Lent

We begin our journey through Great Lent.
Preparing ourselves to meet our Risen Lord we ask forgiveness.
Please forgive me brothers and sisters, wherein I have sinned in word, thought or deed.
We spend more time in prayer, hoping to become more like Him.
We fast in order to "gain mastery over oneself and to conquer the passions of the flesh. It is to liberate oneself from dependence on the things of this world in order to concentrate on the things of the Kingdom of God." (V. Rev. Thomas Hopko)
We give alms more often as we were commanded to. ...if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? (I John 3:17)

Beware of practicing your piety before men, in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do…that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4)

May you have a fruitful Lent.

See you on the bright side!

motherhood=servanthood

This may sound like a terrible thing. Sometimes I believe it. But in reality, our Lord, came to this earth to serve and that is what we are called to do.
My last 2 posts have been about this lovely woman, Sally Clarkson. She is a very wise woman and she longs to share her wisdom with us through her books and blog. She has raised 4 lovely children and she served. She put God first and served her children as Christ served when He walked the earth. The fruit of her labor is obvious and beautiful.

She wrote this on her blog. I wrote it down but neglected to write the link of the original post. I'm still searching for it, but I do know she wrote it.

Consequently, it is not in getting the rules right or in defining all of the rules and theology that will make our children want to serve God. It is in laying down our life for them, serving them, listening to them, loving who God made them within the context of a call to holiness, that will secure in them a desire to love God with all of their hearts. By seeing our love, they will more easily understand and receive God’s love, as it will already be familiar to their hearts and brains.

--Sally Clarkson

The Ministry of Motherhood

I came across this book recently and got it from the library. It is by Sally Clarkson. This is another one of those books sent to me by God. The subtitle is Following Christ's Example in Reaching the Hearts of our Children. She takes a look at the life of Christ and shows you how you should model your mothering after Christ and how he trained up His disciples. How did he do that?

He called them into a relationship with Him. He extended to them the grace of His fellowship, His love, His instruction. With them He was patient, encouraging, loving, and forgiving. His whole relationship with them was built on the foundation of friendship. He gave them the gift of himself. And then he asked them to pass along that gift to the world.

In part 1 we read about the first "gift" we see in Christ, the gift of grace. And in my opinion the foundation of it all.

The one thing I need to hammer into my mind over and over again...

Each of us is designed by God to whisper His words to the hearts of our children so they will feel the call of God in their own lives to become “fishers of men”. Yet we must always remember that our children, like Peter, will never be perfect. Each of them needs for us, like Jesus, to extend to him or her, the gift of constant love, grace, and forgiveness. And we can only do this by relying continually on the grace of our own relationship with the Lord.

Sharing something worth sharing.

I came across a wonderful book called "Ministry of Motherhood" by Sally Clarkson. I've read the first couple chapters and have learned so much my mind and heart of are overflowing. I plan to post some snippets from the book so. It is so profound!
But in the meantime, I was reading the authors blog and came across this blog post, "Sacrifice, yes, Mundane-shoot me now". Check it out!

passion pit?

In my last post I mentioned the "passion pit" aka Facebook and I thought I should clarify something. I don't want to offend anyone who is on there. I used to be on Facebook. For me it's the passion pit...I named it that because of me. It drew out of me the passions that I am so desperately trying to conquer. The passions of pride, jealousy, anger and sloth. It wasn't worth it. It still draws them out sometimes as I become aware from time to time that I might be "missing out" on some sort of news.
I know Facebook is a wonderful place for so many, but for me, this weak sinner, I just had to leave.

Menus

It is no secret that I am not very organized, especially when it comes to cooking and menu planning. I have a desire to and I've heard it said that the state of your home, organized or not, is a reflection of the state of your soul. That freaks me out because I desire for my soul to NOT be in utter chaos!
That being said, I work daily on the state of my house. Decluttering and trying to make some semblance of organized routine, of any kind. My mom recently discovered a new website network called Pinterest. I haven't been able to explore it much because you have to be a member to explore it too much and you can't join without being invited. But it looks like an online bulletin board of sorts where you can share ideas. Anyway, she found this very cool idea for menu planning and sent me a picture of it. I immediately fell in love with it and today I created my own version.
I had an OLD tea tray hanging around that used to be my grandmothers and I always said I wanted to do something with it. So I thought it very fitting to use as my frame for my menu board.
Here is a picture...
Along the left there is a column of clothes pins marked with S, M, T, W, T, F, S for the days of the week. The black squares are pockets that will hold menu cards. I do want to put labels on my pockets, one for fasting meals and one for non-fasting meals. In the original post the gal had a stack of meal cards in one pocket. As she used them she moved them to the other pocket so as not to use the same meal in a certain length of time (as many cards as she had). But I don't mind if we have the same meal each week if we feel like it. So I'll have the 2 pockets for the 2 different kinds of meals since we need fasting meals every Wednesday and Friday at minimum.
In the original post, the gal used an 11x7 wooden frame for hers. She attached the clothespins to the frame along the long side, the frame was in the portrait position.
I'm very excited about this. It will make menu planning SO easy!!! I can even have the kids help.
On another note...I WAS hoping to sign up with Pinterest. I thought it looked so cool. So I had my mom invite me. Boy was I disappointed to learn that I need to be part of the passion pit (aka Facebook) in order to join. Bummer. Looks cool.