Goodbye to a Year of Goodbyes

Goodbye, 2012. You were life changing, and no offense, but I don't mean that in a good way. And although you weren't completely bad, I have to admit that I won't miss you a bit.

In 2012...

We lost our church.

Twice.

We suffered the shocking and heartbreaking loss of the majority of our friendships.

And to round it all out, our beloved dog of twelve years died, followed a month later by one of our cats disappearing.

So here we are at the end of 2012, and while I continue to mourn the losses of this past year, I also look ahead to 2013 with hope and expectancy. I am so eager for healing and for new beginnings.

And so after a year of life changing goodbyes, and with the expectation of a fresh start ahead, I've decided to say goodbye to this blog as well.

So goodbye, 2012. You brought me much pain, but you also taught me some invaluable lessons.

• I've learned firsthand the devastating effects of gossip, assumptions, and false accusations.

• I've learned that people are not always what they portray themselves to be.

• I've learned that sometimes you discover that a friendship meant more to you than it did to the other person.

• I've learned that when people have made their minds up about you and have decided that the truth is irrelevant, the only thing you can do is walk away.

But the biggest lesson of 2012? The comfort in knowing that God is working all of this for our good and for His glory. And for that, I am truly thankful.

Godly Girlhood ~ Part One: You've Been Lied To

Tomorrow, my almost-seventeen-year-old (sigh.) and I are going to get serious about studying "godly girlhood." Specifically, she's wanting to study the concepts behind courtship, the reasons that we reject the practice of dating, and how to prepare now for her future as a godly wife and mother. My plan is to blog as we go through various books, sermons, websites, etc., so I thought I'd begin this series on godly girlhood by posting our family's all-time favorite illustration on rejecting the practice of dating. Love, LOVE, L-O-V-E this. It's only two minutes long... give it a listen!

Win a Huge Pile of Homeschool Freebies!

If you have never signed up to get weekly emails from Homeschool Freebie of the Day, you don't know what you're missing! They offer a new free resource on their website every weekday, and so every weekend, they send out an email giving you a heads up of what will be offered that week. You don't have to sign up for the weekly emails, but if you're like me, and suffer from "Forty Brain" salvation-related brain atrophy, it's very helpful. I can't trust myself to remember to look on their website each day, but having that email in my mailbox all week as a reminder helps me a lot!

Homeschool Freebie of the Day is currently running a contest in which three grand prize winners will each win a huge pile of homeschool goodies! If you're interested in entering to win, you can click through to the entry site here, and be sure to enter by Friday!

"Forty Brain" Explained!

What a relief to finally discover the real reason behind my inability to remember anything longer than five minutes! My friend Sherry calls it "forty brain," but now the truth has come out. Evidently salvation has caused my brain to atrophy! Warn all your friends and neighbors.

(insert sarcasm here)

Hymns: Theology on Fire!

I came across this quote today while working toward incorporating Hymn Study into our homeschooling. I'm linking to the two-part article here and here, although I (a) haven't read them fully, and (b) disagreed with at least one thing. But all disclaimers aside... wow! A lot of great stuff there! A few personal favorites:

"Hymns are theology on fire! We need solid theology rather than just a constant diet of fluff and fads."

"Hymns... cover a wider range of emotions than modern choruses. This is often a surprising point because we associate hymns with a lack of emotion and modern choruses with emotional excess at times. But a careful study will reveal that the emotional range touched on by modern choruses is really rather narrow."

"Hymns focus us on God's promises more than upon ours! We grow by feeding on God's character revealed and by feasting on His promises. Many modern choruses, with their almost constant emphasis on what we want to do, ("Lord I just want to...") fail to teach us to rely on God's love for us..."

What about you? Do you have any favorite sites that feature hymns, the history of specific hymns, and/or tips for studying hymns? Please leave a comment!

Reason #563 to Homeschool...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/14/preschoolers-homemade-lunch-replaced-with-nuggets/

A Hoke County preschooler was fed chicken nuggets for lunch because a state worker felt that her homemade lunch did not have enough nutritional value, according to a report by the Carolina Journal.

The West Hoke Elementary School student was in her classroom when a state agent who was inspecting lunch boxes decided that her packed lunch — which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips — “did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines,” the Journal reports.

The decision was made under consideration of a regulation put in place by the the Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services, which requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs to meet USDA guidelines. "When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones,” the Journal reports.

The student’s mother told the Journal she received a note from the school about the incident and was charged $1.25 for the cafeteria tray, from which her daughter only ate three chicken nuggets. The note explained how students who did not bring “healthy lunches” would be offered the missing portions and that parents could be charged for the cost of the cafeteria food, the Journal reports. The mother, who was not identified in the report, expressed concern about school officials telling her daughter that she wasn’t “packing her lunch box properly.”

Godly Conduct

Draw a line.

Establish a border.
Separate a lifestyle.
Godly conduct is about getting God's heart on every issue.
Do all things as unto Him.

Source: James MacDonald

(Oh, and that loud thud you just heard? That was the collective sound of the jaws of my blog readers hitting the ground over the shock of a blog post from me after five months of silence!)