Tag: temptations

Posted in Believe it or not!, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

THE Cure for “The Quits” – At LAST!

Posted on by Katharine
English: An aerial view over the north part of...
An aerial view over the north part of the Grand Canyon.

Most of us entertain a combination of all four of the “quit” reasons I gave my friend that day.

From the core of our beings, we know that the home is where our beloved children belong, but we forget, we tire, we listen to others. If we keep fighting, we succeed, but too often, we quit. Quitting is not the way of God’s people. We must press on. We must realize that any prize that includes the rescue of our children from hell is worth any effort.

Many do not realize that it takes only a tiny bit of quitting to quit entirely, because the rest is downhill. It is like walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon, where unwavering commitment to careful success is of utmost importance: One slip can spell disaster, two slips most certainly can spell disaster, and few if any have survived three slips. The difference is that we know certain death lies at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but we do not see that danger for our children in our wavering commitments to home schooling. We absolutely must develop a strategy for the times when we are tempted to take that slippery, deadly road of ease.

What should such a plan look like? Why, it must lead in the exact opposite direction from the bottom, just as you would lift a child who was slipping down a great gulf, of course! Therefore, any plan must include the following four aspects:

Keep the vision constantly before you. Pray that God will renew your vision for your children, in your heart. Make a list of all the reasons He gives you to home school, and READ it. Add to it often. Decide, forever, that home schooling is good. Read good home school magazines. Read good home school books. Read good homekeeping blogs. (Oh. I guess you already are doing that!) Remember all the upright people that home schooling has contributed to this world. Read the scientific statistics that prove the benefits of home schooling. Find a good support group and be involved in it, making good home school friends. Connect with Home School Legal Defense Association for wonderful confidence boosters. Wake up!

Determine that any cost is nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed in the end. Eighty-five percent of the children who attend worldly schools grow to deny their parents’ faith. That does not happen with home school. What are a few moments of sleep compared to their lives in heaven and a “well done” from our Lord? What is a new car? What is a worldly friendship? What is a college education? What is a second income? What, on this earth, is worth the loss of even one of your children? Pay up!

Commit yourself to your children, as unto the Lord. People hear calls to all sorts of missions, all the time. Churches have “charge conferences” to determine what each one’s job should be. Tithes and other resources are pledged all the time. You have been called to your children, just because you bore them. They are your charge. Pledge your life, before God, to be what they need, so they can grow up right in this wrong world. Join up!

Do not slink back and let the enemy succeed with you and your children. Your enemy is looking around for whomever he can devour, just like a roaring lion. Learn to recognize his roaring for what it is. Set your face like a flint. Grit your teeth. Exert yourself. Protect and defend your children, as any good parent should. Provide for them. Pray for them, for yourself, and for all home schoolers. Stand up!

And do not give up.

__________________

photo credit: Wikipedia

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Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

A Cure for “The Quits” – Part 3

Posted on by Katharine

bunsen burnerOkay, we’ll take on the last two reasons for quitting today.

Another reason we sometimes feel like quitting is that we grow weary and faint. (Hebrews 12:3)

Let’s face it: to work at home is work. When someone asks me if I work, I tell them, “All mothers work.” Perhaps that is not universally true, but I am persnickety enough to make the point.

Yes, I work, and so do you. Therefore, it feels like work.

Not all people are accustomed to real work. Being breathless or perspiring can make some of us have panic attacks because we think it is unbearable.

It wears us out, sometimes.

It makes us feel like escaping, sometimes.

It leaves us depleted, left over from yesterday, sometimes.

We want to relax. We want to play hooky. We want to read novels and eat chocolate.

Sometimes, we just weary of the discipline.

We are doing well when suddenly, out of nowhere, we find that rebellion is not only for children. We simply do not want to be sober-minded and take leadership over a pack of unruly ones. We feel like going on strike. Sometimes we act on all these feelings.

Last, but not least, we ignore our enemy. (1 Peter 5:8)

This is, possibly, the most dangerous reason for quitting that there is. Our enemy is looking for someone to devour. He tells us ridiculous things that we are dumb enough to believe.

You are ruining your child’s potential. You did poorly in math. You cannot provide a Bunsen burner. You will lose the love of your child. You will get arrested.

So run the insidious remarks of the enemy of our souls, of our children’s souls, and of our entire existence.

He stands to gain if he can make God’s people look ridiculous, so he does all he can to make us do the ridiculous.

We do not realize how ridiculous it is to be able to home school, even to have begun, and then to fail to reap the benefits in our children’s lives.

To hear, to believe God, to have the means, and to know better, and then to quit is just beyond explanation, beyond understanding.

Of course, someone may have a unique circumstance (although I have never met that one) but almost all do not. Most are simply listening to the enemy without even knowing that he exists. Most are simply quitting because of the dark things they heard whispered into their ears, dark things that they failed to negate, failed to fight, and failed to turn over to the Lover of our souls.

Okay, now we have examined the four main reasons we quit. Tomorrow WILL come the answers.

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Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom

God’s Dishonor Roll – Part 3

Posted on by Katharine
English: The Last Supper of Jesus Christ
The Last Supper of Christ

Consider the times of Jesus. The whole New Testament demonstrates to the world that Jesus is the Son of God by His deeds and by His death. And His 12 Apostles had a front row seat for the whole thing.

Let’s look at what they saw, as recorded by Matthew the Apostle:

Jesus drove out demons, as recorded in Matthew 8. Jesus told the wind and the waves to be still in Matthew 8. They saw Jesus heal the sick and raise the dead. They were there, we read in Matthew 12, when Jesus spoke to the Pharisees like no one had ever spoken to them before. In addition, in Matthew 26, they were there for the Last Supper, when Jesus established a new covenant with all of humankind.

Yet in spite of all these things the apostles were privileged to see, in spite of all the things that were designed to strengthen their faith, “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’” Matthew 26:31

How could anyone fail God with Jesus walking alongside him?

The disciples swore they would not leave Him, but they were about to find out how weak they were.

They walked with Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus told them to watch and pray. However, they were so tired that they could not even keep their eyes open. Then the soldiers arrived and took Jesus into custody. The disciples were so scared and so startled that they turned and ran for their lives. Jesus was right. They all fell away. They failed Jesus and they failed to keep the faith.

What about us? In church, it’s easy to pledge our allegiance to Jesus Christ. But when we are out in the world, it is not so easy. Out there, we consider other things:

Our marriage.

Our job.

Our finances.

Our family.

Our health.

Our worries.

As much as we want to serve God, there are times when it is hard. We fail, we sin, we deny Jesus as Lord, and we fail to keep the faith.

Yes, we are in pretty good company with God’s dishonor roll of failures. Thank God, He is not finished with us!

Tomorrow: Ar-r-rgh! What to do! What to do!

______________________

Image via Wikipedia

Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Spirited Away . . .

Posted on by Katharine
Rattrap and mousetrap
Image via Wikipedia

You likely have a spirit.

It may be good or bad, but we all have a “spirit-shaped” hole inside that something will fall into, if it fits.

All people groups from way back to ancient times until about 60 years ago, have known there were spirits out there. Now, only the more primitive peoples still know this truth.

What’s wrong with us?

Is the truth that we are more advanced, that we no longer hold to such “superstitions”?

Or is it that we are merely numb?

Look around you at all the things we gladly keep close by to anesthetize ourselves.

I don’t mean only chemicals, although alcohol has long been called “spirits” for good reason. Look at the TV, the endless games, the movies, and other entertaining things that we freely admit cause us, help us, to forget reality for a while.

Entertain means entrap.  That is what the word means.

A trap is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we even use traps to protect our helpless animals from predators.

It all depends on which side of the trap you are on: outside or inside.

If you are stuck in the trap, how do you get out? Some, a very few, are strong enough to open the trap and walk out, but they forever have wounds from being in it, and some have wounds even from their struggle to escape.

There is another way. Someone stronger than you, stronger than the trap, stronger than the trap setter, can rescue you, heal your wounds, and give you strength to join the fight against the trap settter.

But only if you want Him to.

Why wouldn’t someone want to be released and healed from a trap?

I haven’t been able to figure that out.

_____________________________________

Image via Wikipedia

Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Photos, Sayings, Scripture, Wisdom

Me, Myself, and I Ain’t Gettin’ It Anymore!

Posted on by Katharine
Self-portrait as the Apostle Paul (by Rembrandt)
Self-Portrait as Paul the Apostle, by Rembrandt

Not much to say about the following. It is from the Word, and I hope you read it. There’s a test afterward. No fair looking ahead!

This was written by Paul, the Apostle, to illustrate how anyone might feel. He, of course, had moved past this point he describes, by the time he actually wrote it, but his candor amazes and comforts me so!

Romans 7:14-25

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do, no the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? THANKS BE TO GOD–THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD! –Romans 7:14-25

———————————-

It is hard for me to believe something so relevant was written about 2000 years ago. This writer did an about-face from being a murdering, self-righteous prig, to someone who would die for others, slave over a parchment with a sputtering candle and a scritching plume/pen in a cold jail cell, just to bring such truths to us. I love ancient writings, especially when they point to the Truth. I introduce this section to illustrate what we mean by the word soul and to show, in case you’ve been feeling weak, lately, how totally insufficient we are, in our own strength, and Who can help.

Paul knew.

Okay, you will find the test in the comments section, as the first comment. No peeking.

————————–

*Image via Wikipedia

Posted in Believe it or not!, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

Abnormal Children

Posted on by Katharine

flirt, girl, pinkI watched her as she sashayed down the aisle between rows of dining tables. She had just come from church, no doubt, from the appearance and timing of her family’s entrance. She couldn’t have been over five years old.

But from head to toe, and not just the exterior but somehow even the aura emanating from her, all was advertisement.

Her hair, held in a side-saddle pony tail with a frou-frou clip composed of fuchsia feathers, probably was naturally palest blonde, but crease marks from a hasty curling iron had been sprayed to stay in place during the normal cavorting of a five-year-old. The ear on the un-pony-tailed side offered a pink, diamond-looking, pierced earring.

She did not cavort; she swayed in a dreamy sort of notice-me way. Even her tiny fingers posed. And she flirted fake embarrassment from behind the frou-frou near her cheek while fuchsia-manicured fingers clumsily retrieved an escaping shoulder strap. That’s when I noticed it: the batting eyelids carried a heavy load: blue eyeshadow and brown mascara, to top off pink blusher, and an overload of pink lip-gloss.

Her dress, also hottest of pinks, shimmered as it clung, draped closely to her thin child figure, revealing the bone of her structure, the ripple of her musculature, the absence of pantyline. Ebb and flow of glowing fabric blared unmistakably: temptress.

The dress was far too short, as was Mama’s, but at least Mama knew how to walk like a lady. And Mama didn’t shimmer.

Actually, Daughter’s included a wrap application of an attempt at an empire style skirt that was not full enough to allow room for walking, so each step she took opened the skirt and revealed one long, tanned, and muscular leg and hinted at much more. When one fuchsia-tipped toe pushed against silver, strippy, demi-heel sandals as she struggled her little self onto the adult dining chair, an older man across the dining room dropped his fork on the floor and picked it up.

And looked.

And she noticed. And tried, not-enough, to conceal a knowing smile.

Rumpled and stale-haired, he approached their table and asked Dad if they didn’t know each other, occasionally glancing at Mama’s low-slung necklace. Dad searched his memory, clueless, finally blushing at not knowing, rose to shake hands and share a bit of social info. No, we live over in Dovegate Addition . . . don’t recall meeting you, but then, I stay gone on the road; field work, you know . . . the kids go to Dovegate schools so maybe we’ve passed during a PTA meeting? Oh . . . so sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . . well here’s our waitress; nice to meet you.

And as the older man turned to go, he patted Daughter’s shoulder ever so lightly, accidentally brushing a strap with one finger, saying, “Nice children.” And her shoulder straps really did fall down a lot whenever she was sitting . . .

____________

Of course it would have been highly unlikely to have found a photo that was exactly like this true life situation, but this one captures the sauce pretty well.

Posted in Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Wisdom

Ashes to Ashes?

Posted on by Katharine

Okay, today being Ash Wednesday, let’s talk about suffering and forgiveness.

Even those who sniff at what happened on Calvary will have to admit, whatever it was or whatever it meant, it happened at around this time of year and those who celebrate it do so at this time of year.

Usually when I talk on this subject, I ask everyone who has ever suffered unfair treatment to raise his hand.

This is not about illness, but about medical error. This is not about car wrecks, but about DUI. Ever suffer from either of those? This is not about miscarriages, but about forced abortions—I know you are out there. If you have never suffered from someone mistreating you, then I KNOW you know someone else who has so suffered. It is altogether common.

And today I begin addressing it and giving you tools to help yourself or help that acquaintance. Someone you know needs this post and the ones that will follow, so listen up and spread the word.

Why Does Suffering Come to Us?

1.  God. Common folks blame the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Why do we never blame any other presumed gods?!) But those who blame Him must first believe that He exists, so if you claim atheism or agnosticism, do NOT let it be because you blame what you consider a non-existent entity. Is that fair? Of course. 

So if we believe He exists, if we believe He is “up there” to be blamed, then the main way we can know anything about Him is to consult His writings.

In His writings, we find that He made everything very good. Not messed up, like it is now.

It. Is. Not. His. Fault.

2.  Man. Then God gave man choices, Life and Death, and we chose death. So here we are. He TOLD us, for our own good, what to do and we did the opposite, did not obey. Even today, even those who think maybe there is a God, even those who claim to love Him totally, do not always obey, choose death. Admit it.

And what a lie, today, that the only way to be pro-choice is to choose death! Really, we do NOT think!

However, the only way God’s creation can work well, is if every part is working together, just like a motor or a body. Anything wonky messes up everything. We must fall in line with His business plan if we hope to benefit from all His goodness.

Many people do not line up with Him. They line up with His enemy, instead. This is the constant battle between good and evil. Helping the hurting. Protecting the innocent. Guarding the airports. It is a constant battle—even inside ourselves—to make any good thing happen, because of the constant attack on all things good.

3.  Satan. According to the words of the God we are tentatively agreeing might exist, Satan hates God and all things good. So—he hates all creation. He personally hates every human being because they are all potential containers for God, his chosen enemy. He especially hates firstborn children, because they remind him of Jesus. Are you a firstborn? Ever notice anything?

To give himself significance, Satan thinks he must fight God. Steal! Kill! Destroy!—that is his motto. And his secret formula is to get man to join him. Anything he can do to trick man into cooperating with him, he will do, if he can. Anything to cause thievery, death, destruction will suit him just fine.

So, if you are not a Christian, you truly could say, “The devil made me do it.” But it doesn’t get anyone off the hook . . . .

Okay, all this was introduction. Tomorrow we begin the main deal and you won’t want to miss it, so sign up, so you won’t forget!

And share! Thanks!

See ya’ tomorrow.