Jennybell  posted a question about what we use for Bible.  I have also been asked by a few others about our Bible.

This year I focused on Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts.  The history books of the New Testament.  I read straight from the Bible every day.  I have nothing against Bible story books but there is something about reading straight for the Word of God.  This is such a great way to stop and explain different words or what is going on.  Cameron has expanded his vocabulary from these readings too.   I made a coloring book for Cameron to work on while I was reading.

I put two passages per page.  I found these pictures at Calvary Chapel Children's Ministry.  They have 325 lessons from the Old and New Testament.  You can download each lesson for free or you can send away for a free CD. Each lesson has what to read from the Bible, a coloring page, and some extra pages:  word searches, quizzes, cross word puzzles and mazes.  Cameron LOVES mazes so I put the coloring picture with a maze for each lesson. I put all these in notebook folder to hold it all together.

I'm really excited about next year's Bible.  We will be using Calvary Chapel again but we will be using it together with a Bible cirriculum from Anne's School Place.  Again, we'll be reading straight from the Bible.  But it also will add some great extras that I'm really looking forward too.  (And it's a free download!)

Cameron is on the mend.  He is still stuffed up, but our weeklong bout with the flu is passed. 

I can tell that he is starting to feel better because yesterday was a very trying day.  It was just a plain exhausting day of disobedience, defiance, tears, correction, more tears...  It was like the cycle in Judges.  Except for years of peace and prosperity, we would have 10 or 20 minutes.  EXHAUSTING.

These are the times I start question my parenting ability.  These are the times I that I worry that my son will be one of those that never make a personal commitment and when he is older will chose his way over God.  And that makes me want to worry.  I sometimes feel that I only have this one chance because he is an only child.  There are no guinea pig children to try and mess up and oh well, start over again. 

I know that those with more than one child don't feel as if they have more than one chance to get it right.  You want that for each child. 

We have family devotions almost every morning.  With the sickness that plagued us last week, we didn't get to it even once.  So yesterday was the first day of devotions in over a week.  And it was good stuff.  LOL

We have a book that we read from called, "Little Visits With God."  It is an older book, maybe printed in the 1950's.  I remember reading it with my Mom as a little girl.  They have a little story centered around a Bible verse and additional scripture reading.  It is usually only a few verses so I have Cameron read as much as he can from his own Bible.  He actually reads better from the Bible than his phonics book.  Go figure.

Yesterday's scripture was Psalm 37:1-5

1) Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

2) For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

3) Trust in the LORD, and do good:  so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.

4) Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

5) Commit thy way unto the LORD: trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

He actually knew what it meant to fret. We talked about how we can commit ourselves to the Lord. I'm trying to start have him tell me something he can see from the scriptures that we are reading. Right now it is  more like a narration. But then I'll say what I am getting from the scripture passage. We ended up reading those 5 verses a few times. By the end of that reading he wanted to mark it so that he could look at it again!!!

(And then we had a horrible rotten day)

Why I even thought of this was because, I was starting to fret, not trusting in the Lord, not delighting in Him and this child that He gave me, not believing that He will give me the desires of my heart. Not committing my way to Him.

I think the Lord brought this to mind this morning as I was sitting here praying that today was not a repeat of yesterday.  I need to commit my way to Him.  I need to hold Cameron in prayer, daily.  I need to pray for myself as a mother.  I need to stop and seek His will.  I need to trust Him.  I don't have the ability to be this little boy's mother.  That is why I need HIM so much. I need to delight myself in the LORD and not my own parenting skills. 

Today I had to do something very hard.  I had to confess a sin and apologize. 

As I was reading my Bible this morning, the Lord brought to mind a wrong, a SIN, that I had done last week.  I instantly tried to quench the Spirit's leading convincing myself that it really was a small thing.  But as I continued to read it seemed the entire passage was yelling at me that I was wrong, I had sinned, I was even more wrong for not taking care of it.

"Ok, Lord.  I'm so sorry."  Whew, got that "out of the way."  I continue my reading.  But the Lord was not done with me yet.  He kept prodding that I needed to apologize to the person that I had sinned against.

"WHAT?! You've got to be kidding.  They have no clue of what I even did and what they don't know can't hurt them right?"  I almost had talked myself into the lack of needing to even speak of it to this person.  

"Ok, Lord.  I know I need to make things right with them.  I will"  Then I start "bargaining" with the Lord.

"If they bring up the subject again, I'll make my apology then."  No, that's no good.

"How about, if I'm really to do this You bring it to my mind later."  No, not good either.

"Ok, when I talk to them today I WILL tell them of my wrong doing and I will apologize."

It is never easy to admit when you're wrong or you have sinned.  I offered my confession to the person and apologized.  I felt just awful.  There were tears.  I was forgiven, even though I had disappointed the person. 

Do I feel all better?  No, not really. Well, maybe a little. I was pondering why that is.  I think some of it has to do with remembering this chastisment from the Lord so that the next time I am tempted to fall jump into temptation, I will think twice and hopefully turn, run, and flee from that sin.

I keep a running of lists of things I wanted to blog about.  Sometimes it seems that my list gets ahead of what I'm actually blogging so I am going to combine a few similar topics for one blog.

How we learn memory verses.  We work on one verse for a week.  Usually Thursday to Wednesday because he says the verse for his Wednesday night Master Clubs.

It is very easy to work with young children and non readers on learning a verse.  It is very easy to do what we call the "address" with the verse each and every time we say it.  How many times have I heard, "Oh I know that verse but I have no idea where it is in the Bible."  Start them young. 

For the first few days I say the verse in sections and he repeats each section.  We do this about three or four times in a row for a day.  That's it.  About day four or five of the verse, I start adding sections together.  Again, going through the entire verse each time.  Usually this step only takes once or twice.  By the last day, he can say the verse, all by himself. 

The other thing we do with Bible verses is we review all the ones we've learned so far every week.  I have all the verses printed out and numbered 1-5 over and over.  On Mondays, we do all the verses with a number one.  On Tuesday we do all the number twos.  And so on.  That way, we review each verse once a week.

February was Bible Publishing Month.  Our church is part of a ministry through Bearing Precious Seed  called Seedline ministry.  They assemble Bibles and portions of Bibles for missionaries all over the world.  Our church put together 20,000 John and Romans book for a language in the Philippines.  I love being able to be a part of this ministry. It does cost our church money so that we can be a blessing to the missionaries and let them get their hands on the Word of God for free.  I can't wait for next year to do it again.

The children go around and collect quarters as a fun way to help raise some of the money.  Cameron was the top quarter card kid.  He collected $55 in quarters!

And my last Bible topic is just an update on my own personal Bible reading.  I have been doing very well with reading it every day. I didn't start out trying to read my Bible through in a year but I am way ahead of schedule.  In fact, I am so far ahead that I am almost in May.  I'm going to take a slight break from how I'm reading now and read through the Proverbs this month.  There are 31 Proverbs, and there are 31 days in March.  Coincidence?  I think not.  LOL  I will read a Proverb a day and by the end of March will have made it through the entire book of Proverbs.

I believe you can do the same with the Psalms if you do about 5 Psalms a day, you will have read through the entire book in a month.

Babymakers has issued a thought provoking challenge.

Why do I not celebrate Passover?  For one, I am not a Jew.  Just as Paul said that there was no need for Titus to be circumcised because, although he was a saved man, he was a gentile.  I too am not a Jew.  The Passover is a wonderful picture of Christ who is our Passover Lamb.  But there is a lot of focus on them remembering how God brought their people out of the land of Egypt and delivered them from the plagues.  It doesn't mean as much to me and I find no real reason for me to celebrate.

I guess my counterpart to this would be to celebrate Resurrection Sunday.  (I know some people struggle with the word Easter).  What a wonderful day to do just as the Jews did on Passover.  I can remember how Jesus Christ brought me out of my bondage to sin and the world through the sacrifice of His blood.

Romans 14 tells us to be fully convinced on what days we chose or chose not to celebrate.

Romans 14:5-6a One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike.  Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. (6) He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.

I could celebrate the birth of Jesus any time of the year but it is just easier for me to do it when most other Christians do.  As long as I am doing it to the Lord and for Him, it doesn’t matter when I do it.  Even on Christmas.

I have nothing but respect for those that chose to celebrate Jewish holy days or a combination of Jewish/Christian days, or those that chose not to celebrate anything at all.  Especially if they are fully convinced in their minds about why they are or aren’t.

Not too long ago, as I was reading in the Old Testament and it popped out to me that God was referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Why all three? 

Because Abraham had brothers and those brothers did not follow God.  Isaac also had some half brothers but they also did not worship the God of Abraham.  Jacob had Esau who also went another way.  But when we get to Jacob's children, they then became the children of Israel.  I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else but it really struck me in an aha moment.

Along those lines, the book I was reading, First Light by Bodie and Brock Thoene had a narrative of Jacob.  When he wrestles with God before he met up with Esau again, he refuses to let Him go until He blesses him.  That was a huge turning point in Jacob's life.  Up until this point, he had been trying to manipulate what God had always promised him.  He stole the birthright and the blessing.  He even worked Laban's herds to favor him.  Even as recently as right before his wrestling match he had sent gifts ahead to Esau to sooth him and win him over.  And had divided his family and things so that if something happened with Esau, he wouldn't loose everything.  Even though God had spoken to him in a dream and he had the promises of God.

But now he wants to make the God of his Father Abraham and Isaac HIS God, on a personal level.  He had to come to the place where he had a personal relationship with God.  WOW, I had never really thought of it that way before.  Sometimes I think I am rather dense.

How much I am like Jacob at times.  I know what God's blessings are for my life.  They are written in His Word.  But instead of praying God's will for my life (those promises that are there for me) I try to "help" God along.  I try to manipulate the situation to come out the way I think they should.

 How would Jacob's life been different if he had not been the manipulator? (And don't try to blame anything on his mother.  According to time lines, Jacob would have been 50-60 years old when he listened to his mother.)  Yes, Jacob was still blessed but how much heartache was involved with trying to "help" things along?

 How would/could my life be different?

Today was the official first day of summer vacation for my 11-year-old brother-in-law.  He was the special extra surprise blessing 10 years after the youngest of his three older brothers.

My father-in-law is a single dad now and that is especially hard during the summer months because he works all day.  That is why Adrian will be spending the days with us this summer.  I am thrilled to have him here.  Even though he has 3 older brothers he is pretty much an only child. Cameron too is an only child and just loves his uncle Adrian.  It is a good fit.

Adrian has a few goals for this summer that he was discussing with me today.  His grades dropped in reading and he was wondering what could be done to help him.  I'm working on a plan.  He also wanted to drink more water.  We read somewhere once that you should drink half you body weight in ounces of water every day.  I told him that this would be GREAT for his body, health, etc.  We are going to be water buddies this summer.

Another goal was for the three of us to study/memorize a passage of scripture.  I chose Titus 2:6-8 for us to work on.  It may not take us all summer but there is no rush to hurry up and memorize it.

Titus 2:6-8 Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.  (7) In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works; in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, (8) Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.

He was excited about us studying scripture together and working on memorizing a passage.  There is a lot of great stuff in this verse that we can study out and talk about and learn from.

So maybe by the end of the summer BIL will not only be healthier in body, wealthier in knowlege and reading ability, but also wiser in scripture.  I'm looking forward to our time this summer.

I wasn't paying attention.  I knew that I should stay away from that one particular area to save myself from harm.  But I drifted.  I thought I was ok.  Even though I was close, I thought I could control my jumping.  I was wrong. I jumped and got too close.  I hit the boat and could have seriously hurt myself if I had been bouncing harder.  But it did stop me in my tracks. 

Later I thought about my bouncing experience on the trampoline and thought about how much that experience is like the Christian walk.  We know where the dangers are.  We are warned through God's Word what the natural consequences would be if we disobey. But, just like me on the trampoline, we think we are just fine.  We can keep it under control.  And besides, it doesn't look dangerous; there can't be any harm.

My friend didn't want to see me hurt.  She warned me of where the boat was and that if I bounced overtop of it, I would get hurt.  She told me of the natural consequences.  God does the same thing.  He doesn't want to see us hurt and that is why He sets up guidelines and warnings.  But sometimes we are just too stupid, prideful and arrogant to listen and obey.

How many times do I want to "ride the fence" on an issue?  "It isn't hurting anyone."  "It won't bother me."  "I can keep this sin under control."  Why is it that as Christians we want to see how close we can get to the world without actually crossing the line into sin?  We will drift. Instead, why don't we ask how close can I get to God? 

"...know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." James 4:4

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.  If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." I John 2:15

Tonight he was listening to a tape and it had the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. 

C: They didn't really die.

M: Well that's not true.  Because they disobeyed God and ate the fruit off that tree their bodies started to die that day.  They didn't die for many years but had they obeyed God, their bodies would not have died at all.

C: Well, if I had been there I would have cut down that tree and put it in the garbage.

LOL.  What a smart boy, just completely get rid of the temptation. If only life were that simple.

Yesterday at church was a great day!! My church is catching a vision for discipleship.  The sermons yesterday were very convicting. 

Jesus commands us to go into the world and preach the gospel.  We are to teach them, baptize them, and teach them to observe the Word of God.  We have so many excuses why we don't do this. I know because I've had my share.  But this is a command from my Lord.  When I am not doing this, I am disobedient and I am SINNING.  Wow, that is a hard thing to swallow.

I have had the privilege of leading a few people to the Lord.  To me that is very sad.  I have been saved for 25 years and I can count on one hand the number of people I have helped to lead to the Lord.  I'm not obeying what the Bible clearly tells me to do.  I am an ineffective Christian.  My heart fills with shame at how I fail my Lord.

I loved the mental pictures that was presented in the services yesterday.  I think I am a visual learner and these really gave me something to chew on.

All through the Bible we are told to bear fruit.  We are to be reproducing ourselves.  Now I have to admit.  I have been a vegetable farmer.  I have put my 3 or 4 carrots in the ground.  They won't do anything.  They just grow fat right where you put them.  I need to be a fruit farmer.  Fruit has the seed in itself.  The fruit will reproduce itself.  The seed can even be carried on the wind to germinate and grow miles from the mothering plant.  I have no fruits.  I'm not even sure where my vegetables are anymore.  I want fruit. 

 Another picture that was presented was about the fig tree that Jesus cursed.  He cursed it because it had no fruit.  It probably had very pretty leaves and was a nice looking tree.  But it didn't have fruit.  It wasn't good for anything but looking at and maybe some shade. 

 The Lord was really speaking to me yesterday.  He has been saying this same message to me through the years, over and over again.  When will I learn?  When will I be obedient and do what he says?  When will I start bearing fruit.  I don't want to be a big fat vegetable.  I want to be a fruit.

I set up his table as our Jericho.  Mama became Joshua and Cameron, with his blue horn, was a priest.  We marched around the table 7 times, Cameron blew his trumpet and we both shouted, "PRAISE GOD!!!"  Then I talked about how God caused the walls to fall down flat, and as I was saying this I knocked his table over.  The look on his face was priceless! But what an impression it made on him.  He was still taking about Jericho today. I heard him this morning as he was getting up blowing on his trumpet and shouting "PRAISE GOD!"