An Ever-Present Help for Our Children

It is something we never wish to think about, and yet, we must think about it. And talk to our children about it. And that is…child abduction. I read something recently that brought up a scary memory for me of what happened to my daughter. I lost my five year-old daughter (Merf, nickname) in a large department store at the mall. To say I was freaked out would be an understatement. This happened right after the abduction of Adam Walsh in 1981. (If you don’t know the story, seven-year-old Adam Walsh was abducted from a mall in Florida and later …

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What is August to You?

What is august to you? I’ll bet you think that August is just a word for the eighth month of the year. Nope! It’s more than that. August…not the month but the word. Do you know what it means? According to the dictionaries, it means inspiring reverence or admiration, of supreme dignity or grandeur, majestic, venerable, eminent, worthy of respect because of age and dignity, high position, having exalted birth, character, state, or authority. Sounds pretty descriptive of God, doesn’t it? God exhibited all those august attributes when He spoke creation into being. Each seed of God’s Word stood positioned …

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Addicted to Instantaneous

What does instantaneous mean? That one is easy, isn’t it? It means an infinitesimal or very short space of time, a moment. It means fast. Quick. Accelerated. Snappy. Pronto. Rapid. Swift. Hurried. Lickety split. Infers easy. Cinch. Effortless. No bother. Smooth. Uncomplicated. Painless. Simple. We are a nation addicted to instantaneous and easy. We cannot wait for something to happen, so we have things to ease our schedules, like… *self-serve *microwave *drive-thru service *instant internet search *cell phones and texting In a hurry to do other things, we use… *instant soup *express lanes *frozen dinners *instant oatmeal *online shopping *instant …

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50+ Things to Do with Bored Kids for Summer

Running out of things to do with the kids yet? I found a bazillion things to do on the internet. Narrowing them down to fit here was difficult. Some of these make great science projects. I won’t jabber on so I can leave space for all the links and suggestions. So, here we go: * Instructions for things to make. 1) Make your own lava lamps http://slsmithphotography.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/06/lava-lamps-summer-fun.html 2) Make a city using masking tape * Let the kids go wild with a roll of masking tape. They can tape over the carpet, the furniture, wherever you allow, to make roads …

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Child of Sacrifice

Tumultuous turmoils! We have all been through them with our children. And if you haven’t yet, Mom or Dad, I’m sorry to tell you that you will! As parents, we go through numerous internal turmoils as our children grow up. Fussing over their behavior as they grow into preschool years. Their eating and sleeping habits. Their health, safety, and manners. Their learning about God and saying prayers. And then, we wring our hands, and sometimes beat our heads against the wall, as they grow and encounter peer pressure and the related problems of teen life. Problems occasionally continue on into …

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What is a Mom Worth?

If you’re a stay-at-home mom, what would you be paid, in today’s market, if you could actually be compensated for your services? Salary.com surveyed 6,000 moms for their 2013 (latest results) questionnaire. They wanted to find out the top ten most time-consuming jobs a mother performs. Applying their salary data to each household chore, they factored in the number of hours spent on each chore, and then estimated the possible annual salary. After calculating, they came up with the figures in these two infographics (used with permission): If you’d like to see how they calculate it, you can check it …

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The Scent of the Wood

Learning a trade from a father was essential. A tradition of following in a father’s footsteps. And so this young man obeys by mimicking the work of his father’s hands. In the humble beginning of his apprenticeship, he is learning from his father to carve out the design of the wood, to slide his hands across the wood and feel the grain, and to carry stacks of wood. Still a young lad and learning his trade, he needs the direction of his father’s callused hands to guide his unskilled hands, which now need a little rest. Stepping away from the …

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No Yeast in the House!

Time to clean out the closets. Scrub the walls. Mop the kitchen floor. Wipe out all the cabinets and drawers. Scour every utensil. Passover is coming. Why all the cleaning? Because the Law said no yeast shall be found in the house. Not even a tiny particle. All leaven was expelled from the house and kept out of the house for seven days. To the Hebrew/Jewish mind, fermentation meant uncleanness and corruption and was to be purged out, as it was synonymous with sin. It was to be spotless! However, one house did not remain spotless; it was the House …

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What Does Love Look Like?

  TODAY’s GIVEAWAYS…  Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter by Janet Thompson In Capable Arms by Sarah Kovac ENTER TO WIN by COMMENTING, SHARING this POST through Twitter or Facebook, and get EXTRA BROWNIE POINTS for sharing a BLOG ON YOUR SITE about the CONFERENCE (bloggers are added to our BLOG PARTNER LIST when you email us and let us know when and where to find the post!)  *WINNERS will be announced in SUNDAY’s LIST OF WINNER of our WEEK OF LOVE! __________________________________________________  “What does love look like? “It has the hands to help others. “It has the feet to hasten …

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Ebenezer Who?

Ebenezer? Who is that? No, not Scrooge. This Ebenezer was a what, not a who. In the Bible, Ebenezer means stone of help. It’s purpose? Let’s see… At one time in Israel’s history, when they faced the Philistines, Samuel and Israel fasted, prayed, repented, and offered a sacrifice. God answered their plea by confusing and defeating the enemy that pursued them. To commemorate the fact that Israel was victorious and recovered all the territory the enemy had taken, Samuel set up a stone as a marker of remembrance. When he did this, he exclaimed, “Up to this point the LORD …

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