Finding Joy in Your Home

It's June! And that means the beginning of Summer. And that means it's the perfect time to set some fun summer reading goals! 

Do you want to set some reading goals this summer? Or pick up your first book(s) of the year? Nows the perfect time! 

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Taking the Time to Invest in YOURSELF

I'm starting to prepare to homeschool our 4 year old twins. And as I've been diving into all the different philosophies and styles of planning out your homeschooling, I keep coming across the Charlotte Mason method. I'm not sure I will do full Charlotte Mason homeschooling, but I do LOVE a lot of her philosophies. 

One such idea is that as mothers, we should heavily be investing in ourselves. When we can invest in ourselves, and fill up our own cup, then we can then turn around and pour into our family. We can't pour into our family and build them up if we are utterly on empty ourself. Charlotte Mason calls this concept "mother culture". 

Mother Culture: "Mothers should cultivate their souls so that in turn they may cultivate the souls of their children." 

One idea for investing in yourself: Her idea is that you should always be in the middle of an easy book, a moderate book, and a stiff book and just pick up whichever one sounds the best to you at the moment. I've heard others recommend you always have a biography, a novel, and something to learn going on at once. 

So if you need another reason to dive into some good books this Summer then just remember...it's ultimately for the good of your kids ;) 

Two ways to approach your summer reading

Set a goal for each week/month

Jason and I have taken on the insane challenge of reading 104 books in 2017 which equals TWO books a week. Yes, I know it's crazy. But we are just crazy like that ;) 

As I expected, I am behind on my reading challenge (I really have no idea if I'll meet by goal by December 31st). But I have read 31 books so far this year which isn't nearly as behind as I thought I would be by this point, so I'm happy with that. 

So for me, my goal this summer is to get back on track with 2 books a week. Our family has been so busy that relaxing with a book has had to be really limited in my time lately. But I want to make it more of a commitment this summer. 

So one easy way to read more: set a few goals in your day for reading. Let's say you want to read 6 books this summer. Set that goal and start trying to read 2 books a month! Even if you only end up reading 3 books, that's probably more than if you didn't set any goals! 

Be in the middle of 3 books

This is the Charlotte Mason idea and I love it! If you have been really struggling to get back into the regular habit of reading, then this might be the relaxed, fun idea you've been waiting for! 

Pick three books: an easy book, a moderate book, and a harder book. Or pick a novel, a biography, and a book to learn from. Or pick a book in three different categories. Stick them all in a basket. 

Then when you sit down to read, pick up whichever book sounds the best to you at the moment. Don't think about it, just grab it and READ. 

I love this easy and relaxed approach! 

Start a Bible study for the summer:

I am ALL for creating reading plans and reading goals for your summer, I think it can be the perfect time for it. However, if you are really struggling to even spend a few minutes a day in Scriptu...

Growing in our faith and learning to love the Lord more, all starts with knowing God more. If we can grow in our knowledge of God, then we can come to love him more and more with each passing day. 

And that's a big part of why we study theology. But I know that studying theology can also be overwhelming and daunting. Which is why we are going through this series on Practical Theology for Homemakers. You can find part 1 in case you missed it: Why Theology Matters for Homemakers. 

Listen to the Podcast:

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And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

 Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Last week we started discussing the importance of the attributes of God and took a look at three of them. Today we are going to look at a few more and then find out why this is so important to our daily lives. Let's jump in! 

God is Self-Sufficient & Eternal

As finite human beings, we can't just keep going on and on. We need to stop and rest, and eat, and store up energy to keep going. God is different. He can keep going on forever, he is self-sufficient and eternally preserving. 

"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." - Acts 17:24-25

God is not dependent on anyone or anything. We however, are dependent on God with each breathe that we take and the entire world depends on Him sustaining it minute by minute, second by second. 

The important lesson for us: We are not self-sufficient. We may go through seasons or periods where we feel proud of ourselves and that we are working hard and making things happen. Other times we are depressed and living in survival mode. In either case, God should be the one getting the glory. 

He is the one that enables us to achieve anything and he's the one sustaining us in the rough and hard seasons. We are fully depending on God and we would do good to remember that! 

Unmasking Self-Sufficiency

What are the marks of self-sufficiency in the life of the believer? How can we know when we have stopped replying on God and others? When we deny our need for God, self-sufficiency reveals itself in the following ways: 

Prayerlessness. Our self-reliance causes us to cease approaching God with petition, praise, confession, or thanksgiving. Because we credit ourselves as the ultimate provider, we cease conversation with our true provider.

Forgetfullness. Like Israel in the Old Testament, we forget the past undeniable provision of God. Like Israel, we trust our current and future needs to the idol of self, which we have adopted from the surrounding culture. 

Anger in trial. When difficulties force us to come face-t0-face with our limits, we feel anger at our exposed need. We are unable to count our trails as joy (James 1:2), seeing them as a verdict on our weakness instead of opportunity to learn reliance on God. 

Lack of conviction of personal sin. We grow increasingly unable to acknowledge our personal need for forgiveness. When we hear a sermon or read a passage of Scripture, we hear it as a general admonition instead of a personal one." - None Like Him, pages 63-64

God is Ever-Present

God is all around us, in every corner of the world at every second. He is omnipresent which simply means he is present everywhere. God is always watching. 

He's watching and he's there when we suffer, when we walk through a trial,

Throughout my blog and ministry, we chat a lot about being intentional in your home and with how you raise your kids. We put a huge emphasis on Gospel-centered parenting and homemaking.

And because of that, I get a ton of questions homeschooling. But this is certainly not my area of expertise since my oldest twins are only 4! But we do plan on homeschooling so it's an area I'm personally very curious about as well.

So I am excited to share that this week on the podcast I have MacKenzie Monroe from the Cultivating the Lovely Podcast and we are chatting about planning for your homeschool year. 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

The Lovely Homeschool Course! 

Guess what? That super awesome course that MacKenzie kept mentioning in this episode, is finally HERE!! I've already starting going through it and it's incredible. It's called The Lovely Homeschool Course. 

MacKenzie has blended together a very practical course with hands on tutorials with inspiration and encouragement for your homeschool journey. One thing I LOVE that she has incorporated into the course is the aspect of family memory keeping. And spoiler alert: MacKenzie has weaved this idea of recording your family memories INTO your yearly homeschool planning and it's such a fun idea. I can't wait to start implementing it. 

If you sign up for her course by Wednesday June 28th, you can snag it for just $19.99! Sign up here. 

Planning for Your Year

You can jump into better planning for your homeschool day at any point during the year. But the summer time is an especially helpful time to get planned! This works well for any curriculum but especially for those mamas who like to put together their own curriculum or bits and pieces of it. (Make sure to head up and listen to the full interview with MacKenzie!)

MacKenzie shares the following tips for getting prepared during the summer:

Evaluate the curriculum you are using to make sure it aligns with your family's values and mission

Grab an accountability partner to help you out in your planning this summer

Pull together all your material for next year NOW (put baggies together for science projects, etc.) 

How to put your kids FIRST in homeschooling (interview with MacKenzie)

#1 Tip for being intentional

Create a mission statement for your homeschooling! I (Jami) encourage families to create a family mission statement and the idea of creating a mission statement for your homeschooling is brilliant! 

Here's a handy guide on creating a family mission statement. You can take these principles to create a homeschool curriculum! 

In creating a homeschool mission statement you want to pull everyone into the process. Talk to your kids, your husband and ask: what is it that they want out of their homeschool. Think through your goals, your values, and how you want your homeschool year to go. 

MacKenzie's new course is coming out soon! Sign up to get notified when it releases. More resources from MacKenzie: 

The Hard Parts of Homeschooling with Rebekah Sacran

How to Deal with Homeschooling Nay-Sayers

Listen to MacKenzie's podcast here: Cultivating the Lovely Podcast

Her brand new course is here! 

I promised that I would update once MacKenzie's course was live! And it's here. The Lovely Homeschool Course is officially ready for you to go through (and it rocks)!! Not only do you get access to all 12 video sess...

Do you wish you knew the Lord more? Do you ever feel confused when you read certain parts of the Bible and don't understand why God does the things he does? Do you yearn to love him more and more with each passing day? 

That's the motivation behind this new series, Practical Theology for Homemakers. Hopefully as we move through this series, you will grow in some of those questions. So far we covered: Why Theology Matters for Homemakers, The Goal of Our Christian Life, and So What's the Big Deal About Studying God's Word?

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

This next part we will be diving into is: The Attributes of God. If we want to come to love and worship the Lord more, we need to know Him more. Understanding the attributes of God is one great way to study God more - and thus come to love Him more! 

When you first met your husband, you were not simply content to learn his name and a few random facts about him. No, you want to learn all there was about him, who he is, how his brain works, and how he looks the world. And in the process of learning more about him, you fell more in love with him. 

I've been doing a lot of study on the book of Proverbs this year and one of the biggest take aways is that our faith starts with a healthy fear (or awe) of God.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;

    all those who practice it have a good understanding.

    His praise endures forever!" - Psalm 111:10

When we were called to be a disciple of Christ, when we came to salvation, our knowledge of God shouldn't stop there. Yes, we should have a thorough understanding of the Gospel and to be able to preach it to our family and all we come into contact with. But our knowledge of the Lord should grow from there. 

"My conception of God was that he was approachable and accessible, the God that the Lord's Prayer endearingly refers to as 'Our Father.' And he is that. He is mercifully and gloriously that Father. But what the fear of the Lord acknowledges is that he is not only that. He is also 'in heaven,' with a name that is hallowed above all others. He is both a God who is near to us and a God who transcends. The fear of the Lord comprehends the fact that the Father we are taught to call 'ours' is also the Lord of the universe, enthroned between the cherubim, doing as he pleases among the nations." - None Like Him, pages 11-12

So we see that the beginning of Wisdom is a healthy fear and awe of the Lord. The beginning of wisdom is to accurately understand who God is and we learn that from the pages of Scripture. 

"When we fear God rightly, we recognize him for who he truly is: a God of no limits, and therefore, utterly unlike anyone or anything we know. This is the start of becoming wise."- None Like Him, page 13. 

Accurately understanding God's attributes not only allows us to know him more, it also protects us. It protects us from idol worship, from worshipping false God's and things that look like God but are not. It helps us to be more discerning with what we read and listen to. It protects us by helping us to accurately discern and understand the difference between false doctrine and teaching and true teaching. 

*Please note: For a deeper study into each of these attributes, I highly recommend you get a copy of None Like Him by Jen Wilkin. 

God is Infinite

...and we are not. 

"Any discussion of how God is not like us must begin with an acknowledgement that we are measurable and he is not. God is infinite,

Mother's Day was a few days ago. Maybe you got a small bouquet of flowers. Maybe you got a hand written card. Maybe you got a half-hearted "Happy Mother's Day" from your teen. Maybe your husband did the dishes for you. 

Maybe. And maybe you are now feeling a little disappointed. Maybe you are feeling hurt that your husband didn't make a bigger deal out of the holiday on Sunday. Maybe you resent the fact that you still had to do all the cooking and the cleaning over the weekend. Maybe you are wishing that just for once, someone in your family would notice ALL that you do. 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Maybe it's two days after Mother's Day and you are already feeling like no one appreciates you. 

I get it. I think all of us have been there at one moment or another. "Don't they see ALL that I do for this family day in and day out?" "Wow, I sure wish I could just throw my clothes all over the room and hope that someone else will deal with it later." "I don't ever stop working, I wish that just for one second that someone would notice that and recognize it!" 

I know it's easy for these feelings to creep into our hearts. But at the end of the day, this is only going to lead us feeling frustration, overwhelmed, and with a lot less joy in our lives. These feelings and this line of thinking robs us of our contentment in the everyday. 

When mother's day is over and we are feeling under-appreciated and overwhelmed, how do we being again to find joy? 

Finding our Joy in the Lord 

It can be so discouraging when we feel like we are not appreciated for all we do. We want to be recognized or even just given a small thank you every once in a while. But when we don't get these, or it doesn't look like how we think it should look...we are quickly robbed of our joy. 

The problem is: We are placing our hope, our trust, and our joy in the things of this world. We are placing our joy - or our lack there of - in the hands of our toddlers who might wake up on the wrong side of the bed and scream all day or in the very angsty hands of our teenagers. 

We are turning to our family to fulfill us and meet our needs. I did this a lot in the early days of our marriage. I looked to my husband to fulfill all of my needs. I looked to him for encouragement, for security, for complete and perfect love...and of course, when he would inevitably fail...my joy would go along with it. 

I've learned through too many mistakes throughout the years that ultimately, my joy needs to be in the Lord. These sinful humans that we live with day in and day out WILL fail us at one point or another. Or everyday. 

Yes, our children and our husband can bring us an immense amount of joy. But if our ultimate joy, peace, and life rests in how our family all responds to us then we have turned our family or our kids into an idol and at the end of the day, we will be sorely disappointed. 

RELATED: Idols of the Heart and Keeping Our Eyes on Jesus - Hf #45

“Idols aren’t just stone statues. No, idols are the thoughts, desires, longings, and expectations that we worship in the place of the true God. Idols cause us to ignore the true God in search of what we think we need.” – Idols of the Heart, page 23

Instead of placing our trust and our hope in our family, we need to place that trust and that hope in Christ. We need to turn to him when life hurts, when we feel disappointed, when we are overwhelmed. 

When we tie our identity,