasonal packets according to grade which is where I will be getting Zaks math and writing from.

Here are some previews...

These are the extra books we are reading through (well just a few...not going to show all of the extras) but we plan to keep a reading log for each kid and reward them...really putting a focus on reading and educating yourself through that...

Now I want to mention and mention it strongly...this does not mean this will work for you.  This is what works for me and to be honest come Christmas...maybe I will change everything.  Maybe I am overdoing it and putting too much work into but with a big move coming up, catching up on editing and homeschooling...i NEED a schedule and I need it planned out.  So let me stress it one more time...THIS IS WHAT WORKS FOR ME...not necessarily for you ;)