Terribly Interesting

This is a true story about a man who convinced his family to go on an outrageous road trip in order to bring healing to his family. I immediately wanted to read this book when I saw it. I wanted to know the lengths that this family went to in order to reconnect in a culture that devalues family. I saw more than that. We meet a contrite and humbled man who tells us that he wrecked his family and had an affair.  His wife filed for divorce, but he never received the final paperwork. During this year, he had a real encounter with the living God. He realized that he had been pretending in his faith up until this point. He then did the unexpected and asked his wife and children for forgiveness.  This and other circumstances led Brad to seek the Lord for a radical way to win back the hearts of his family. He discovered grace for himself as a father and came to see that the true work of winning the hearts of his kids belong to Jesus. That God did. You will love seein...

This amazing conference is going on in San Antonio this weekend. I cannot attend because we are at camp, but they have live streaming of the conference and messages available until the end of July online for $35. I am doing it. I am hoping to make some huge changes in our family during this next year.  Live Stream Now About the Event You do it three times a day, seven days a week and fifty-two weeks a year. If you live to be 85 years of age, you will experience it more than 90,000 times. It is called food, and it was designed by God as the fuel of life. But to describe food merely as fuel falls short of the depth and breadth of the biblical message. Frankly, there are few subjects which are addressed as often in the Bible as food. Hundreds, if not thousands of Scripture verses, incorporate various types of food, directions about food and spiritual lessons in which food is an element. In food we see the love of Jesus Christ for His Church, the wisdom of God as Creat...

  Losing two of my brothers to addiction has been one of the hardest things to deal with in my life. Instead of dwelling on loss, we decided to do something each year that reminds us all to let go and thank God that they are with Jesus. We have a balloon release on my brother's birthday. We took 30 colorful balloons and let them go. My daughter assumes that they will reach Heaven and God will hand them to Mike for his birthday. What a joyous thought. Perhaps He will. All of this has got me to thinking about Whitney Houston. You are wondering what on earth my brother and Whitney had in common. They both came to know the Lord at a young age. They both were intensely creative people. They both struggled with severe addiction in their adult life. You know, I read many a super nasty Facebook post about her. Some of them I could never repeat to another soul.  I thought about my brothers. I had this picture of people standing up at their funerals and yelling "crack head, worth...

The Giving Tree is a timeless tale of the love between a tree and a boy.  Created by Shel Silverstein, this simple story is heartfelt and makes for a warm parable about the endless capacity of love and how giving is an act of love that does not need anything in return.  A beautiful book for parents to read to their children, The Giving Tree has been around for over twenty years and won’t soon disappear from the bookstore. The story is short and never leaves the tree on its own.  It all starts when a boy comes to the tree.  He is hungry, so the tree offers her apples for him to eat.  From there the boy and the tree bond and a friendship is formed.  However, as the boy grows older, his desires change, but the tree still gives him what she can, apples to sell, branches to make a house, until all that is left is a stump.  By now the boy has become an old man and all he wants is something to rest on.  Once again, the boy and the tree are togeth...

http://www.courageousthemovie.com/ This is Denbigh, and I'm honored to once again be the guest blogger on my lovely wife's blog.  She asked me to give a brief review of the new movie, "Courageous", which I recently had the pleasure of seeing.  This past Sunday, some men from my neighborhood that we've been praying for went to the theatre with me to watch the new movie.  I knew that it would be encouraging and uplifting......but I was pleasantly surprised by the challenge that it gave to everyone watching it, men in particular. If you've seen "Facing the giants" or "Fireproof", then you know what to expect from the people at Sherwood Pictures:  Wholesome, godly entertainment with an emphasis on how to live out our Christian faith.  "Courageous" was all that and more.  The first thing I noticed was that the production value is much better.  Not that the other 2 movies were bad, but you can just tell when a movie has good productio...

We don't buy a lot of mainstream children's literature because we don't find it to be God honoring and it dumbs down things to bright children. Several of the books we have been given have met their demise in the trash can. We do love Charlie though. Laomai has been asking me to blog about him. If you know anything about Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, you know Charlie is a character. He has more personality than a herd of other dogs. In this book you can follow him all over the ranch and with his friend Suzi. It is neat for children to see what all goes on at a ranch. It's a great book to help get children interested in animals. I asked Laomai why she liked it and she said because Charlie is so very cute. He thinks he is fast but he isn't. He thinks he does a lot but he doesn't. They still love him."  Sounds good to me. A portion of all purchases made through this Amazon link support Gomer's House.

I couldn't do this when we lived in the city or in the suburb, but now, I compost pretty much everything we eat. There is also a method called bio-intensive gardening where you dig holes and put in all the grass cuttings and other waste products after harvest. Under the ground they are allowed to naturally biodegrade and replenish the soil with nutrients.  As I was throwing leftover bits of strawberries out in my yard the other day, I had a thought. I think this might be a theme for me. Replenishing the soil is really what I want to do across the board in my life. I hope to see a community revitalized around me, and a family centered around Christ, and children brought up in the favor and admonition of the Lord. It will be a hard won fight. I think I will have to dig many holes and leave the things I placed there to weather the elements and become what I hope they will be. I went to church as a child, but my home life contradicted my church life immensely. I had a head knowledge ...

I don't normally take my daughter to see Disney movies because I think the self-serving magic in them goes against what I am trying to teach her about the Holy Spirit. Since Winnie the Pooh is sans magic, we decided we could go see it. Who doesn't love Pooh.  It was a cute movie about a misread note and a missing tail. Really, the movie is about nothing, but it is still cute. Due to the misread note, all of the animals in the Hundred Acre Woods are fearful of a monster. I think M. Night Shyamalan may have stolen the idea for The Village from the book this movie is based on. I loved that they stuck with the original style of animation. It was nostalgia at it's best.  I love that what A. A. Milne patterned after the toys in his son's (Christopher Robin Milne) playroom in 1925 is still touching children's hearts today.  The only question left is, which character in the movie are you?

My family and I recently watched The Family Meal Table with Nancy Campbell. We have been wanting to utilize our meal time as a greater time of fellowship and discipleship. This dvd was a great encouragement to us. Nancy is a true character. She explained discipleship and the importance of the table in a fun and helpful way. Speaking from Psalm 128 , she told about how a woman was in the heart of the home and gave the picture of the flourishing children sitting around the table. Seeing her daughter and her granddaughter were a great help to me as well. They shared about the wild and fun times they had exchanging ideas and questions about the passages I read. This is not a boring, legalistic venture. This is a great way to help your children learn to love scripture and vocalize their questions and ideas. I greatly encourage you to revolutionize your meal time for the benefit of the whole family. Nourish the body and soul. I felt like I was being discipled in this dvd. I am grateful for t...

As I have been learning to homeschool (which I love), I came across this site called Simply Charlotte Mason. You can download audio from seminars and buy books and dvds. That's where I first came across the seminar for Laying Down the Rails. By the end of the audio, I had bought the book. It's no small expense at 30 dollars (with shipping), but the wisdom in it has surpassed any I have read in parenting or teaching. This isn't just a good book for homeschool. It's a great book for raising children in general. The brain has neurons that talk to one another. The more they talk to one another they start to wear a path. It becomes like a railroad track. You want your child to repeat the right track as many times as possible. You can lay down rails of cleanliness and character. Then the child goes to the desired mental destination even on into adulthood. Try it out. You will be blessed with smooth and easy days. The book is available at: http://simplycharlottemason.com/boo...

Somehow, I went to a butterfly festival and did not get a picture of a butterfly. You can hop on over to the Emily Ann website and see one though. It was a fun day as you can see from the pictures. It is a huge event. I really wasn't expecting to see the number of people I did when I arrived. Be prepared to walk a little bit from your parking spot. Once you arrive, you buy tickets to play games and eat food. There is a train, bounce house, outdoor musical toys, live music, bbq, and hot dogs. It is a quaint little festival. There are live butterflies released every 30 minutes for a 6 hour period. You can hold out a piece of watermelon and they will land on it. Check it out. It is in April each year.

This book is an guidebook for elegant girls. I think it is the sweetest thing. It combines the things you want to your daughter to show alongside biblical virtues. Many of us did not learn to why of being mannerly. Sheila points out that it glorifies God when we show respect for ourselves and others.  I thought Sheila did a great job of mixing in fun things like which type of tiara fits your face type with how to dress modestly. My daughter loved answering the quizzes in the book. We had oodles of fun reading it together. I even learned a few things and cemented some others for myself. If there is a little princess in your life, I highly recommend this book of manners to teach her how to act like a daughter of the King. Five Stars. Book Description:  What does it take to be a princess? Sheila Walsh has some important answers to share for every little girl. This trendy design features black & white line art and a two-color pink and black interior. The art will tie to ea...

My name is Stephanie and I have a strong-willed child. There are days that I fail miserably at parenting this child, but I have prayed about it unwaveringly and God has pointed out some things to me. I thought that I might share them with you in case you may be sitting at your house overdosing on chocolate and weeping over your computer because you lost another battle. One day during my prayer time, God asked me a question. He asked, "Who is your favorite character in Pride and Prejudice?" I didn't even have time to think that it was an odd question before I mentally cooed, "Elizabeth Bennett!" The Lord went on to ask me what kind of character traits she displayed. Fortitude. Unwavering tenacity. A complete lack of care for others imposed opinions of her. Now, mathletes, are you adding this up? As I sat in discussion with the Lord, I realized something very profound. Most every character I loved in literature and in Scripture displayed the trained characteristi...

A few weeks ago, my four year old wanted to send some balloons up to my brother in heaven for his birthday. She tried to convince my mom to buy enough balloons so she could go up and see him like in the movie Up . We just bought a few and let them go. It is very freeing to let things go. Once you release a balloon, the wind sweeps it up. There is no snatching it back into your hands. It's quite a visual piece of poetry. We can try to grasp at and control many things, but the release in inevitable. As I was thinking about the process of letting go of my brother, I started thinking about the encouragement challenge I have been doing for my husband. I have had to let go of a lot of things in marriage. Mostly, as a woman we must release control. It is hard. Society teaches us to succeed and run our house like a machine. Real life is messy. When he fails, you fail. I don't like to fail. God has taught me a lot about myself in that. God is gracious to me and tenderly leads me to the...

Hermie and Friends: A Bug Collection is a set of three dvds that teach kids wonderful moral lessons. Included is Milo the Mantis Who Wouldn't Pray, Buzbee and the Grumblebees, and Hailey and Bailey's Big Fight. Lessons are taught regarding prayer, complaining, and arguing. We were all abuzz here when we received this dvd set. Hermie is one of our favorite cartoons to watch in our family. The animation is great and the characters are truly engaging. You can't help but love them all. Each dvd gave us an opportunity for great discussion. There were also plenty of times when the dialogue spoke to me as an adult. Milo reminded us to pray even when we don't see immediate results. Buzzbee showed us how to be respectful and obey. Hailey and Bailee showed us how to keep our focus on things that are important. They were all great. We highly recommend them for your dvd library. Laomai, my four year old, can retell all of the lessons from each dvd to me with ease after one viewin...

I was sitting at lunch with a few pastors the other day. They were recounting their horror stories of multiple children to me and how it took so much away from their lives. Remember, I am pregnant with my second child. Internally, I was trying not to laugh at their insensitive statements. Later that night, at worship, I was dancing with my daughter who fell asleep on my shoulder. I nuzzled my face down into her neck and I just recalled how quickly time had already passed. In that moment of abandoned love, I poured out my love to the Father with deep thanks. In a few years, I would not be able to hold her like that any more. May we each enjoy the deep love that God has trustingly laid out for us and imbibe of the delicacies of His passion toward His children. Drink love deeply. ©stephaniecherry.com

People are always asking me how I get done what I do. I actually had no idea and so I thought about what I do each day. What is your routine like? I am a goal oriented person. If I set a goal to read a book or finish a project, I typically work on it until I am done (often staying up way too late). That led me to break my goals up. For example, I gave myself a goal of reading 56 books a year about 2 years ago. For me not to spend hours a day reading, I open to the back of the book and see how many pages there are. I divide the pages by 7 and then I have my daily reading goal. It's usually 25-30 pages a day. My morning starts in the middle of the night. Usually I feel God prompting me to get up around 3 a.m. to pray and I lay out on the floor next to my bed and pray as long as He is telling me to. Then I go back to bed for a while. After I get up and feed the tiny person who lives in my house I start my official day. Every day I have a "most important" list of things I...