Encouragement to Stand

Words of encouragement from A Wise Woman Builds Her Home and her post titled We Cannot Remain Silent:

We must not allow the voices of the world

to set the agenda for this decade,

nor must we allow those voices to teach women how to be women.

Christian women must speak with boldness and clarity about womanhoood

and must live distinctly Christian lives.

Christian women must articulate a Biblical world and life view

and the implications of this perspective for women.

...Today many women are buying into New Age philosophies

because they are looking for hope in their hopelessness.

We must not abandon these women.

We must come alongside and encourage and equip them to live for God's glory...

But we cannot do it by remaining silent.

We must speak the words of life.

-Susan Hunt, Spiritual Mothering

The Titus 2 Model for Women Mentoring Women

Character Over Academics

"Good moral character is the first essential in a man." ~General George Washington

Our Catherine is working through "The Life of Fred" math book during the summer. The book is perfect except that each lesson lists all of the solutions and answers on the page after the problems, not in a separate teacher's book like what is usual for us. I had reminded her when she began this book that she would have to take responsibility for her own education by not cheating herself by peaking at the answers.

Today, she got 2 out of the 10 of the answers wrong which is not a good percentage around here, but the good news is she obviously didn't look at the answers. I praised her for her honesty, integrity and self-control by not peeking at the answers which in our home is more commendable than being a math genius.

To be the smartest, the most talented, the most popular... these are worldly pursuits and it is easy, even as a Christian, to be enticed and motivated by worldly dreams. However, upright character laid out clearly in God's Word should be the focus of our goals.

After all, Ted Kaczynski was considered a highly intelligent man. Godly virtue he had not.

Of course, we highly prize academic success around here too, but think it a natural fruit of building strong character which is where we hope to focus our training. And, it doesn't happen by osmosis, folks. Here is our family's game plan:

Daily family worship led by their dad,
Christ-centered curriculum derived directly from God's Word,
Reading books about people who exemplify strong character,
Spending time with friends who challenge and inspire us toward godliness,
Providing opportunities to serve others,
Giving lots of jobs that benefit the family

and here is the hard one...

Keeping our children with us (we consider this a full time job) so they might hopefully observe in real time their very own parents exemplifying moral character in our daily walk. I mean what I say that this one is the hardest!

YOU don't think I don't ever want to look ahead at the answers or that I don't ever want to eat my dessert first or that I don't ever feel like giving up on a hard task?!?!?! Believe me... I know its hard. This is why we are on our faces in prayer every day, and... it is why we provide lots of Bible education and books about people who exemplify strong character. ;)

The truth is they see us fail often. We are incapable of raising perfect children because we are far from perfect ourselves. What makes all the difference is that they see a mom and dad who in their hearts desperately desire to love and glorify God in all that we do. Just a mom and dad who desire to embrace God's plan for our family, submit ourselves unto Him and trust that He will raise His children for His Glory.

Okay... Back on face in prayer!!!

Publix -N-Me

"...she brings her food from afar. " ~Proverbs 31:14

Not sure it fulfills this verse, but it is worth driving to Birmingham to shop at Publix. When I match their weekly deals with their liberal coupon policy I can get a lot of groceries free. I like to focus on buying fewer items at larger quantity. Publix works for me because they accept many copies of printed coupons.

Are you ready for this? I bought all the items pictured, 8 boxes of bow tie and penne pasta, 20 boxes of Green Giant frozen veggies, and 4 2-packs (8 containers) of Shedd's spreadable butter for coupons and $2.00, and this includes tax. I had already done this veggie deal a few weeks ago, so now I have 40 in my freezer. The veggies were free, and the pasta was free. The Shedd's was almost free.

Muslims vs. Christians

This is an old feud dating back to Biblical times. You can read for yourself Genesis chapter 16 where you will find the origin of the two civilizations and the source of their tension between one another.

There are many who are ignorant about the depth of this problem even among those claiming to be Christian. Now, I don't pretend to understand it all, however I know a few basic facts and that it is real. Most news sources fail to report on the ongoing attacks of hatred of the Muslim's, who are taught to annihilate Christians, against the Christians, who are taught love one another and to turn the other cheek.

I understand persecution is not avoidable., so my only hope is that my readers might recognize this issue for what it is--reality.

I have decided to share episodes as I hear of them on my blog to bring awareness to the truth about the Muslims vs. Christians.

Our first stop? Ethiopia

Easiest Pillowcase Dress Method EVER!!

No bias tape!!
No measuring and cutting armholes!!

I am so confident about this method that I make the radical claim that this will be the EASIEST PILLOWCASE DRESS METHOD EVER!!

Unfortunately, I am not as confident that I will be able to explain it in this blog in a way that is understandable, but here we go:

To get your measurements,
measure the length from the chest to the hem line. If you are using a serger, add 1 inch for the ribbon pocket and 1 inch for the hem. If you are not using a serger you should add 1 and 1/4 inch for both the hem and the ribbon pocket. To figure the width, I measure the child from one under arm to the other and multiply that measurement by 4.

Or use another dress that is the same size you want still multiplying the width by 4 and adding extra for ribbon pocket and hem.

Cut or "rip" fabric into two identical rectangular pieces. One will be the front and the other the back of the dress.



Serge or zigzag stitch the sides of both pieces on the sides that run from the underarm to the hem.

With right sides together, sew a 5/8 inch seam starting from the hem/bottom and up about 2/3 of the seam then stop short leaving 1/3 open for the armhole openings.

While dress is inside out, press the seam open pretending you had sewn the entire seam. The part that will be the armhole makes V shape opening. See below:

Put one side of the V under the needle and top stitch the perimeter of your open edges as shown below. In other words, you will topstitch until you clear the point of the V then while needle is in the fabric turn 90 degrees. Stitch a few times until you get the other leg of you V. Turn the fabric another 90 degrees and topstitch until you reach the top of the other side. Don't topstitch too close to the folded edge. I do it a little more than 1/4 inch from the folds of the V.

This is the underside of the armhole.
I used a dark green thread in the bobbin for contrast.
I used a matching thread for the top-stitch
so the top-stitching is hard to see on the right side of the dress.

The big picture of what the armholes look like with fabric inside out.

Fold and press your pocket for the ribbon and your hem and sew.


Then I simply feed the ribbon through the pockets and sew them into place on each side.

A Good Education

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,

and night to night reveals knowledge.
~Psalms 19:1,2

When is the last time your child's Science class ended in the singing of hymns and adoration to the Author of it all?

According to Scripture, all of creation testifies of the goodness and character of our Creator.

For a Christian, the way to tell if you are effectively learning and enrolled in a quality education program is if what you learn brings you into the state of glorification and praises to our Creator and Savior. Ultimately, glorifying God should be the end result of all of our pursuits.

Thanks to Generation Cedar for sharing this must read:

The Indispensable Constituent of a Good Education

The right theory on education is pretty important. If you get it wrong, you will ruin the next generation. For parents this is important, because most parents do not want to see their children ruined. But which is the right theory of education? People really trust the theories of thinkers like Jean Jacques Rousseau, Fichte, Marx, Mann, Dewey, Hirsch, or Montessori and they follow them. Mostly they follow the revolutionary thinker of the 18th century, Jean Jacques Rousseau who postulated a K-12 education funded by the state that would "withdraw the child as much as possible from parents and relatives." (Durant: Rousseau and Revolution, 179). This was his recommendation for the modern world, upon abandoning five of his own babies on the steps of an orphanage, withdrawing them from parents and relatives and remanding them to the professionals.

But God's theory on education is quite different than the theories that men have come up with in the modern world. In a book called the Bible, you will find a unique form of education that develops out of passages like Deuteronomy 6:7, Ephesians 6:4, 1 Thessalonians 2:11, and the book of Proverbs, quite different from that which we have inherited from the modern humanists. The book of Proverbs is the primary source that lays out this theory in method and content.

Proverbs begins with an introduction of six verses explaining that the purpose of the book is to give wisdom, instruction, and knowledge to a son. This is God's book on education. Then, the seventh verse immediately introduces the most basic constituent of a good education for a child.

"The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God."

Read more

Scripture Memory Marathon

Scripture memorization has been something that I have been convicted about for some time. Our family is simply not spending enough time and effort on this. I am not talking about this one mile memorization like Awana level stuff. I am hoping to move beyond that to the marathon memorization of the early Protestant children who knew the entire NT and much of the OT. They were called Protestants because they were equipped to protest unbiblical practices and oppression using the Scripture that they had literally hidden in their hearts.

Knowing this history, today's modern Protestants must face the reality that we are hiding in our hearts a pathetic smidgen of what the Lord has made us capable. What is worse, it shows in the way we live out our lives and defend the faith.

A failing review on the Smith family:

At the current time, we are in the process of memorizing the Shorter Catechism with Scripture proofs, and Catherine is memorizing Psalms 139 while Alexey is memorizing Proverbs 31 and about to begin Genesis 1 and 2. Our biggest problem is that we memorize passages, yet seem to forget them when we begin new passages. We stop reviewing what we have learned.

As a remedy, I need a system for reviewing and keeping the Scriptures fresh in long term memory. I am going try this Scripture Memory System. It is cheap and easy to impliment. The only obstacle will be consistency which will be on us. We invite your prayers as we train for this Scripture memory marathon.


If you are interested in Scripture memory too, I want to recommend Hannah's Hundreds. We memorized 100 verses of James with ease.

Also, I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.