July | 2010 |

Graces 71-80

25. July 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Gratitude Community

I want to start out our journey to Tennessee on a good note so I will leave today with some more of God’s graces:

71. Ian yelling “I love you mommy” after I put him to bed at night
72. Ethan telling me he missed me when he was in camp
73. My husband-a good listener and my rock
74. My husband providing me with a vacation that he doesn’t get to go on
75. A trustworthy car that seats a lot of people
76. Good friends to travel with
77. Good tunes on the Ipod
78. Yummy snacks packed for the road
79. Friends and family who are praying for our travels
80. The anticipation of fun times!

This is it

24. July 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized

We leave tomorrow for our trip to Tennessee. This is it, no backing out now. 3 moms, 4 boys, 1 van. Scary! We’ll either come back home better friends than before we left or not friends at all (I of course am praying for the first one:)
The kids are all very excited, Ian keeps talking about going to the Children’s Museum and about how he gets to sleep on the floor at the hotel with Ethan. Another friend is going to Tennessee as well and we’ll meet her up there. It’ll be like our own camp with all the kids we’re taking around Chattanooga:)

Fun Continues

23. July 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized

Constructing out of PVC pipes

Everybody at once!

We made a marble run out of carboard tubes and magnets. A bit tougher to do than one might think.

Ethan’s own design with their marble race kit

Heaven

22. July 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: poetry

Many mornings I wake up wondering, is today going to be the day?

Heaven

I catch a glimpse in the skies
in a heart full of joyful song
the wonder in a child’s eyes
and in the mountains tall and strong

I feel it singing with the saints
in the arms of my family
and in those chills I can’t explain
when I look out over the sea

I ache for it when I am ill
and when my child is feeling pain
when my tears continue to spill
at the result of sin’s dark stain

We have a longing deep inside
on our heart’s it’s a written truth
to wipe away the tears we’ve cried
while creation groans for it’s youth

In heaven is where we belong
where God’s light will replace the sun
we’ll join the angel’s choir in song
when we hear our Lord say “Well done”

Forever we will gaze on His face
singing praises for His great worth
with our sins forever erased
on the New Heavens and New Earth

Slough of Despair

20. July 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Depression

Speaking of the Pilgrim’s Progress, I have been finding myself tempted to despair these past couple of weeks. I have to be very careful about that because of my chronic struggle with depression. Ian has been sick and not sleeping and my husband, who typically works 80 hours a week, has been studying for a promotion in his free time. And there have been the temper outbursts of Ethan’s to contend with. I’m now sick as well. There are two ways that the evil one tempts me off the path of righteousness and that is lack of sleep and lack of time to myself. But God is good and has kept me drawn to His word, has provided me with accountability partners to keep me in check, and has used the writings of godly people to remind me of God’s promises.

“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He led them from the darkness and deepest gloom; he snapped their chains. Let them praise the Lord for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them.”
Psalm 107:12-15

Treasures in heaven

19. July 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Teach Me Jesus

“Do not store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store you treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will be also.” Matthew 6: 19-21

We’ve been talking about our family way “we are thankful to God for what we have whether it’s a little or a lot” and “we are content with what we have, not coveting what others have” and we discussed the above verse as part of our devotional. I thought I would do an activity with the boys to help them better understand what treasures in heaven means and told the boys we would draw pictures of treasure chests and cut pictures out of magazines of things we might put in the treasure chests; one of treasures in heaven and one for treasures on earth.

Ethan didn’t like the idea and so we worked together to come up with another idea that was more appealing. We decided to do a picture of the path to heaven with trucks on the path carrying our treasures and paths that went off the main path that also had trucks carrying earthly treasures being brought to hell. (I think that the truck idea came from the fact that we had just watched on the Science Channel how Peterbilt trucks are made). We spent a lot of time talking about the path to life that we need to stay on. The bible instructs us in how to stay on that path. We found some great words and phrases of treasures we can store up for heaven. We then talked about all the distractions that the devil uses to try to get us off the path. We found words, phrases and pictures of things we may covet and love more than God as well as sins that can keep us from staying on the path to life.

I followed up the activity with reading a children’s version of the Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s been a while since we last read it and Ethan was so enthralled he wanted me to read it all in one sitting. So while our activity didn’t start out the way I thought it would, it actually became much more and an even better teaching time about the Christian life.

More Graces 61-70

18. July 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Gratitude Community

The graces of God continue:

61. Sleeping in
62. seeing God working in Ethan’s heart
63. snuggling with my boys
64. an opportunity to tell others about our church
65. being given the morning off to get a pedicure
66. the way God uses books by godly people to speak to my heart
67. hope
68. our couple’s small group and the growth that is happening there
69. watching Ian eat a cookie and smearing it all over his face
70. hearing Ethan tell George he is the best daddy ever

Heaven for Kids

17. July 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Teach Me Jesus

I’ve recently had a friend ask “how does a parent explain heaven to a child?” This is a very delicate and complicated subject and one we struggled through, especially when Ethan was 3. I posted about this topic at that time about how challenging it was to discuss death and afterlife with a young child. At that time, we had difficulty finding books on the subject.

My main goal in explaining about death and afterlife is that when my kids think about heaven, I want them to be excited and look forward to being with God. We always go back to the Fall in discussing death and explain how death came to the world because of the Fall and it separated us from our Creator. With faith in Christ, our relationship can be restored and we have the hope of heaven where we will live with Him forever. It was hard for Ethan to imagine anything being better than life on earth since he has not experienced much of the pain and sadness that we as adults have. So instead I describe heaven as being a place where we never cry, never sin, never get sick, and we experience true joy eternally. And I usually talk about people dying when they get old.

As he’s gotten older, Ethan seems to have accepted death as a fact of life and doesn’t seem as terrified of it as he did when he frist learned about it. Gifed kids for some reason are more concerned about death and the afterlilfe than the average person so he continues to talk about heaven quite frequently. The other day, while I was folding laundrey, out of the blue Ethan says, “you know, if I died while I was young, Ian would really miss me and cry all the time.” I agreed and said that I probably would too. He said, “Well you should actually be happy for me because I would be with God and soon you would come to be with me.” The next day he said that he couldn’t wait to get to heaven.

We keep a book on heaven out on the kitchen table so that whenever he has a question about it, we look it up and discuss it. It’s kind of sad to take away their innocence about life and explain death to children, but it is one of the certain things in life (as well as taxes:). And it is a great opportunity to share the gospel with your child. I really believe that with Ethan having the love of Christ in his heart it takes away the scariness of death and the afterlife.

A few resources on explaining the Fall, death, resurrection, heaven and more:
Heaven for Kids
The Lightlings
The Prince’s Poison Cup
The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name

And for grownups:
Heaven
Mere Christianity
The Weight of Glory

The gifted brain

16. July 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: gifted education

We had a lot of challenging moments this summer with Ethan. Talking to a good friend who has a child with a high IQ has been very helpful. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and have come to some conclusions. I have realized that there is a delicate balance that we need to find between too much stimulation and not enough stimulation. Too much on either end results in meltdown. A gifted person has so much going on in their brain already that when they reach overload, it’s too much to process. On the other hand, when they get bored, they need to stimulate their brain. We’ve walked this tightrope with Ethan. I can’t seem to keep up with the amount of stimulation his brain needs to keep him from getting bored. When he gets bored he does things that drive me and Ian crazy. When he’s had too much: an extra playdate, a birthday party, a long day, it’s too much for him and he can’t handle it. I’ve learned that when he has a busy day full of activity that for the next couple of days, we have to lay low.

So, this does make me wonder how it will be for him to go to school. It’s a long day full of stimulation and I anticpate a lot of problems when he gets home each afternoon. He’s very athletic and we would love to start him up with soccer again in the fall but I think it will be too much to add on to school. So, these are my challenges. I’ve scheduled an appointment with the psychologist for George and I to meet with and get some advice. Hoping he has some good ideas:)

More Summer Fun

16. July 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized

Since Ian has been sick the past couple of weeks, I’ve not been able to do much “camp mommy” with Ethan. But we’ve done some science experiments and other fun activities, including making our own bubbles. I’ve had him practicing his reading and he was very proud to read a level four book by himself (though the levels are pretty relative since each publisher has different standards but I’m proud of him just the same:) He’s not into drawing as much so we’ve been doing other arts and crafts activities. And of course there’s Lego’s. I think all boys are obsessed with them and Lego’s have become the thing that has replaced drawing. Drawing used to help him process whatever was going on in his mind and I think Lego’s serve the same function. Here’s a few recent pictures.