I find myself unhappy alot. Sometimes I feel a little "unblessed". And I think, "God wants me to be happy." And he does, he loves us like a father loves his children and a good father wants to see his children happy. And then I think, "Well, if God wants me happy, and I'm not happy, then God needs to change the circumstances that are making me unhappy." Don't be shocked...if you'd be honest, you like to help God run the show every once in awhile to. I liken our bossiness of the Almighty to a man and wife in the car (probably on the way to church). The man runs up a little close on a stopped car and the wife makes mention in a not so polite way that he needs to keep his eyes on the road. The man turns and snaps at his wife "I don't need a side seat driver." We've all been in that situation, on both sides of the car. Doesn't it make you mad when your husband or wife tells you how to drive? Well, I'm going to say that I think it rather aggravates God as well, except he doesn't handle it like we do.
But, oh yeah, back to happiness. A friend and I were discussing this the other day and we agreed that we have formed in our minds what God's kind of happiness looks like. We can see the perfect home (inside and out), the perfect marriage, the perfect kids, the perfect church, the all-important perfect bank account in our minds and we think that that's God's best for us. And if our homes, marriages, churches, kids and financial portfolio don't fit into that mold we've created, then we think we can't possible be happy. That God skipped over us in the blessing department. What we don't realize is that God's idea of happiness is COMPLETELY different from ours. What we think a blessed person looks like isn't at all what God sees a blessed person to be. In fact, happiness (as we tend to see it) is a fleeing emotion that comes and goes. Have you actually ever studied out who God says should be happy? Ever searched the scriptures for the "circumstances" that facilitate true happiness. I'm telling you...by the world's standards they don't make sense. In fact, some of them seem pretty unappealing even to a Christian.
Read the Beautitudes in Jesus Sermon on the Mount sometime, and you'll see what I mean by that.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn,blessed are the peace makers? Read them all and you'll find yourself re-examining your view of blessed-ness and lining it up more with God's.
You know what that one magical ingredient that fosters a Godly "happiness" is? It's God...just God....plain and simple. We have put ourselves into bondage thinking that we "deserve" the things that WE think will make us happy. We don't even know what's going to happen in the next minute of our life...how can we possibly say we know what's best for us? In truth, we don't deserve anything...not even salvation, and certainly not the love that brought it about. In a time where the world in general is self-serving and only out to get what is "rightfully there's", this is a foreign concept. God made the world and he made us, his hand is over and in it all, he doesn't owe us anything...but he gives us every good thing (even if those things don't seem "good" in our eyes).
If it takes a perfect marriage with a perfect husband who cooks breakfast on Sundays AND puts his dirty clothes in the hamper for you to be happy...truth is, you never will be happy. If you can't be happy with anything less than obedient sweet children, an on-fire all the time church, and a healthy checking account...then , you won't ever be happy...never have peace, never have joy. The truth is that our world is imperfect and so are the people in it. Including you and I, by the way.
But God does want us to experience happiness, even in the darkest times...in the times you feel like quitting, when you feel like everyone and everything is fighting against you, when the bill collectors are calling and you recieve the final final notice on a light bill and don't have a clue where the money is going to come from.
And you know, all it takes is a shift in focus? Get your focus back on God...back to Jesus and what he did for you. If in all his pain and suffering he could find peace enough to endure what he did, then how much more can we find peace seeing as how we have him living inside us...with us all the time to help us. He had no help...he had to endure it all alone, so we wouldn't have to go through anything alone.... When circumstances have got you down and you pray and pray and it seems like you can't hear GOd, you don't know what to do, you can't see anyway out except a change in those circumstances , remember that GOd is not a genie in a bottle we can rub anytime we want and get our way. There are times I have asked God for things and found out later I am very thankful he didn't let me have my way.
Am I saying we should just throw up our hands and let our lives run amuck, stop working on our marriages and stop discipling our children and working in our churches and quit paying our bills? No...a little common sense would tell us that's ridiculous. What I'm saying is that if God doesn't see fit to change your circumstances (for whatever reason...He knows best) you can have joy and peace if you focus on the one who never changes and never fails...who CAN'T break a promise.
I'm learning this more and more lately, it seems. So I'll leave you with this song which I absolutely love...Have a blessed day!

Some Great Bible Resources I Love...

Since I've been saved , I've been very interested in the science of the Bible, specifically what scientific evidence for Biblical Creation that can be proven aside from taking the Bible at it's word, which is easy for me, but not so easy for someone who doesn't really believe the Bible.

When Jack was so obsessed with Dinosaurs, I was leary of letting him watch anything that didn't have a biblical worldview of creation and found that there was nothing really out there. Not many books on his level either and I didn't know enough to counteract the questions he was asking. I mean "Momma said so." works in some things, but not in these sorts of things. I wanted to be able to give him adequate answers. I also wanted to be able to give others adequate answers should the need arise. So, here are a few of my favorite Bible resources, mostly about creation, but the Building on the Rock series is really good for devotional times. They are collections of real life stories from history that show the absolute control and soverignty of God and how he cares for us when we don't even realize it. The Bible Learn Series are older and might be hard to find. Your library might have them, mine has some. I was fortunate to find a bunch at a used bookstore.
Answers For Kids by Ken Ham
Did Adam Have a BellyButton? by Ken Ham
Did Eve Have An Extra Rib? by Ken Ham
The Great Dinosaur Mystery by Ken Ham
The Building on the Rock Series by Joel Beeke
Bible Learn Series
Jonathan Park Audio Stories

This is How We Do It: Bible

This will be the first installment in the series This Is How We Do It. And I hope it will help someone out there. There are times I've been talking to other homeschoolers and they'll ask how I use notebooking or how we do a certain subject, so this series will answer those questions.

BIBLE

*We basically use our King James Bible and Catherine Voss' Story Bible for Reading.

*Memory Verses

*Lillie is working her way chapter by chapter through the Bible and I print each selection from the BLue Letter Bible site and choose the KJV translation. That way she doesn't have to try and squint at the tiny print in our Bibles and we can highlight trouble words and make notes.

*We also have started a Bible Notebook.

How I Teach Memory Verses

Jack and Chloe pretty much learn by repetition, but since Lillie has started reading , I do a couple fun things aside from daily repetition of the verse and copying the verse.

I write each word of the verse on a Post It Note and scatter them on the wall, then Lillie comes and re-arranges them in the order they go. She really likes doing this and even wrote her verse on Post IT's herself yesterday ...guess mine weren't good enough.

The second thing we've tried and it's really effective and not boring at all is something I call Bible Verse Wipeout. I write the verse on the dry erase board, then Lillie reads it, then I erase one random word from the verse and she has to fill it in the next time she reads it...we continue on until only one word is left standing.

A Note on Notebooking

Since my kids love to draw, I thought I'd incorporate that into our Bible study as well.

For Lillie, I type up the bible stories using my Catherine Voss Story Bible and leave spaces here and there to draw the story. Lillie did Creation the other day and did very well and I really like this activity because not only does it reinforce the story but allows me to see how she sees the story in her mind. I can also see how neat this will be for her when shes older.

I usually print off coloring pages for Chloe and a blank notebooking page like this one from First School for Jack which has a space to draw and an area to write a short sentence. He can write a verse or a sentence from the story and illustrate a part of the story.

What I like about Notebooking is it is simpler than lapbooking and the outcome is the same, not to mention it can be adapted for any age group.

All Fun and Games?

The Bible ought not be boring, especially to kids. I believe you ought to respect the word and handle it properly, but I think our tendency as adults is to be too serious in our pursuit of Bible knowledge. When we adopt such a rigid approach, we ourselves tend to give off the idea that the Bible is this boring , unexciting book that we HAVE to read. THis is the wrong attitude for us and squelches the excitement of the scriptures for our kids. So I say make it fun...do object lessons, Bible Science Experiments, Get a Good Story Bible (I think you know the one I like), but don't neglect reading directly from the Bible. We don't want our kids to think there is any absolute substitute for God's Holy Word. And invest in or buy board games and Bible trivia games. Many games are adaptable to Bible. In my Sunday School Class we play Bible Jeopardy and they really like it. We also play a game called Who Am I? in which one child comes up and turns her back to the others. I show the crowd a card with a name and the chosen person has to guess what person they are by the clues the class gives. It's a great way to judge as a group how much the kids know.

So, this is how we do Bible in our Home, but I would add that Bible shouldn't be something we do for 30 minutes during school, we shouldn't see it as "just another subject to cover"...we should be living the Bible and the truths in it in front of our children every day. This is where I fail the most...trying to shove God into a scheduled out time slot and expecting a blessing in return. Yeah, not happening.

Have a blessed day!