HIS FINEST WHISPERS

To my owner, I feel the need to get a few things off my chest. We've had a whole year together now and I want to take some time to review some of our most memorable moments. I am entitling this letter, “My Canine Confessions”. It was me who ate the entire box of crayons. They just looked so delightfully beautiful. Thanks for renting that carpet-cleaning machine to clean up my mess after I got sick from the toxicity and almost died. I also ate the whole pan of brownies (every tiny crumb) you made for those 8 ladies that came over to your house. I have heard through the doggy grapevine that chocolate is a big “no no” but apparently it’s fine for me! About the whole Easter fiasco…yikes. I found the Easter candy hiding in the closet. I got through that first bag of chocolate eggs and really needed some jelly beans to finish the meal. I know you had to go out and get more Easter candy for Wes and his two cousins. It wasn’t that smart of you to put it in the e...

  I once had an older lady in my church tell me that God always gave her a personal Christmas gift each year. If I’m honest, the word “charismatic” floated across my mind as she was talking…but I knew this woman and I knew her deep love for the Lord, so I found that as she continued, I began to believe her. She did indeed receive a gift from God every single Christmas. She could tell me each one from years past and how the Lord worked in mysterious ways to bring them. You could see the genuineness in her eye as she anticipated what He might bring her this year. The last fleeting thought that passed through my mind as I left was, “Man, I wish that would happen to me.” Well…It just might be that she has somehow, supernaturally, passed on that tradition to my small, little family of 2. This last year has been a hard one with Wesley’s dad. If you have read my last couple posts, you’d know that his dad has been taking him out of our church each week. As a mom and as a...

Five reasons I loved the Creation Story Placemat this week: 1. It gave my students a colorful and creative way to say the 7 days of creation each day during Bible time. 2. It wasn't too small: All the kids could perfectly see it during our Bible time. No one was shouting, "I can't see it! What is it? Move over so I can see." (Sometimes if a book is too small, this is what I hear.) 3. It wasn't too big: I didn't have to stash it away so the kids could see the board or see me. I kept it out each day so we could constantly refer to our God and how gorgeous He made the world. This helped keep our minds on what really mattered as we worked: Jesus and all He has made!  4. It was the perfect "center piece".  I placed it in one of our rotating centers for the afternoon and the kids had a choice: They could write the words of each day of creation or they could copy the pictures. They loved it and I think their pictures turned out pretty nicely too. L...

Detriment: That word seems harsh when talking about “rewards” for children. Aren’t rewards supposed to be great? Maybe not! A recent study has found that 3 year olds who were rewarded with an extrinsic material were less likely to continue kind behavior and more likely to increase in bad behavior. Yes, that sounds bizarre, but that is exactly what the study found. You can read it here . Material rewards have recently concerned me. I’ve seen the disappointing effects when years later, the 6 th grader (who has received material rewards for years), scores a 100 on his test and says, “Wow, a 100! What do I get?” For a long time, we haven’t been aware of how to fix this, even though we’ve known that we don’t want to raise generation of children who do the right thing, solely based on “what they were going to get” for it. For a while now, this whole issue has left me uncomfortable in my spirit. Another very common discipline strategy that has worried me is the concept o...

One of my classroom jobs this year is the R.O.C.K. assistant. If someone in our classroom is having a hard time, they are free to head over to the R.O.C.K. to spend some time with the Lord. The R.O.C.K. assistant is responsible for checking on and praying for anyone that goes to the R.O.C.K. for any reason. It is day 5 of school and we had our first visit to the R.O.C.K. It was such a special experience. One sweet girl had fallen down at recess and was just having a hard time acclimating back into the classroom when we came back inside. I asked her if she would like to relax and spend some time with the Lord in our R.O.C.K. area. She shook her head, “yes”. As soon as she did, my R.O.C.K. assistant said, “Hey! My job! Can I go check on her?” Wow! A six year old wants to go check on his classmate. “YES! Please do sir.” I watched as he headed over to her. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, but he knew he wanted to help. I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “It would be a great...

There are days that the only thing to do is to call a friend and laugh your way through it. Thank you Mom, for being my laughter today as I was filled with #momfails and it’s only 11:30 am. First of all, I get up this morning and realize that my only success for the Valentine’s Day party was that I had purchased the box of Star Wars Valentine’s cards yesterday at Target. I hadn’t even begun to do them. I took them out at breakfast and was scrambling to tear them at the perforated edge without tearing the actual card. Who designs these things? I’m on the third or fourth one when I see these little things that look like stickers, but then I see that they are tattoos and there are these teeny tiny slits in the cards that these teeny tiny tattoos are supposed to fit into. Really? I quit. I put them all down because, at this point, we are already going to be 15 minutes late to school.   This is officially mom fail #1. We arrive at school and I see these sweet other mo...

Saturday I received a text. “I’m picking Wes up at 11:00.” I respond, “But we have a verbal agreement that you will come after church at 12:30.” “Well, I’m getting him at 11:00.” Two feelings fall into my chest. Anger. Fear. “Why is he doing this? He hasn’t fought me about time on Sunday’s since Wes was born. In fact, he’s never fought me on this. Why does he want to take him out of church all the sudden? This is not okay. What if Wes misses out on something? What if he eventually thinks its okay not to go to church because his dad doesn’t go? I hate this!” Anger. Fear. Anger. Fear. I have prayed more over the last 5 years (since having Wes) than I have ever prayed in my life. There is something about having children that brings you to your knees in ways that you haven’t done before. I am a mom, a single mom. I have learned over the years several deep truths and though it has been a hard road, I’ve come to rest in them. Truths are one thing, but believing those truths...