The results are in

We heard from the school where we want to send two of my sons next year. The oldest tested well in his math but he ran out of time with the written portion and the school felt there was insufficient written work for them to grade him on. We’ll be going in next week for him to write an essay there. But as far as the school is concerned it shouldn’t make much of a difference, the math was the important part and he aced that.

The youngest had some difficulty with reading fluency (he aced the comprehension tests),  his math facts weren’t quick enough and his written work not organised enough. The latter because we haven’t worked on writing skills and math drills much, (I followed LLATL slavishly and it didn’t occur to me to supplement with a writing program, *blush* ) and we will work on it this summer. He will be re-tested just before school starts in August, and if he still isn’t on par they recommend I homeschool him for another year and work on those areas.

I know he is a bright little spark and that he should pick things up quickly. Our assistant pastor taught second grade in a public school this year and he is available during the summer to tutor the boy and bring him where he needs to be.

I’m burnt out, y’all. I’ve really struggled to motivate the kids (and myself) this year. Some of it has been due to mis-matched curriculums and approaches to my middle boy’s learning style. It’s been a learning curve. We’ll be making some changes for next year but for now all I want is a good break!

Still 3 more weeks before testing for the middle boy…3 more weeks to plod on. I need a whole lot of grace to stay faithful and finish the course.  

Guilty!

Evidence (check out the floor, too):

More evidence:

And the guilty party is…

Getting cleaner:

All gone (She’s got that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth look, lol):

…And Jesus, beholding him, loved him.

Our pastor shared from this text yesterday. It is the story , beginning in Mark 10:17, of the rich young man who came to Jesus and asked him what he should do to inherit eternal life. This man had a very elevated view of his own righteousness, saying that he had kept all of the commandments from his youth. (Come on, get real.) He probably thought that he was going to get a pat on the back from the ‘Good master’ that he had come to see.

Yet Jesus, looking right through him, knew exactly where he was at and what was needful for him to do. He pinpoined exactly that one thing that the young man lacked and invited him to sell everything he had, take up his cross, and follow Jesus. What an invitation. This man could have been a disciple. Yet his achievements and status and posessions meant too much to him and he just couldn’t give it up.

Yet, still, Jesus loved him. That word beholding there means to ‘discern clearly’. Jesus knew what was in that guy’s heart, he knew that that man would probably reject him, nevertheless he loved him.

Same thing with Judas, though Jesus knew that he was a thief, and that he’d betray him, he still walked with Judas all those years…he even made a covenant with all of his disciples (including Judas) on the night he was betrayed …knowing they would all forsake him. (Did he wash Judas’ feet? I’ll have to go check…) When Judas came to betray him he called him ‘friend’. I think that if Judas had only repented after betraying Jesus, he would have been restored…

Pastor spoke on how to handle betrayal and rejection from those whom you have loved. He was really talking from his own experience (one that I witnessed first-hand since the couple in question were close friends of mine) and I can’t share that long story on this blog, but it boils down to a willingness to die to yourself, your pride and your rights and to love the other person anyway.

He mentioned the scripture in Ecclesiastes which says:

Ecc 10:4 If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences.

When others rise up against us in judgement and reject us, we should stay in the place of fellowship with Jesus, who is our peace and the source of our strength, and yield…not to the abuse of others, but to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives through this situation.

This word ‘yield’ comes from the root word Raphah, which means to mend (by stitching),  to cure, (cause to) heal,  repair, thoroughly, make whole. When we  yield to Him and let Him work something in our hearts through the pain and despair of rejection, we find that his healing starts to flow in our lives and those around us. Yielding to God even in our moments of pain, and loving those who have hurt us despite the fact that we have ‘beheld’ them (warts and all),  might just be the thing that extends healing to ourselves and them.   

This is an extremely hard thing to do, it is a process, and it requires lots of grace, and a willingness to be broken, yet I have experienced for myself that the times that I have felt the Lord’s tender presence the most acutely was in my broken times. Those were the times that I have learned about his sweetness, his mercy, his infinite kindness more than at any other times. It is when we lift our bruised and battered hearts before him and he comes in and pours his balm of Gilead all over us that we see Him for the sweet saviour that he is and fall in love with Him all over again.

Adjectives

We are doing school today. My youngest son is completing a standardised test that a school teacher friend gave me, and my middle boy is doing a review page in his language arts book.

 He couldn’t remember what adjectives were, so we did a quick review lesson, using some tiles that are colored according to which part of speech they are . This turned into him playing around with words, using the tiles, for about 15 minutes. He came up with some creative stuff, but so far, only one sentence of the original work is done.

He finally settled on adjectives to describe a tiger. They are very imaginitive, but not true to life. He chose: fizzy, warm, slimy, prickly tiger.  Cool words. huh?

I’m not going to get fussy about them being unrealistic. He’s having fun with adjectives, and that’s all that matters.

Thoughts on religion

I don’t call myself a religious person. I call myself a christian , for this reason: The word ‘religion’ is said to come from a root word ‘religare’, which means to restrain, or tie back. That is what religion does – it binds people, ties them back, restrains them, and keeps them from the liberty which is ours in Jesus.

The pharisees of Jesus’ day is a typical example of religious people – their laws became more important than the spirit of the law. They were so busy keeping their laws and judging those who didn’t that they didn’t recognise the King of Kings, the law-maker himself, in their midst!

Whenever anybody tries to put their laws on to you they are being religious in the sense that the pharisees were. I’m not talking about the important doctrinal things we all agree have to be there in order for us to be christians. I’m talking about the little things…what you eat, what you wear, whether you go to church on a sunday or a saturday, what movies you will watch, if any, whether you celebrate christmas or not… Religion seeks to put people in a straightjacket over issues like these where Jesus just simply wants us to have a real relationship with him and have our consciences clear before Him.

Religion puts us in bondage because it is rooted in the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is based on our own human judgement of how good or bad something is, or how well (or how poorly) we (or others) are performing in something.   If we have done well, the tendency is to get puffed up and think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. If we have failed, religion clamps its chains of condemnation, self-doubt, worthlessness and discouragement around us. Neither pride nor condemnation brings us closer to God. Only grace!

Where can grace be found? Only in relationship with the One whose very nature is love. We were never meant to know good and evil, we were meant to simply know God on a personal and intimate level. True freedom and liberty can only exist in that place where things no longer get measured by how well we have been performing. It is in that place where we experience the amazing, far-reaching, unconditional love of God towards us that we are truly free to be(come) who we are called to be.  

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.

I found this interesting…

I really enjoyed reading this blog entry:

http://groenevelt.blogspot.com/2007/01/gods-emotion.html

It reminded me of the scripture where David says he holds his soul continually in his hand. (Ps119:109) We cannot prevent our emotions, which flow from our soulish nature, but we can grasp them in our hands and offer them up to God. It is what we do with our emotions that matter.

Alex mentioned that emotions flow out of one’s nature. If this is true, and God is love (1John 4:8) , then we can assume that every emotion God feels flows out of his love nature. Even his jealousy and his judgement is motivated by his love for us.

David understood that God’s judgement was a redemptive thing…did you know that there are many, many instances in scripture where judgement is mentioned in a positive light? God’s judgement can only be a positive thing to you if you understand the true nature of God, how infinitely merciful and kind he is, how he is moved by compassion more than anything else.  

I understand judgement not as punishment for punishment’s sake, but as a tool that God uses to correct us and bring us back into fellowship with him. I know that God is for me and not against me, and because his judgements are so effective in producing change in me,  I welcome them!

I don’t know anyone sweeter and kinder than my Lord Jesus. Even when he corrects me it is always done full of grace and in love. He always tempers his truth with his mercy.

Psa 85:10 Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Sorry…didn’t mean to go off on this tangent. I hope to do a word search on judgement soon and quote some scriptures in which judgement is mentioned in a positive light.

In the wee hours

I’m writing this in the wee hours of the morning. I got stuck here at my computer and lost track of time. There are so many interesting things to read on the web! I am not a tv watcher, but I certainly know how to waste time in front of this little square screen. I often lament that.

Anyhow, I did get called on to speak at church tonight. I spoke on Genesis 1:2, talking about the study on ‘the deep’ and ‘darkness’ that I shared with you all here on my blog. (Thanks for letting me practise on you all.) Praise Jesus, it wasn’t just empty words (it could easily have been) but He wrapped it in his anointing and people were blessed by it. Even our pastor said it was a good word, which is high praise indeed.

It is interesting how the different things the bible students shared complemented each other and flowed together. It ws a precious time of sharing what the Lord is showing us in his word. It was really cool to see how we all go through the same stuff yet the Lord gave everyone a unique angle to it.

 I’m grateful. Seems as though I have gone through such an extended time of being humbled, it is nice to be able to step out in something for a change and see the Lord’s hand with me. Now I’d better watch myself lest I need humbling again…hehehe…

A treasure in the mail and sad news

Our green cards (this is so unbelievably amazing, I have to say it again, no, shout it out: GREEN CARDS!!!) came in the mail today. Everyone got one except Jenna.  She is an American citizen by birth anyway.

We knew the cards  were approved but actually holding them in my hands was the most delightful feeling. We no longer have to jump through hoops just to be able to travel overseas, nor do we have to fork out $$$$ to an incompetent lawyer for said hoops. We won’t have to go through the time consuming annual renewals for our work permits and drivers’ licences again. We can stay in the States for as long as we like and hubby isn’t tied to his original employer here in the States anymore. For us, the word green card means freedom.

I heard some really sad news today. A friend, whom I have been praying a lot for, is in the hospital to spend the last few moments with her preemie baby. He is 8 months old and had never been out of the NICU unit… I have been weepy since Tuesday, when she realised that this was going to be the end. I really believed that God was going to heal him, and it was quite a crushing blow for me to see the opposite happen. I really questioned God about it innitially but when all is said and done I know that He is sovereign and what he does is always right.

If I know anything it is that God is merciful and gracious and that he will keep my friend under his wings.  Please pray with me for her, as she picks the pieces of her life back up again.

8 random things about me

Applie has been tagged to write down 8 random facts about herself, and though she didn’t tag me, I decided to join in the fun. Applie, you can tag me now.  

I am the middle child of 3 girls, middle in many respects. I have one sister who is taller, and one who is shorter. One sister has dark brown hair, the other is much blonder than I. The blonde one’s hair is really curly, mine is slightly wavy, the brunette sister’s hair is dead straight.  We don’t really look like sisters at all.

When I was in grade school we once found a harmless garden snake in our pool filter. It became my pet and I took it to school one day. My best friend didn’t want to be my friend anymore because she said the snake was of the devil. Another girl loved snakes and wanted to be my friend because she hoped I would give it to her.

We had a beach house when I grew up and every summer holiday we would spend about a month there.  The waves get quite big there and I once saw a surfer go right underneath me (and he wasn’t hunched over) while I was on the top of the wave trying to catch it on my boogie board.  Those waves were quite something and I lost my nerve with them after a while.

I like to see myself as a what-you-see-is-what-you-get person. I love honesty, I don’t like guile and I hate it when people play games. Give me the honest truth any time…I can handle it. I probably already think what you are going to say anyway. Sorry…this is turning into a rant…

I failed my entire second year at university because I socialised too much. The dean of my faculty happened to be the brother of my aunt by marriage, and it was particularly embarrassing having to meet with him to ask him to allow me another chance at my studies.

I made jewelry out of the weirdest things as a teen: macadamia nut shells, seeds, copper sheeting, clothes pegs, to name a few.

When I am with people I don’t know or that I am not quite comfortable with, I get this totally weird block in my brain and I turn into a dumb blonde. My hubby knows a side of me that many people don’t see because of  these ’duh’ moments.

I like nature, and I like “roughing it’ and I used to love going on camps as a teen and learning about survival skills in the wild. I enjoyed taking physical challenges like gruelling obstacle courses and crossing ravines by only using a rope slung across it. The tougher and the dirtier, the better.

There ya go. I could have kept going…hehehe

May 16, 2007

So our air-conditioner finally gave up the ghost. But not before we had spent $400 on it this past week. Today is the third day that we have had someone from the AC company at our house. They gave us an estimate for a new unit today…wow, it is pricey. Our unit is 16 years old, and it was just a matter of time…but it is never fun to fork out such $$$$ for anything.

I don’t know how hubby managed in S.A. without AC – he HATES the heat and humidity here and the AC is a must-have. I agree, but I can handle the demise of our old dinosaur unit better than he can.

We’ve been working on the boys’ embryology notebook today. They boys brainstormed a while and came up with the title: Our amazing eggsperience: a duck named Turbo. The notebook looks so cool that I am tempted to start a new page just to show it to you all. If I do so, it will have to wait, though…scanning in all those pages will take more time than I have available right now.

I’m planning on going to bible school again tonight. My oldest is happy for me to go because we have struck a deal – he can play a certain computer game while I am gone. We have slapped a serious limit on his computer time. He is looking so forward to playing that he is doing his homework now – without any prompting from me.

Right now I am feeling quite lethargic. I think the heat is getting to me.