Caleb

I just want to brag on Caleb for a little bit. I am SO proud of him. He has really started reading well! Today during quiet time he asked if he could take his Bible to bed and work on his memory verse for Sunday School. We have been going to Fingerlakes Christian Fellowship for about 5 months and I just learned that he is supposed to bring back his "homework" for Sunday School and memorize his verse, I am not with it. So anyway, Caleb was in his room for about 10 minutes when he came back out with a huge grin on his face and told us he knew his new verse and quoted for us Colossians 3:17 "In whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." He had read his verse and memorized it himself. After quiet time we sat with his Sunday School homework and he read me the story about Jesus healing a blind man. We talked about loyalty (had to look it up in the dictionary) and how we can be loyal to God. I am so excited that Caleb is able to read his Bible. He can look up verses in his Bible too because he just memorized the books of the New Testament for AWANA. He thought of a verse that he had memorized earlier this year in AWANA and ran to get his book to find out where the verse was found. He is almost done with his first book and doing well. We went through and looked at all he had learned this year. How excited to get so much of God's Word in his heart at such a young age. He is my firstborn son, the one that the Bible tells me should be given to the Lord. His ambition right now is to be a pastor. What a great calling. I pray that he is always excited about learning Bible verses and knowing more about God.

This morning as we started school, pretty late unfortunately after staying up so late at the Superbowl party that we went to last night, Glenn was reading from More Little Visits With God and it was about Charles Spurgeon's mother paying him to kill rats and to memorize hymns. We started talking about what hymns were and I got a hymn book and we looked at it and decided to work on memorizing one hymn a week. This weeks is A Mighty Fortress is Our God. So we discussed Martin Luther and read through the hymn and had to look up several words in the dictionary like fortress and bulwark. We talked about how through Jesus we have victory over Satan and don't have to fear. It was great. As we sang it together, having just discussed the hymn, I was crying over the truth in it. I am so thankful that the Lord of Hosts is in the battle and that I don't have to strive in my own strength. I am excited about learning hymns with the kids and strengthening their faith in God (and my own) through the words.
God is really working on renewing my mind right now, about homeschooling and lots of other things. He is using His Word, Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow (from my Tuesday morning Bible Study), Sunday School, Church, stuff I hear on FLN, a homeschooling blog that my 'mother in love' recently introduced me to, etc. I want to do what He wants me to do. I know that He has a purpose for my life and I know that I have not been going about it the right way lately. This coming week in Bible study we are supposed to work on a life purpose statement and I am so excited because I can see how God has been preparing me in the last few weeks to do just that. Our God is so faithful and amazing. I am so thankful that I am a child of the King! Pastor was talking yesterday about how thankful we should be for the Word of God and what advantages we have over OT saints, Christians in the 1st century, even Christians of 100 years ago or Christians that live in other countries. Am I taking advantage of the advantages we have been given? I know I have not been but I would like to do so and am praying that God will reveal through His Word and that I would be obedient.
Anyway, enough blabbing. I am just so excited to see what God is doing in us.