Harms Family News

Here is my first post in Parenting with Wisdom discussing chapter 3. I will need two posts to do justice to this chapter. You can get your copy of this book on Ironwood Camp’s website . Chapter 3 is about loving your children. Perhaps I have been putting off this summary because it was so convicting to me personally. It can be summed up in this quote: Children tend to learn the reality of God’s love as they experience the realities of a parent’s love in concrete ways. To a child, parents are the tender voice of God calling them by name. Ouch! How often is my voice calling in a harsh, reprimanding way? Not that reprimands are not warranted, but harshness does not point to God! So how can we love our children biblically? We are to love them as God loves us, so the first requirement is knowing God. We must be able to determine how God’s love looks in practical life circumstances. That requires study of His character. After laying this foundation, Mrs. Pryde breaks down God’s love into dif...

We had family pictures done. You can see a sneak peek here . More to come later in the week!

I realized the other night that the purpose of this blog - to share "Family News," had gotten lost. So, without further ado, here is how we spent our Saturday. It was a good one! My favorite local park, a children's farm complete with animals and the best price tag (free) hosted Animal Mania yesterday. I had been planning to go to this for a long time, but waited to tell the girls because, well, weather around here is unpredictable. It was a rainy morning, but not too bad to go, so off we went. I was a little disappointed when we arrived that although entrance to the event was "free," most of the activities were not. But, tickets weren't too overpriced, so I purchased some. First stop was pony rides. Miss N begged to be able to ride the spotted pony, and Miss M wanted to ride Huckleberry, the tiny white one. Miss N got her wish, and Miss M didn't seem to mind not getting hers. She rode all by herself on Blaze! After that we checked out the painted horses...

We stayed home today. Started the day in the Word. We played ponies, dress up, and went to the park (yes, in the chilly rain) to play with colored bubbles (more on those later). Kids are napping, I am working, and I am better. We talked about sinful attitudes and mommies who struggle too. We talked about stress and what Mommy should do when she's stressed. Mommy is feeling better. This mommy needed some quality time with her girls.

I am tired. Bills are due, work is waiting, but I am tired. Tired of working all of the time. Tired of trying to find the magical balance between work and mommyhood, oh yeah, and there’s a hubby in there too. I want to exercise, but there’s rarely time. Yes, rarely time for even 15 minutes of T-Tapp. I want to make healthful meals, but there are rarely sufficient funds. I want to be out of debt, but that requires more work. And work requires time. I want to be a good mom. I want my kids to feel like I spend quality time with them, really listen to them, love them, want to be around them, but lately I’m not feeling as though I’m doing a good job of that. Their attitudes are showing me that my attitude has been stinky. Rest assured, I have no visions of being super mom. I just want to be adequate. I just want to be there for my kids. Take Friday for instance. I have two days per week that I reserve to be full work days, Mondays and Fridays. I NEED those days to stay on top of my workloa...

Chapter 2 of Parenting with Wisdom talks about the “secret ingredient” to successful Christian parenting. According to Mrs. Pryde, “Wisdom is the most important element in successful parenting, the secret ingredient rarely mentioned in the many ‘recipes’ for well adjusted, happy children.” So, again, this chapter helps set the foundation for the book, which is about finding wisdom as a parent. One of the first points she makes is about relying on human reasoning rather than biblical wisdom when parenting our children. I struggle with this. I often rely on what “experts” say about children rather than looking to the Word. Here’s a good quote: Christians who would otherwise immediately reject human reasoning as a basis for making life decisions tend to lose their wariness if someone they hold in high esteem is doing the reasoning. Because an author holds academic credentials . . . (etc.) does not eliminate his propensity to error or eradicate sin’s effect on the human heart. She draws fr...

So, in case you aren't already aware, I have been blogging over at GoodBlogs . Now, I realize I have not explained how you can actually help me earn. The way GoodBlogs works is you can earn $20 for any post voted to the front page. So far I have three out of five that have done this, so not too shabby. Voting is easy and free, but you do have to sign up. Hitting "like" on fb doesn't help me. To sign up, make an account on GoodBlogs . Make sure you " unclick " the places where it says something about follow up emails unless you want a bunch of emails when people comment after you. Then, to see my work, visit my page there . Anything you do helps. Votes, comments, Facebook shares, Tweets on Twitter, (all using the button on GoodBlogs) they all help improve my ranking. Now, I have two posts that could really use some more votes. They are: How a Stranger at the Pool Inspired Me and Does Sunscreen Protect Against Media Exposure Now, I am not going to try to ...