A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

christianity

Loyal, being Loyal

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I am sitting here feeling groggy (due to some pain meds) and pondering this word Loyal.

The dictionary tells me this, the word Loyal is an adjective that has four meanings.

1. Faithful to one’s sovereign, government or state.
2. Faithful to one’s oath, commitment or obligation.
3. Faithful to any leader, party or cause, or to any person or thing conceived as deserving fidelity. and
4. Characterized by or showing faithfulness to commitments, vows, allegiance, obligation etc.

So have a subject, cause, conduct and vows.  These are all part of being a loyal individual.

I currently have a friend, a mom of one of my son’s best friends, who is going through a trial separation, but looks to be leaning toward divorce.

This has lead to some interesting conversations between my lad and I.   He doesn’t understand it, and our most recent conversation brought up this thought.

Marriage, christian marriage, is a sign of God’s love to us.
When Christian people marry we are showing the world an example of how God loves his people.
Too often folks forget that and they think it doesn’t matter if Christians divorce.

God loved us so much that he sent his son to die for us.
So when a husband and a wife set aside their own selves for each other, they are showing love for each other, and by extension they are showing God’s love for us to the those around them.

Our loyalty and commitment to each other shows the world something.
It also shows our spouse something.

When my hubby sets aside his own stuff because of a need that I have, he’s showing God’s love for the world, for his people.  He’s also showing me the depth of his love for me.

When I set aside my own wishes and bow to his… I am showing him that I love him and that shows the world how the church loves God.

When we as Christians marry, we make a promise before God and before the church that we will love each other through good and bad.   And marriages…. they are NOT always easy.  They aren’t.  We are a fallen people living in a fallen world.  It’s not an easy thing.

It is SO hard to curb ourselves in favour of another.
But God did this eh?   He sent his son to die for us.
He curbed his love, his need for his son, so that we might have a right relationship with him.

So our VOWS as Christians mean something.
We show God’s love to the world as we work out our marriages.
So be loyal to your vows.
Be loyal to the one you are called to live with.
Be loyal to the higher calling of your marriage as a believer.

It’s important.  🙂 

 

Five Minute Friday: Team

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Join us this week over at Kate’s blog as we join together of the word prompt TEAM.

3, 2, 1 Go

Team.
It’s hard you know.
To be part of a team.

A team requires working with other people.
I hated team sports as a  child.
Trying to figure out where I fit in best.
Learning quickly that I would always be chosen last or next to last.

I could never figure them out well, and
It seems I am raising a lad with those same lack of skills.
Give us an individual sport and it works much better.
Competing against oneself.

But I have learned as I watched my lad,
that even individual sports have a team component.
The striving to be like others.
The working together to show you have learned a new skill.

I see that and then I look at my own life.
And I see the times when I am part of a team.
When I help at things like Co-op days.
When I have whole families over so my son can play with others.

It’s hard sometimes when you’d rather not.
When it’s easy just to be an introvert.
and not be part of a team,
But it’s a learning growing calling thing.

The Lord calls us to be more than we are.
He promises us his everlasting support.
He promises that he won’t ask us to do something,
that won’t end up being an okay thing for us to.

Consider this.
The Lord God calls us to be family.
To be a part of a working unit.
A body.   A team.

The strong with the weak.
Weak becoming strong as they
are supported and aided.
A body.  A Team.

That’s what we are part of…
even as we remain individuals set on
meeting a standard.
The Team helps.

__STOP_____

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday challenge.  Can I write, without fretting over editing and what not, just write for five minutes on a word provided?   It’s a great community and for the most part we support each other, which is a good thing is it not?   It’s what makes a community a community indeed.  🙂   Why not come join us?   The linky is usually open over the weekend…. so it’s not too late.  Come on, join in the fun won’t you?

Raising Boys with Purpose

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I have a son. He’s my joy and delight.
And I don’t know about you, but having a plan, a long term view, an end vision of what I hope to instill in him is part of how I raise him.

I want to raise a boy who knows how to think, to reason, to work, to care for those around him, to be called after God’s own heart. That’s what I want in my son when he’s grown up and not needing his mother so much.

BUT how do I plan for that? What types of things should I be considering?

To that end, I read two books. Raising Real Men by Hal and Melanie Young, and Raising Boys by Design by Gregory L Jantz and Michael Gurian.

The approach is this, how do you use God’s word and God’s principles to raise up your boys to be men?

 Raising Real Men by the Young’s is a book with a ton of personal examples from life, showing how a principle could be put into action.

14 chapters, divided into two parts.   Talking about the joys and the challenges of raising boys, and the way we need to talk to them, shape them, work with who they are.   Boys are meant to be leaders in their households, to hold down a job, to learn to how cherish their loved ones and to rely on the strength of God.

When talking about how to deal with temptation, we were told of the fist principle.

Dealing with temptation
1. Leave the situation
2. Pray, ask the Lord’s forgiveness and help
3. Read your bible
4. Sing praises or Hymns to God
5. Go to your authority and ask for help

These are five ways to make a fist to knock away temptation.

Doesn’t that sound so doable?   Easy lessons to teach your son and to apply to your own life!

At 255 pages it is not an overly long book, the text is easy to read and quite personable.   
Recommended reading.  🙂

Raising boys by Design.
This is a more scholarly type book, with the science behind how men and boys think explained.     12 chapters, divided into two sections.

The first section is mostly the brain stuff.   The science behind the workings of the male brain and body. In this section you will find chapters such as “what a boy learns from mom”, “what a boy learns from dad” “how boys develop differently than girls” etc.

The second section deals with helping boys develop good heroes, to do their best in work and school, to the building of character and self-discipline.    We also learn the importance of marking off stages in a lad’s life… giving them good markers to show that they are maturing and not a young child any more.  To the importance of giving a vision of what a strong Christian man looks like.

I appreciated this section “Making Faith Work for Boys”
1. faith must be individual, not merely institutional
2. faith must be flexible
3. faith must be interactive
4. faith must be relevant
5. faith must be muscular
6. faith must include room for questions
7. faith must include room for doubt
8. faith must be active
9. faith must be intergenerational
10. faith must cost something
11. faith must be relational.

It’s a meaty book with a less personal touch, but a very good book none-the-less.   It has good examples and stories of how to help a boy become a man scattered throughout it’s pages.

I Love the combination of these two books.

The end result they have is the same, the turning of boys into men called after God’s own heart.
The approach is different, but the result the same.  They compliment each other very nicely.

I am so pleased that I chose to read them and be able to take the truths contained within it’s pages to help me in the raising of my son.

I hope that you will find them useful to you as well.  🙂

What does it mean to Create, a #fmfparty post

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The word prompt for five minute Friday this past week was create.

Simple Definition of create

  • : to make or produce (something) : to cause (something new) to exist
  • : to cause (a particular situation) to exist
  • : to produce (something new, such as a work of art) by using your talents and imagination 

Think about that for a moment, to create is to cause something new to be made.   One can create a poem, a piece of art, a new start in life in someone struggling, a business, a lesson plan, a play, and more. 

Have you ever paused to consider where that act of creation comes from?

The Bible tells us that in the VERY VERY BEGINNING God.. God created the heavens and the earth and everything that dwells within it.  (Genesis 1 and 2).  In the process of creation, God created us as the pinnacle of his creation.

When he made us, he made us in his likeness.  Think about what that means for a minute.

Take my boy for instance.  EVERYONE who sees him says “you look like your father”  (and he does).  BUT he has my sensitivity and love of animals, and he likes to garden (GO FIGURE).   So as much as my boy looks like he is made in the image of his father, he’s also made in the image of his mother…  Two different aspects, one external image.

When God made us in his image, he didn’t just go for looks, he also went for WHO HE IS.

Our God is a supremely creative (just look at the world around us), and he is WAY more than we are.  He is. he’s God, not man.

We get our creativity from him. 

So as you go out and create, remember what spawned that creativity, that ability you have to create a child, a piece of art, a business… remember where it really comes from.   The one that created you in the first place.  

Go well.. create!   🙂

Review and Giveaway: All Things Bright and Beautiful

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Today I have a sweet hardcover book to tell you about.   It’s called All Things Bright and Beautiful.   Written by Cecil Frances Alexander and Illustrated by Katy Hudson.   It’s a pretty, well illustrated book that I think your young children would enjoy.

About
the book:
First published by
Cecil Frances Alexander in 1848, this favorite hymn has become a
mainstay of churches and Sunday school classes everywhere. Here
artist Katy Hudson brings new joy to the words with her fresh and
bright watercolor style. Readers can join in the fun as they follow
two little girls and their brother on a day filled with the discovery
of “all things bright and beautiful.”
About
the artist:
Katy Hudson was
raised in Middlesbrough, England, and started her career as a small
child drawing on freshly painted walls. Her parents quickly
encouraged drawing with pencil and paper instead. The idea stuck, and
after earning a degree in illustration, Katy is now a freelance
illustrator. Katy works at a desk in a studio within Old London
Library and likes to tap dance in her spare time.
My Thoughts:
Beautifully illustrated, this is simply a lovely book filled with bright colourful images the illustrate the first verse of this hymn wonderfully.  

Just look at all the things you can point out to your children, or questions you can ask about what they see, flower petals they can count.
Each page is fully illustrated, with easy to read text if you want to read to a group of children.  You can almost imagine a fish jumping in the river to delight the children.
“Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks
to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post. Only one entrant per mailing
address, per giveaway.  If you have won a prize from our sponsor
Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible
to win.  Or if you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not
eligible to win it again. Winner
is subject to eligibility verification.”

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Review: Adventure Bible “I Can Read” books

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Today I have two lovely “I can read” books up for review.   They are Adventure Bible books, one named “Great stories of the Bible” and the other “Heroes of the Bible Treasury”

 These are lovely books for children that are filled with full-colour illustrations.   Each book contains six books in the one.  They have a solid hard-cover that feels good in the hand.  They open nicely to that children can see the whole picture easily, without any part being cut off.

 Heroes of the Bible Treasure presents us with stories about

  • Paul Meets Jesus
  • Brave Queen Esther
  • Joseph the Dreamer
  • Noah’s Voyage
  • Elijah, God’s Mighty Prophet
  • Moses, Meets the People

 Simple children’s stories, that don’t tell the whole story, but do give children a glimpse into the lives of these Bible heroes.  Good stuff.

 As you can see, the full colour illustrations continue from one page to the next which is just a lovely feature. 

Contained within the pages of Great Stories of the Bible are the following stories:

  • God’s Great Creations
  • Facing the Blazing Furnace
  • Ruth and Naomi
  • Miracles of Jesus
  • A Father’s Love
  • The Good Samaritan

These books are level two readers, great for children who are learning to read on their own but might need some help reading larger words.

The illustrations help to tell the story, which is also of good benefit to early readers.

One needs to be aware with these books that the stories are greatly simplified and the whole story is not told, and sometimes it is simplified to the point of not being accurate.   This is where one can start teaching children discernment in what they read.  Just because a book says (bible-based or not) doesn’t mean it is telling the truth (or the whole story).  That is why God gave us his word so that we can know the truth.

BUT books can be helpful in introducing us to some of the stories of the bible, and THAT is what these books do.  They begin to teach children about God’s action in the lives of his people.   Just teach them there is more to it eh?  🙂

Five Minute Friday – Pass

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So Kate does a Five Minute Friday word prompt, that a few of us like to get together and write on.  It’s often fascinating to see how many different ways a group of people can see one word.

The rule is, write for five minutes on the prompt.  So… here I go.

Sometimes it takes me a while to ponder the word prompt of the day.  Today was one of those days. Granted, I am admittedly tired, after being in the hospital most of the day yesterday.     My son had his ear drum repaired, and it was difficult for him post-op.

Today was a quiet day at home helping a lad cope with pain and not feeling quite himself.  I kept reminding him that this too shall pass.

I reminded him of last year, when he had the other year fixed, that he got better from that as well.

This afternoon when I was out in the backyard doing some work I was reflecting on how we’ll have to leave this home sometime later this year, all the memories we’ve built here, it made me feel a touch melancholy.  

As I walked back into the house and shook off that feeling as, I’ve moved several times in my life, and each time I look at the potentials of where I will be in the future.  Things to see, do and discover and that’s a good thing.

For it matters not if you have set down roots, it matters where you have your roots dug into.   Do I dig them into the temporary things of home and garden?  Do I dig them into the one who made my home and garden?

Just as I told my lad…this too will pass.   It will get better.
AND IT WILL.
________________

Join us won’t you?   Take five minutes to write on today’s word prompt.  Then link up, and join in on the heart of this community and take some time to encourage those that linked up before you.   Is a good thing to do eh?  🙂