Our family needs to change our story. We need a better story. A good story. The story needs to be about how our family treats each other well. In Bible class this week I've been talking to them about that. I found this verse and I've shared it with them yesterday and today during class, "I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another," John 13:34. Not a suggestion. A command.
Then at lunch I talked to them about it some more about it because something distracted me during Bible class and I lost what I was going to say.
I told them two stories. The first was about a family that when you walked into their home there was music playing, and it was loud. Some of the family was eating and they were fighting over the food so that some of them got food and some didn't. Nobody really felt any better after that meal. Then the little child fell and hurt himself. The kids just let him cry. Nobody helped. The mom, who was doing something for the family had to stop and tend to the little one. The kids called each other names and argued over everything.
The second story was about another family. When you walked into their house, there was soft music playing. There was food on the table: six pieces of meat. Everyone made sure that everyone else got some food. The littlest one fell and one of the older ones helped him. There was much talking and joking at the table. Here's one of the jokes: How can you tell a modern spider from an old fashioned one? Old fashioned ones have webs. Modern spiders have Web sites. Nobody called each other names. If they had something to say it was uplifting and helpful.
I asked which house the kids would rather visit. Which house would they rather live in? Could we have a house like that? They wanted to have the second house. It would be hard, they thought. I said that hard doesn't mean bad. I bet Josh would say that getting his Eagle Scout rank was very hard, and yet very good. Then I reminded them about more verses we read this morning as we were going through Genesis 18 when Abraham bargained with God for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. We read that Abraham made 6 requests to God to save those people. We compared that to verses in the New Testament that tell us we can/should come to God and ask him for what we want.
1 John 5:14-15 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
So, we want the second house to be our house. We also need to remember that Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I felt like Bob the Builder, "Can we do it? Yes, we can!"
We are using Foundations 1 Preparing for Christ by Anne Elliot for our Bible class. A supplemental website I use is http://children.calvarychapel.com/site/curriculum.htm. It is an awesome site with an entire Bible curriculum and includes object lessons. I'm still finding out about all it has to offer.
I took Jesse to Robotics and Sophia and Levi went with me. I took some toys for Levi and books for Sophia. She got her work done quickly and Levi was happily playing! We sat outside at some picnic tables.
When we got home, I had Jesse do his minimal work again and I worked with Sophia. I also did math with Caroline. I had a grammar class with Caroline and Jesse that went well. I am using Analytical Grammar Junior for them. Luke did the Analytical Grammar last year.
A new babysitter, Mara, came today for 2 hours. She is very good with Levi. I'm not sure if she'll be able to come when Rachel graduates because she is in college and she doesn't know what her schedule will be next semester. It's really hard trying to find someone to come help with Levi for a few hours a week.
Luke had his online Logic class. Josh watches the class recording and does the work on his own. Josh had his online literature class today. They both like those classes.
Today was the day we planned to go to Amazing Jump with our homeschool group. It's an indoor place with trampolines and jumpy castle type of play equipment. The kids love it. We took Christian too. Luke had to work so he couldn't go which is probably good because he tends to get hurt at those type of places. Josh ended up not going because he worked on his hunting license class. Grandpa Sobczak is going to buy Luke and Josh tickets to go to NY to go hunting during Thanksgiving. Jesse wants to go too, but we didn't want him flying with Luke and Josh and without us. Hopefully he can go in a few years. We tried to get Luke and Josh to go skiing in PA last winter...maybe we can make that work this winter. I need to ask Sherry when her boys could go skiing.
Here's Caroline doing a front flip....
Sophia doing a back flip....
Some of these are blurry, but they are pretty good of Levi jumping......
Tonight Josh has Boy Scouts. He'll be going on a campout this weekend. Jesse has Scouts and we just found out he has soccer on Tuesdays and Fridays. He chose to go to soccer tonight. His games start this weekend. Sophia has gymnastics and Luke has soccer with the homeschool soccer team (FEAST) right across the street from our house.
Steve took Sophia to gymnastics and Jesse to soccer so I had time to make some chocolate chip cookies. After Jesse and Sophia got home I was getting Levi in the tub and getting some wash together. When I walked in the kitchen Darby put her head down. She was still working on one of the trays of cookies. She was still chomping when I threw her outside. She was still chomping like something was stuck in her mouth when I came back in. Poor thing. She's like a cat cavalierly using up her 9 lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment