Changed By Love

More Than Preaching and Teaching

Nov.18,2011

David Wilkerson Today
[May 19, 1931 – April 27, 2011]
Nov. 18, 2011

I believe the gospel should be accompanied by the power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost—working mighty wonders, proving the gospel is true!

Paul boldly stated, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4). The Greek here means “with proof.” Paul was saying, “I preach the gospel with proof. God and the Holy Spirit are backing me up with signs and wonders!” Hebrews 2:4 says that God did confirm Paul’s message with signs and wonders: “God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will.”

The New Testament believers had one prayer: “That signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus” (Acts 4:30). These apostles went everywhere fully preaching the gospel.

“Many wonders and signs were done through the apostles” (Acts 2:43). “And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. . . . And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women” (Acts 5: 12, 14).

Here is one of the most conclusive of all verses—proving that a fully preached gospel must include signs and wonders: “They stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands” (Acts 14:3). This verse says that the apostles ministered boldly for a long time, preaching grace and repentance, and then God granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

God’s last-day church will go “out and [preach] everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs” (Mark 16:20). That is what God envisions for us.

The miracles of this last-day church will be genuine, indisputable, undeniable, and yet they will not be well known. Instead, they will issue forth from the hands of ordinary, holy, separated saints who know God and are intimate with Jesus.

These believers will emerge from the secret closet of prayer—a small, prepared army full of faith, with no other desire than to do the will of God and glorify Him. They will be fearless and powerful in prayer. They will open entire nations for the gospel and God will confirm His Word by their mighty deeds!

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We’re reading the book of Acts right now for school. The early church was so awesome! The people were so full of faith. I believe that’s the kind of people God wants us to be. But like David Wilkerson said in today’s devotional, we must go to our “secret closet of prayer” first to “emerge full of faith, with no other desire than to do the will of God and glorify Him.”

Amen, let it be, Lord!

Mary Rice Hopkins

Nov.14,2011

Mary is an old friend of mine, though I’ve never met her, and she doesn’t even know my name.

I had a cassette tape of her singing in the group Wendy and Mary back in the early 80’s. The cassette was titled “The Battle of the Heart”. I loved their sound. I wore that tape out! Such beautiful voices.

Fast forward a couple years when I got married and had a baby and looked in Christian bookstores for good Christian music and videos for my little one. I noticed tapes and videos that said the name Mary Rice Hopkins, but I didn’t know they were the Mary from Wendy and Mary. Sad to say, I never got any of those tapes or videos (hanging my head in shame). I just didn’t know what they were like, and I had never heard anyone say anything about them. If I had listened to one of her tapes for children, I would have known that voice! But, alas, I never did.

But it’s not too late. Fortunately, she is still going strong. She is still singing with that beautiful voice of hers. I missed out on a whole phase of her career, but I’m here for this part.

If you aren’t familiar with Mary Rice Hopkins, check out her new songs and videos.

She has her own channel on YouTube that you can subscribe to here.

She is working with puppets now, so don’t be frightened by them. She still has a beautiful voice and a beautiful heart. I pray that she will continue to bless and teach children the truths of God’s word and reap a bountiful harvest.

Holidays Charlotte Mason – Style

Nov.14,2011

Since our lifestyle is a homeschooling lifestyle, then I suppose it’s not surprising that we celebrate our holidays Charlotte Mason – Style. Holidays are a big part of life – some would say the most memorable part. We have been intentionally creating good memories during our holiday celebrations for the last six years especially, since I started listening to Cindy Rushton. Every year, she would help us to start thinking ahead about what we wanted to eat, make, do, study, read, etc. so that we could make sweet memories with our families over the holidays.

I hadn’t really thought about our celebrations and traditions being in line with Charlotte Mason principles, but they really are. I will describe some of our traditions that line up with Charlotte Mason principles in the second part of this post.

But first I would like to do some truth-telling about an issue that was brought into sharp focus by an article I read in Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series entitled “A Happy Christmas to You!”. I was amazed at how timely and insightful and relevant this article was for me and my family. I have been grappling with the very issues she brought up in this article. She talks about how the holidays can be ruined by bad attitudes and arguments among family members and general moodiness.

She approaches it from the perspective that the children are home from school, and they’re not busy with the usual activities that school affords them. But we don’t have that additional dynamic since we’re all home together all the time anyway.

But the thing that is so relevant to our family is what she says is the solution to these attitudes and behaviors. She says children need to know that they’re loved – each and every one of them no matter how old they are. She says that they often don’t feel loved as they get older because they recognize how “horrid” they are and feel that nobody can really love them because they’re not lovable.

My older kids have been sharing with me lately how bad they were when they were little. They have been confessing about lies that they told, things that they stole and heart attitudes they had that I had no idea about. As they share these things with me, they say things like, “It’s no wonder you had such a hard time with me. No wonder you thought I was a brat.”

I never thought these things about them! I wasn’t even aware of these sinful acts or attitudes. But they attributed a lack of feeling loved by me to their being sinful and unlovable.

As I look back, I realize that my pulling away from them physically as they grew older (and I constantly had a new baby to take care of) was sending them signals that I certainly never meant to convey to them. I have had times of wondering if each of them was getting all the attention they need from me. I’ve even asked different ones of them if I give them enough attention. They always assure me that they understand that the baby (or babies) need most of my attention and that they are fine.

But I’m realizing now that they need affectionate touch from me throughout the day. Each of them, even the 20-year-old. Even the ones who pull away in surprise when I touch them on the shoulder or back.

I have been taking care of them for all of these years, but for them to know how much I love them, I need to say the words and give them the affectionate touch that lets them know I really feel that way about them.

I have been growing in this area recently, but reading that article brought it all together for me.

So Charlotte Mason has taught me something new again.

Even though she wrote in the late 1800’s, her wisdom is timeless.

I haven’t noticed bad behaviors or attitudes getting worse during holidays probably because of our lifestyle (or maybe because I’m not very observant), but the thing she addressed in her article hit me square between the eyes.

Now for the second part of this post, I will share some things we do during the Holidays that are Charlotte Mason-ish.

441738: Bartholomew&quot;s Passage: A Family Story for Advent

Bartholomew’s Passage: A Family Story for Advent

I start gathering living books from the library starting at the beginning of November that are often related to the season, Thanksgiving, Christmas, giving, themes related to giving and The First Christmas, Christmas classics, etc. Sometimes we will listen to audios and watch movies that are about Christmas.

There are many good Christian books about Christmas in Christian bookstores and from online bookstores such as Christianbook.com.

Some of our favorites are:

Jotham’s Journey by Arnold Ytreeide
Bartholomew’s Passage by Arnold Ytreeide
The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell
The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden
An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco

Some of our favorite videos are:

Alabaster’s Song – you can find this and the next title at christianbook.com in A Max Lucado Children’s Treasury DVD box-set
The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
It’s a Wonderful Life
White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye

Sometimes the children will make gifts and cards to give. Charlotte encouraged the making of handicrafts.

The practice of giving presents and doing nice things for others – especially as a surprise – builds in children the habit of unselfishness, which Charlotte Mason definitely endorsed.

One of my daughters loves to set the mood for a peaceful, calm, joyful Christmas season by lighting candles, turning down the lights, playing Christmas music (especially the soundtrack “A Charlie Brown Christmas”), turning on the Christmas tree lights and just dreamily sitting there looking at it. She loves to get out the Christmas decorations and decorate the mantle. She loves it when we bake Christmas cookies and other holiday favorites that we only do once a year. Sometimes she has to remind me of what those things are. She is very selfless in all of these tasks. She enjoys them herself, of course, but she’s really doing these things in order to bless the whole family.

We do unit studies about the symbols of Christmas and other Christmas topics many years.

We have a lapbook from Live and Learn Press that we have been working on for about three years now that is all about Thanksgiving. Maybe this will be the year we finish it!

I just went to the Live and Learn Press website and saw that they have many Christmas lapbooks here.

We have studied snow and snowflakes like we did last year with Snowflake Bentley.

Snowflake Bentley
By Jacqueline Martin / Houghton-mifflin

Snow in Vermont is as common as dirt. Why would anyone want to photograph it? Snowflake Bentley is a biographical portrait of a farm boy who loved snowflakes. He loved them so much that as he grew up he learned to photograph them and share them with the world. Ages 4 to 8.

Reading aloud from a collection of Christmas stories is a very enjoyable activity for the whole family. Just thinking about it gives me a warm, toasty feeling inside. Especially when we have the gas fireplace turned on.

So have a Happy Christmas, as Charlotte Mason would say. Make sure you read lots of good books, and I’m sure you will!

Oh, I almost forgot —

This post was written for the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival. Amy at Fisher Academy International is giving away a copy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2012 Page-A-Day Calendar to one lucky person who submits a CM holiday-related post.

I’m thankful for the motivation. This post was a fun one to write!

Your Personal Penguin and Other Books by Sandra Boynton

Nov.13,2011

In keeping with the penguin theme that seems to have taken over my blog this week, I thought I would re-post the links to Sandra Boynton’s delightful book and video Your Personal Penguin. Scroll down the page until you see the picture of Davy Jones, then click on the video. In the video, Davy Jones sings the song, and it is just fabulous. I enjoy the song so much. He adds just the right touch to it by his voice inflection and phrasing. The tune is so catchy that you’ll find yourself singing it again and again throughout the day.

On another note, Sandra Boynton has the best songs that go with her books! If you haven’t heard her songs, you’re in for a treat. I just read Philadelphia Chickens. I guess they have the book in the library here since we’re so close to Philadelphia. That’s where I found it.

The book comes with a CD, which I think is the very best part of it. These songs are all so cute! The words are hilarious, and the artists that sing them do a great job. These are famous singers/actors, such as Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, and each one sings his song with the perfect style that matches the song.

Here is the description of the book from Sandra’s website.

What an event! What a show! It’s catchy and quirky. Tuneful and toe-tapping. Exuberant, unexpected, and utterly endearing. It’s what happens when you take America’s beloved illustrator and children’s author and combine her buoyant genius with some of the most talented people on the stage—presenting Philadelphia Chickens!

Created by Sandra Boynton, Philadelphia Chickens is a family musical in a book, bringing together a full-color songbook of 17 1/2 illustrated story-poems with a full-length, fully orchestrated CD of original songs performed by the likes of Patti LuPone, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, The Bacon Brothers, and Laura Linney, who pleads “Please, Can I Keep It?”—it followed me home. / What exactly it is/ I don’t know. Also joining in are Eric Stoltz, Natasha Richardson, Scott Bakula, and two Boyntons, including daughter Caitlin McEwan, who performs a piece that every little listener will relate to—a love song to the chocolate chip cookies that are just out of reach. With the collaboration of composer Michael Ford (known to Boynton fans from Rhinoceros Tap), Philadelphia Chickens is that rarest of kids’ musical discs—one whose inimitable lyrics and music make it as sing-along, dance-along, cluck-along for parents as it is for their children.

I have seen other videos of her books on YouTube. You might want to take some time to look up Sandra Boynton on YouTube – if you’re in the mood for some fun. Here’s her YouTube channel that you can even subscribe to!

A Pocketful of Penguins

Nov.13,2011

I brought out the Pocketful of Penguins unit study that I got from Teacher Book Bag at Currclick, and printed it out since Fiona has been so excited about her penguin named Felix.

It has activities for younger kids (preschool) and older (K-3), so I used some of them for Emma and some for the twins.

Here Emma is learning about ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.). She put the penguins in order as I read to her the word that was written on the card.

Then we matched the numeral with the position word so she could more easily tell which position each penguin was in.

Then I gave her the numeral cards and had her say the name of the number and then put it in the correct position. I found out that she doesn’t recognize the numeral 4, so we will work on that more. There were a few other numbers that she doesn’t recognize yet. We were able to compare 6 and 9, and I think she’s making progress in understanding the difference.

Her attention span is very good. She never got tired of doing this activity. She liked putting the number cards where they belonged.

There were grids with penguins placed at certain points that the student had to identify. Garrett did one of the grids.

Fiona did the other grid. The twins both understood the concept pretty quickly. I told them about the x-axis and y-axis and explained that we put the x first when we label the point. I never thought I would be teaching them this concept at such a young age, but it seemed to be very easy for them to understand.

There are a lot more activities with this unit. I didn’t get pictures of some of the things I did with Emma, and I just now got the first pages printed, since my printer ran out of ink in the middle of printing. I’ll probably write another post about our next penguin activities.

We did some ABC activities with Emma earlier, but I didn’t get any pictures at the time. We’ll do them again and take pictures this time. Felix teaches Emma ABC’s with penguin cards!