Encouraging Moms Who Homeschool

Every believer desires to know God's will for their life. His exact will. And, hopefully, His will is very good, filled-to-the-brim with blessings. That's pretty normal. I'd be willing to gamble that most Christians would admit they want His will for them to be good will, and they would like to know what His is for them. Here's my question: Is it enough to want God's will, even if that means I don't have an exact picture of His will for me personally? It's a tough question, and it's okay to think about it for a while and see if it actually makes sense. (I never claimed to be the most sensible person on the planet, after all!) What I'm getting at here, the point I really want to make is that there is a profound difference in the two "wills". It takes time and maturity to fully embrace God's will while laying aside the desire to know God's will for my life. It takes a heart fully yielded to Jesus to fully know and accept that Go

The book Satisfied by Jeff Manion is now on my " Favorite Book List ".  It's subtitle, Discovering Contentment in a World of Consumption , does give you an idea of what the book is about; but Satisfied is much more than just another Christian book on finances, tithing, generosity, the effects of greed, budgeting, and so on. It's not like any other book I've read on the topic of what followers of Christ do with their money. The chord it struck within me was unique, and this book is not only one of my new favorites, it is also now required reading for my children during their high school years in our homeschool. So, why do I think Satisfied is such a great book? It's not confrontational, it's simply the truth. The truth is, we in America are much more prosperous than most of the rest of the world will ever dream of being...and yet we don't live as if we have enough. The truth is that many followers of Jesus do not know how to live a contented,

Now that it is February, the dreaded Winter Doldrums have fully set in for most homeschool families. It happens to the best of us, and there's no shame in admitting it. But a little thoughtful planning now can ensure an excellent end to the school year in spite of the winter blahs. Here's what you do to make May/June a time of blessed relief instead of dreaded bookwork. Look over your children's remaining work in each subject. How many math lessons are left in the book? And when, ideally, would you like to be finished with the school year? Say you have 4 months until your family vacation ~ that's about 16 weeks of study time. Divide 16 weeks by the number of lessons remaining the the math curriculum and you'll know exactly how much you need to do each and every week in order to reach your goal. Simply do the same for every subject, write down what you discover (or this entire exercise will be pointless because you won't remember how much to do each week in ea