Costumes can help bring to life a time period you are studying in history. Back when we studied the Wild West, I took these pictures of my kids. Take a look at how much fun we had!
My Cowboy Kids
September 24th, 2010The Heavy Gift of Discernment
September 23rd, 2010
Many, many years ago, before I was married, I knew a man from my church (my college group) who loved the Word of God with such passion, and he defended it. There would be maybe a dozen of us college students at a Dennys restaurant in the middle of the night. If someone spoke something that was error Scripturally, he knew the truth, and he spoke the truth. His face would get really serious (he was normally a goofball, so the transformation was actually quite dramatic). And he nailed it. Everything he said was true; I looked it up. He used pure Scripture to speak, and he spoke so eloquently that I wanted to clap. I love the Truth. I love it with all my heart. So this man’s spiritual gift made him very attractive to me. I ended up marrying him because of it.
My husband’s spiritual gift cuts through the bull and gets to the heart of the matter. If you didn’t know him, you might think he was mad. But he is speaking the truth in love, I can promise you that. The reason I know this is because a highly respected woman from my church has the same spiritual gift, and it manifests itself in the same identical way. But because she’s in a position of leadership, her words are respected and taken to heart. Yes, a few women are ticked off and don’t like her, but the reason they don’t is that they don’t want to know the truth. The truth hurts, especially when it is a Scripture directed to a personal sin in your own life. Ouch, is what I say. Please tell me more. I don’t want sin in my life. I don’t need it to be candy coated, and this person can’t candy-coat it without compromising the truth. So they don’t. It is not sin for her to get super serious, speak in an almost agitated tone of voice, and almost sound like she’s yelling at me. Her rebukes are harsh, even from my point of view. But I am absolutely certain that she loves me. She knows that my heart wants the truth more than anything. Where else can I go? I NEED people like this in my life. She can see straight through to my soul and see things that I don’t know are there. And she is right. I repent and I am healed in a matter of minutes. Deep spiritual surgery has occurred in a short space of time, and I feel so clean and pure I want to shout for joy. The crucifixion of my sin frees me. I love her so much. I love ALL of it – the complete package — because it’s so highly effective. Telling her to dilute it would compromise the content of the message. It wouldn’t get through to my heart. I WANT it to get through. Less sin, more peace. The truth sets me free.
One hundred percent of people with this spiritual gift look like they’re mad, but they are not mad. They also sound arrogant, but they’re usually not. They are certain about the truth, and their utter confidence comes across as pride. But my husband and my gray-haired mentor friend are two of the most humble people I know, and now I know why. They’ve been slammed across the head their whole life for speaking the truth, and they are especially hated at church. To be misunderstood for so many years is humiliating. Pastors talk to you and rebuke you and tell you not to use your spiritual gift. Really? Now what do you do? You must submit to your pastor, but if you bury your spiritual gift in the sand… there’s someone else you’re ticking off, and that’s God. Scripture is very clear that God is ticked off with people who bury their spiritual gift. You are not allowed to do that. You must continue to see error and know the answer, and speak it.
If any of you know someone with the gift of discernment, please don’t despise their gift. It is the least liked gift in the church, but if you don’t listen to that person, or tell them to shut up, it’s like gouging out your eye. Every true church has at least one person with this gift, since God never leaves a church without all the spiritual gifts represented. I dare you to find one that is in your church.
Drawing on Papyrus
September 22nd, 2010
I bought some papyrus paper at a teacher supply store. I looked on the back, and the papyrus was actually made in Egypt. I gave one sheet to each child, along with a pencil. My 10-year-old son grabbed one of our Egypt books, opened it up for ideas, and drew a scribe along with some hieroglyphs. The children colored their drawings with colored pencils. (I use Prismacolor colored pencils because they glide on more smoothly, and there are some metallic colors.)
My 8-year-old son wanted something easy, so I showed him a coloring book of Ancient Egypt. Children find black and white sketches easier to draw than finished illustrations from books.
My 7-year-old designed his own picture based on a page from another book. He wrote a story in hieroglyphs. His picture is absolutely precious. It looks similar in style to all the other drawings he makes. He loves drawing, almost as much as my oldest son, Bryan.
My 5-year-old girl took one look at the coloring book page that she had chosen, and she decided to trace it. Too bad that papyrus is so thick. We did this project after dinner one night, and my husband heard her scream and cry when she found out she couldn’t trace it. My husband took the coloring book, photocopied the one page she chose, taped it to the window, then taped the papyrus to the window. Luckily there was still enough light outside to trace the drawing. (The lights were off in the room where she was drawing, so that she could see through the papyrus.)
When she finished tracing it, she was so proud of her work. She colored it and added a few random hieroglyphs. (She didn’t realize that her brothers were writing real stories with their hieroglyphs, and she wanted to do what they were doing.)
We put their finished papyrus papers into their Egypt notebooks, sliding them into the sheet protector.
Baby Moses Pulled Out of Nile
September 21st, 2010
When we studied the story of Moses being pulled out of the Nile River by the Egyptian princess, my daughter wanted to be the Egyptian princess. Since I traveled to Egypt before I had kids, I had a real Egyptian costume. I used some face paint my husband had bought for $2 the day after Halloween several years ago when we had a circus birthday party. I wasn’t sure if the face paint was going to be old or hard as a rock, but it wasn’t. It worked perfectly.
I asked my son Bryan to design the Nile River, so he grabbed all the blue blankets in the house. He started by making a waterfall off the couch, then had the river meander through the living room.
We wrapped Rachel’s doll in a blanket and placed it in a basket in the river. We pretended to seal it with pitch before the baby went in, or pretend water would have leaked into the basket, and fake baby Moses would have been drowned. The princess heard the crying and walked over to retrieve the baby out of the river. For some reason she looked like she was dumping the baby into the river. “No, you’re taking the baby out, not putting the baby in! You feel sorry for the baby and want to raise the baby as your own son.”
Here are the pictures of the retrieval of Moses out of the Nile River by the beautiful Egyptian princess. If I had more daughters, I would have put a girl behind the potted plant in the corner, since the sister of Moses came out and offered to get a wet nurse for the baby. Instead, we just talked about it, since I didn’t want my boys playing a girl part.
