Decluttering

We've been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan in our small group and absolutely LOVE it! The messages that Francis delivers to the reader is one that really forces us to examine ourselves and our relationship with our Creator. Some of the things he talks about is hard to confront and admit about ourselves, but he lays it all out there. The most recent chapter talks about God's love for us, how "He gave His best. He gave Himself." and "Jesus says the two greatest commands are 'love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind' and to 'love your neighbor as yourself'. And when He talks about our neighbors, He means the people that you don't get along with, the beggar in the street, the guy who cut you off in traffic, or the lady who gave you an attitude at the store- EVERYONE! So we like to go around saying how we love God and how we love Jesus, but are we showing our love to God when we don't show our love to everyone?

We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sister. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion- how can God's love be in that person?...Let's not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. 1 John 3:16-18

So what does all this have to do with decluttering? I was getting to that part. Do we realize how rich we really are? We might not live in mansions or own yachts but when we look at how most of the people of the world are living...without clean water or enough food for a day, we are rich beyond compare. We lead comfortable lives and yet we worry and we want more and more. We have people all over the world, our neighbors, that live in deplorable and cramped homes and yet we aspire to move into bigger homes or rent storage buildings to hold more of our STUFF! And we strive to continue to accumulate more stuff. If you look at it that way, it all seems a little silly and senseless, don't you think? So...getting to the point...in our small group, we talked about all the stuff we own and how we seem to feel like we NEED to hold onto things for some reason or another. Awesome A told us of a community that she drives by everyday that looks like they could use some neighborly love. We've decided to set up a yard sale in that community in order to help them get things very inexpensively, speak to them about God's love, and to donate ALL the money to charity. So that's where the decluttering comes in. That's what we are doing in our homes. We are all very excited about this opportunity and in showing our children what God means by loving our neighbors.

If you would like to contribute items to our yard sale, let me know. We will be having it on Sunday, May 22nd, if you want to get it to me before then. Another little golden nugget of advice I learned from the homeschooling conference: Less Things = More Time. So if you declutter your home and have less things in your home to bog you down, you free up more time for other important things. ;)

~H

Homeschool Highs

Hubby and I were fortunate enough to attend our very first homeschooling conference this past weekend, and it was AWESOME! I know I am still on a high from all the wonderful things that I’ve heard and learned. It was truly inspirational and further convicting to us why we feel that this is the best choice for our family. We got to hear Ken Ham and Voddie Bauchman speak and they are both truly gifted speakers. I just cannot believe that some truths are not taught in our schools and that theories are being taught as facts...anyhow, I digress. But if you want to learn more about it, you can read more about Ken and his mission at http://www.answersingenesis.org/
It can really shake the foundation of science on which you and I were taught. I really felt God by my side as I experienced the conference. It can get overwhelming at times when you are presented with so much information and stuff but I believed that God would lead me in the right direction. Even now, I am at peace with the idea of homeschooling and feel ready to start even though I still haven’t gotten all my ducks in a row...don’t know that I ever will. This phrase shared by Vicki Bentley at the conference will stay with me, “My home is clean enough to be healthy and messy enough to be happy.” I didn’t get to listen to Todd Wilson speak in person, but I did get his CD of the session and it is titled “Lies all homeschoolers believe”. I think it should be titled, “Lies all parents believe”. In fact, most of the sessions at the conference, I felt should be heard by parents everywhere, not just homeschooling parents, because we all want to raise children in a way that trains them for life and to raise Godly children. Todd Wilson has a great and humorous website that is geared towards Dads but I’ve enjoyed reading it, too. http://www.familymanweb.com/ I signed hubby up for the weekly newsletter. Don’t worry. I told hubby about it...after the fact.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

I am just so pumped about it all. Someone at the conference told us how she asked her young child (the oldest of 3, I think) one day whether he wanted to take a nap or learn to read. Well, he chose to learn to read, and she got to snuggle with him and teach him how to read while the others napped. I tried that and it worked! I asked E-pie (who doesn’t like to nap even though she could) the same question and guess what she picked? So, we sat down on the couch for about 30 minutes to learn how to read. We first used Boggle Jr. to build some -at words by sounding it out. At first, E-pie would remove all the letter tiles after she built a word and build the next -at word from scratch. Then, she got to the point where she realized that the A and T stayed and only the first letter changed. Then, we read 2 BOB books about Mat and Sam. She struggled at first because she wanted to remember their names instead of sounding it out when she forgot but with a little pep talk and hugs, she was able to do it. You should have seen her face when I told her she read a book ALL BY HERSELF!!! I was so happy for her but also felt like it was a victory for me.