Where'd the Praise Go?

I've been thinking alot about praise this last week.  What it means to me, what it means to the world, what it means to God.    Hebrews 13:15 talks about making a "sacrifice of praise" to God and to do it "continually".  So that got me wondering what a sacrifice of praise actually is.
God takes pleasure in our worship and praise of Him.  Some people would say that makes him an egotistical being.  But when you look at why He created us and if you believe that and if you could see how much he loves and does for us daily, then you wouldn't mind giving a bit of a shout-out to Him every once in awhile.  But God is moved by real, honest, sincere praise.  We tend to willingly, easily offer up praise to God when something good comes our way.  Certainly we could all spend quite a bit of time naming our blessings.  It's good to praise God in the light...but it's also easy. Praise when life is going as YOU planned doesn't cost you a thing.  Therefore...it's not a sacrifice.
What happens to your praise, to my praise when it becomes dark...when His plan is unknown to you...when the battle comes right to your door and kicks it in and sits on your couch?   One man in the Bible comes to mind...Job.  Job has scared me, as a Christian.  To know that , even as God's child, you may still have to endure some bad things makes me nervous.  What my family has gone through the last year is hard...but I have seen and heard of worse situations, and , while I believe struggle is struggle and that there are no problems bigger or smaller in God's eyes, still...
Job said "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."  And that wasn't a question.  That was a statement.  Man, that took guts..that took...faith.  To continually offer a sacrifice of praise  is to praise regardless of your circumstances.  If we can do that, then our faith WILL grow stronger.
I think, perhaps, the praise that touches the very heart of God the most is the praise we have to struggle to bring forth.  The praise that comes from somewhere deep inside, past the circumstances, that has to fight and claw it's way through the darkness to come out.
And when the world sees that peace on you they don't understand, when they see you praising God when the chips are down, then they catch a glimpse of Jesus and what he offers to them.  Words are heard and forgotten...actions are remembered.  This kind of praise, that glorifies God and shows others the way, will take grace...heaps of it, you can be sure of that.
This song expresses it nearly perfectly...
http://youtu.be/0Y1nMCbSN30

A Horse is a Horse...Of Course!

Several months back we watched the movie "Secretariat" and that really peaked the kids interest in horses.  I am a big advocate for interest based learning whenever possible.  SO, I went about hunting up resources for a unit study.  I purchased a few resources which , if you know me, is uncharacteristic.  I am a tight wad and don't usually buy things unless I have to.  However, life taking the turn it has and a few more years on in the age department, I have become more disposed to coughing up money to save me time on planning.

Amanda Bennet's Unit Study on Horses is wonderful and at under $11 for an instant download, it's a great frugal resource.  Very thorough and meticulously planned out, she is a life saver.  I will be purchasing more of her products in the future.
I also bought this lapbook kit from In the Hands of a Child.  I still made some homemade lapbooking elements for our notebooks to cover topics the project pack didn't.  I'll be posting pictures here and there as we complete them.  I don't plan on covering everything in these two resources, but still the investment was well made to use what I will out of them.  To save on time, I will post what we covered on a daily basis (or every 2 days) , the resources used and activities we've done.

My hope is that you can glean inspiration or find useful resoures in all my homeschool related posts and this one is no different.

 This is the notebooking page I made.  However, I have tweaked it and if you scroll down, you can get it for free!  My gift to you!  We covered the Andalusia and Icelandic Horses Today.

 I printed each of the kids a large world map from Owl and Mouse.  As we study the different breeds, we will paste pictures of them in the general location where they originated.  We will also be marking them on our large wall map.  These maps will go in the pocket of their Horse Notebook.

This was one of those fun splurges my kids say I NEVER make.  A 4D anatomical model of a horse and it's "inerds"  LOL.  I got this one off of Amazon.  But let me tell you, it looked alot easier to assemble than it actually was, but once we put it together once time, the kids have each assembled it many times on their own.  Except for Tyler...he'd try to eat the kidneys or some such nonsense.

FREEBIE ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never used Homeschool Launch before or tried sharing a PDF, so I hope this works!

I am linking to a free download of the new improved horse breed notebooking page!

http://www.hslaunch.com/mypage/file/5446

Ok, that's it for now...will be posting much much more as the study progresses!  Have a blessed day!