"Money, Possessions, & Eternity"

I just finished reading the book "Money, Possessions, & Eternity" by Randy Alcorn. I thought I'd share some of what I learned, especially considering the gist of his book is exactly what God has revolved our ministry around.

I can't go into listing all or even some of the scriptures that Alcorn uses in his book because there are more verses on the topic of money in the Bible than there are on both prayer and faith combined! Essentially, though, the inevitable truth is that we are all going to have to give an account to God when we stand before His throne for every cent that He entrusted to us. Every penny we get is from Him and it is up to us as to how we use it. Whether you've given your heart to the Lord or not, you will have to answer whether you used His resources for your own gain or to further the kingdom of heaven.

After listing many scriptures and points, Alcorn says that in order to hear "Well done, good and faithful servant," we must be faithful with what He entrusts to us. After all, we are merely stewards of everything we are given. Do we hoard possessions, money, and resources for our own gain, making this world "comfortable" for us, only to find eternal discomfort? As the Bible states in the parable of the Rich Man, your life could be demanded from you tonight and you will be empty-handed before the Throne of God. As the saying goes, "You never see a U-Haul following a hearse." This is a tough truth and not one many people like to discuss. If people find it offensive, is that our heart's way of avoiding conviction? Considering the amount of scripture on this topic, it must be very important to God that we discuss it and encourage each other rather than wait until the day of judgment when it's too late. I'm choosing to stand before Him and say that I followed this truth and encouraged others towards it.

There's obviously a lot more to this book, but the majority of it centers around how our giving (or lack thereof) is the fruit that displays where our hearts are. Do we make our 80 or so years of life on this earth comfortable or strive to make our millions of years in heaven be filled with reward? The Bible is very clear that when we get to heaven (given that our hearts are dedicated to the Lord and we go there), we will be rewarded according to what we have done with what God has given us. Alcorn recommends choosing a specific standard of living that isn't at a level of luxury and then giving to the Lord's causes everything above and beyond that. For those who aren't "rich," he reminds us that we are in the top 15% of the world's wealthiest if we have two cars, electronics, and a home. Do we use our income to the fullest and maximize what kind of house we can have? These truths really hit home with me as this was our train of thought less than 2 years ago.

Anyway, this is a must-read for all of God's children. What you hear from God when you face Him on judgment could, and very well may, depend on it. I have put a link to his ministry on the links section-it's Eternal Perspectives Ministry.

With Hope for Eternal Rewards,
Sara

Before You Give Your Child a Flu Shot. . .

Thanksgiving

For those who homeschool or would like some extra fun ideas of Thanksgiving projects for their kids, I have updated my homeschooling blog page with some links and ideas that we have used so far this year. Just click on the link in my Favorite Links section to the right for Free Christian Homeschooling.

There are also many great books available at the library. Our family's favorite is called "A Turkey for Thanksgiving" by Eve Bunting. Bunting is an incredible author with many excellent books published. This book is a cute story about a group of woodland animals who go out to get a turkey for thanksgiving. In the end, the turkey is pleasantly surprised to find that he will be sitting in a chair for thanksgiving and not be on a platter. We don't just like it because we're vegetarians; we liked this book when we still enjoyed turkey for Thanksgiving. We've also found some great chapter books for older kids. As some of you may know, we are very particular about the books/movies, etc, that our kids read/watch. The books we've found were recommended by another Christian homeschooling group. If you're interested in some of the titles of these books, let me know and I can get them to you. Happy Thanksgiving!

Autumn Celebration Pics

We got out and enjoyed lots of different activities for our autumn field trips this year in brisk Minnesota! It's probably a good thing that we weren't in Oklahoma until after fall last year otherwise this fall in Minnesota would have felt a whole lot cooler! We know the winter will definitely throw us for a loop. This is the kids at the pumpkin patch for u-pick pumpkins. We've usually bought our pumpkins at greenhouse stores so this was a real treat. The little ones especially liked riding in the wagon.
They also had this huge straw tower for the kids to climb on. I like this picture (above) because it looks like the cover for a kids country album!

Gabie really liked climbing on it too but it was so tall that he needed a little boost. Of course, Mom was kind of afraid he was going to fall off so we made sure Vince was by him when he went up to the top.

Gabie had to decide which pumpkin he wanted by feeling and lifting them!

Here's us with our friends' boys that we're taking care of during the weekdays (whom we're also living with right now). I took them all to the corn pit at the 101 Market in Otsego. Having all six kids, especially during fun things like this, makes me wonder if we should have more kids of our own!

Here's Gabie as an autumn harvest mouse;

Faith as an autumn harvest mouse;

And of course Dylan!

The long awaited corn pit! We went last year for the first time and decided to make it an annual tradition. This year, we went early in the day on a weekday so we pretty much had it all to ourselves, which is just the way we homeschoolers become accustomed to having it! Vince hung out with the toddlers for a little while until I jumped in. . .

And Dylan did his favorite activity: filling up his shirt with the corn. We told him he needs to cut back on eating fast food!

Here's Dylan, Matthew, and Faith contemplating their next corn pit game idea. They had plenty of time, considering we stayed in the corn pit and played for over an hour and a half. They finally started getting rumblies in their tummies, so we went home for lunch. The next day, we carved our pumpkins and cooked a pie pumpkin for our homemade pumpkin pie. We read "The Pumpkin Parable" by Liz Curtis Higgs. It's my favorite book to read for this time of year. And now this week, we've started reading our thanksgiving books and started our thanksgiving projects. We're so thankful that God gave us such inquisitive minds to learn and we were definitely thankful for the opportunity to have so much fun! Finally, we're most thankful that we get to learn together as a family all the time, not just evenings and weekends. This stuff is way too fun to let somebody else do it with my kids!