I was grateful to receive Rooted and Grounded from Deeper Roots Pub. It is geared for grades 10-12 and is a one year curriculum. I have a son in 9th and a son in 12th. We are doing this curriculum together and it is working great. Rooted and Grounded is a topical Bible study covering many of the basics of Christianity and topics include: God's love for others and how we should love, having a relationship with God, God's awesome power, a couple of chapters on prayer, and many others. The lessons are set up so the student does most of the work on their own. Our family, however likes to do Bible together and actually in the review by Cathy Duffy in the front of the teacher guide she says, "This is serious Bible study that would ideally be used by parent and child(ren) together."

Each lesson covers 5 days and begins with a prayer emphasis for an unreached people group. So we spend time before each class praying for our lesson, that the Holy Spirit would open our hearts to what God wants to teach us that day and then one or all of us pray for the unreached people group. There are usually 2 or 3 specific prayer requests and so we each take one and pray on day 1 and then the rest of the week we take turns praying. Each lesson focuses on scripture... reading it and then answering questions which challenge the student to really think and apply the scripture to their lives. Each week there are scriptures to memorize also. On the last day of each week there is a review for the lesson. In between two of the lessons there is an extra reading lesson and there are also writing assignments in several of the lessons. Since we have extra time we can take a day or two extra to work on these if we want to. There are 36 weeks in our school year... we have to do 180 days to fulfill the requirements for our state... anyway there are only 27 lessons in the book so that leaves us a few weeks to expand things, do extra days. The lessons are organized into 8 units with tests at the end of each unit. The reviews you do for each lesson contain the material for each unit test. Going over the reviews prepares the student for their test. The tests include: short answer, vocabulary, matching, and short essay questions. The illustrations are also wonderful, especially the ones of the unreached people groups.
Out of five stars we give the Rooted and Grounded:


If you would like some other opinions of the Rooted and Grounded check out what my friends at the TOS Homeschool Crew had to say. Some of them also got different products from Deeper Roots Pub. so check that out too.

***Deeper Roots Publications provided me with  Rooted and Grounded and though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.

all content on my blog is ©

Worldview·Inspiration·Resources

The product is from Apologia. The title of my post is the title of the book we were sent to review: Who Is God? and Can I Really Know Him?  Apologia is well known for their science books, but they are branching out.  They teamed up with Summit Ministries to bring us the "What We Believe" Series, hardcover books about the how to view the world from the foundational truths of the Christian life.
Who Is God? is the first book in what will be a series of 4. It covers what a worldview is, creation, our purpose on earth (to Glorify the Lord), and much more. Each chapter starts off with The Big Idea sharing the main topic of the lesson. Then they state the learning objectives in the What You Will Do section. Each chapter then has a short story. In Who Is God a young boy comes to visit his friend and family, he doesn't know about God and they help him learn all about Him. Then there are Think About It questions to help you dig deeper. Words You Need To Know covers the vocabulary your children may or may not know already  for the lesson. Hide It in Your Heart is of course the Bible memory verses, also ideal for copywork if you choose. Throughout the lesson there are interesting side articles on a number of interesting and pertinent subjects that go along with the topic of the lesson. In the What Should I Do section Godly character is highlighted and students are challenged to apply the lesson to their own lives.There is a Prayer you can read if you choose to. The Worldview Study helps the student understand why they have the beliefs they do and to begin to recognize the worldviews of others around them and how they affect everything they think and do. The last thing in each lesson is the House of Truth. It is meant to be a visual memory aid that is constructed one piece at a time, as new concepts are learned in each lesson. Click one/each of the following links to download or see the Table Of Contents and a Sample Lesson.

The lesson plans included in the book have each lesson broken into 6 parts covered over 2 weeks. Since my boys are older we covered each lesson in only 4 days and did them every day, thus changing the 20 weeks of lessons into only 8 weeks.

The curriculum is geared for ages 6 to 14. One of my boys is at the top end of that age... being 14 the other is 16, but it has been a good review for him. They both liked the curriculum. The series is written at a fifth- to sixth-grade reading level. There are 10 chapters and 252 pages. It is full of many lovely color photos that enhance each lesson. There is very little teacher preparation needed ahead of time. Each lesson is pretty much self contained and easy to teach. It would fit into most any homeschool home and teaching style and be a great addition to your studies. I would recommend this series to everyone. 

I read the book aloud to the boys. Some of the versions of the Bible the book quotes we had never heard of. Some we had heard of but don't like. Some versions were fine. I started by just reading the book as is. Then the boys started looking up the scriptures and reading them in their KJV Bibles as we went because they wanted to know what the KJV said. This took a lot more time so I finally made a printout of the verses. Using an online scripture search site I searched for, cut, and pasted the versed into a document file and printed it out. It made the lesson much more cohesive for us. As I read I just substituted the KJV version for each of the verses in the lesson. You may not mind the different versions. To each their own.

• Teacher Helps for each lesson
• supplemental Notebooking pages for each lesson
• printable House of Truth graphics for use in teaching or as a notebooking component
• links to Internet sites that you may find useful in your Christian worldview studies. 

The Free PDF of Teacher Helps are designed to enhance your teaching and, subsequently, your child’s learning experience and contain:

• Overviews of the lesson’s main idea as well as every topic covered in the lesson
• Key themes and lesson objectives
• Vocabulary words
• Memory verses
• Suggested activities for use with the lesson 
• Child-directed discussion questions for each topic covered in the lesson—you simply read them aloud to help you guide the conversation
• Lists of Bible stories and references that address the key themes
• Recommended reading list for deeper study of the themes, people, and places discussed in the text

Since we already had the free supplemental Notebooking pages I also decided to print out pages for the boys to answer the Make A Note Of It questions from the book. It was much easier and made it so that they could keep everything together in a notebook instead of answering the Make a Note Of It questions in a separate journal. You can see a sample of one of the page I made to your left.






Levels in this series and current availability:
Book 1 Who Is God? and Can I Really Know Him? is currently available
Book 2 Who Am I? is currently available.
Book 3 Who is My Brother? will be available Fall 2011
Book 4 What on Earth Can I Do? will be available 2012

Each book can stand alone and you can start with any one of them, of course only the first 2 are out right now.

• Cost of each book $39.00 
• Book 1 also has an audio mp3 CD for $15
• Notebooking Journals will be $24
• Coloring Books will be $8

Since the books are hardcover and the free online downloadable files are pdf e-books you can use this curriculum over and over with all your children. The only things that would be consumable would be the Notebooking Journals and the Coloring Books if you should choose to purchase them.

I really like this curriculum. I recommend everyone check it out. The best way to see more of what this curriculum is like is to look at the pdf downloads of the Table Of Contents and the Sample Lesson. I have been really impressed by the content of the book. I remember studying Apologetics in my senior year of High School in the Christian school I attended. My church is also studying the foundations of the Christian faith in our adult Sunday School classes right now (which all our children attend with us). I think knowing what you believe and why you believe it is very important for every Christian, and especially for our young people. They need a strong foundation in order to grow in the Lord and whether the storms life will throw at them in their future.



Before you buy you may want to check out what my friends at the TOS Homeschool Crew had to say about this Bible/Worldview Curriculum. It is always good to get more than one opinion.

***Apologia provided me with Who Is God? and though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.



all content on my blog is ©

When our 38 X 46 inch Timeline arrived from Bible Charts and Maps, LLC I was thrilled and immediately wanted to laminate it. It arrived in a 48 inch triangular shaped cardboard shipping package. I was impressed with the detail the map contained and was surprised to see the history timeline was displayed as a circular style map radiating from the center in a "spoke" type "wagon-wheel" layout. The detail of the Amazing Bible Timeline with World History is wonderful and clear. Bill Agard who designed the map, is a retired lithographer, and the map certainly shows his expertise.


I love history but admit I am no history expert, but compared to other history timelines we own, everything appears to be accurate. I like the map but am a little unaccustomed to a circular map and this takes some getting used to. I prefer a linear timeline but this one highlights the most important events and lets you see who was alive, for instance, when David was King of Israel. My husband actually thought of mounting it to a board and using a nail in the middle so we could rotate it.


I would recommend the timeline for anyone, but, here's the downside for some, and I hope this will help you decide if this is a downside for you. Bill and Margaret, the makers of the map are Mormons. Also, some of the materials used to document the history of the timeline were materials others would deem not useful for religious reasons in spite of their proposed accuracy. A list of these materials are found at this link, http://www.bibletimeline.net/bibletimeline_background.html. When viewing the timeline map these facts were brought to our attention and may be disagreeable to others. To the merit  of Bill and Margaret, they have made separate copies available with and without timeline references to Mormon history and materials. This was an honest effort by them to make a timeline that was non-offensive to others who did not agree with their views. There is nothing on the Mormon version in reference to any doctrine that we could see, only a few points of their history, and then only a very small portion. We found nothing offensive in it and this is the conclusion my husband and I came to:

1. All timelines have history of other religions we do not agree with. We can either choose to teach our children about those religions and our beliefs regarding them or not. We chose to use the timeline and teach how we disagree. One could make the same statements about Catholicism, Hinduism, Greek or Egyptian history. I honestly know several people who use timelines. I don't know anyone who threw theirs out because they disagreed with any other religious history shown on them from other cultures. 
2. As a historical source I believe it is accurate and well done, whatever the source. 
3. They make no pretense to be anything than who they are. They seem to be upstanding people and fine citizens who have made a product that they believe in. We do not agree with the Mormon historical and religious views but do not see their views directly reflected in the timeline and do not feel it is offensive for that reason. They have made an honest effort to provide both a universal product out of respect and toleration for those who do not believe as they do as well as one for those who do. 
4. They provide a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can decide for yourself. As their site says,

"Iron Clad Money Back Guarantee. Use the Amazing Bible Timeline with World History for thirty days. If you are not satisfied for any reason, return it. And we'll refund the cost of the Timeline right away."

Out of five stars we give The Amazing Bible Timeline with World History:




Cost of the Timeline: $29.97 

• Free Bonus - Order now and get Interactive Maps of the Holy Land (a $14.97 value)
• Second Free Bonus Digital Amazing Bible Timeline (also a $14.97 value)

Limited time offer - Buy Two Timelines for just $59.94 $49.97
Learn more about the owners of Bible Maps and Charts

Debbie

One of the first things I noticed when I went online was that the curriculum used stick figures. WOW! Even I can draw stick figures. My boys, who don't like art and drawing very much, might like this too.

I went online to look over their website and make decisions about which levels we would want. My boys are 12 and 15. I thought level 4 would be perfect for my younger son and I thought maybe my older son would want to do the teen-adult level 5. I read him the descriptions and something in the description made him decide to do level 4 also. I am not sure if it was the self-directed part or not but I think he really wanted to do the same level all together. That was fine with me. We decided to review Old Testament Overview Level 4 and New Testament Overview Level 4.

Once I got my e-book downloads my first thoughts were, "How do I plan this out? Do we do one lesson a day? One a week? There are 39 lessons in each book. How do I schedule that out for the year?" It took me a while to figure it out so I want to give you a heads up. If you order this curriculum one important thing you need to know is that in the level 4 overview's there are weekly and daily schedule suggestions in the back of the teacher editions, in the addendum. This was very helpful. I am pretty sure there are similar schedules in each of their products.

Ok now to describe the products we were given to review, how their program works, and how we are using it. :)

The first product we were given to review was Old Testament Overview Level 4. This book covers creation through the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Israelite's captivity in Babylon.


The New Testament works just the same since it is the same level. The content is of course different but the basics are the same. It is a study that covers the birth of John the Baptist through Heaven in Revelation.

The basis of the level 4 program is to read the Bible and then draw stick figures about the story. At the beginning of the book you draw the whole timeline. Then you go through each story more in detail.

There are 3 main parts to each lesson: the quest, the review, and the lesson for each Bible story covered in the book. It takes 4 days to finish a Bible story, spending 2 days on the lesson part.

In the Quest the student learns to use Bible Reference Materials. I was surprised to learn my boys already knew how to use the Concordance. The curriculum also uses a Bible Dictionary and a Topical Bible. Grapevine has resources they use for each of these. They use the Zondervan Compact Bible Dictionary. We do not own that particular dictionary and are using the 1828 Websters we own and we have some Bible software. The Bible software has a couple of Bible dictionaries in it. If you do not have those you could try Bible Gateway's Dictionaries they have many Bible resources including a number of dictionaries.

For the concordance they use Cruden's Compact Concordance. We are using the Strong's Concordance we already owned.

The third reference book suggested is Nave's Compact Topical Bible. For this one I bought a copy of this book from Amazon.com. I tried using a Nave's Topical Bible that I had on my Bible software and the same one online at Bible Gateway, it did not work. The teacher's editions come with the answers to the quest questions but because of copyright problems they only list the page numbers for the Dictionary and Topical Bible. The dictionary I did not care so much about. We will answer the questions as best we can from the dictionaries we have. With the Topical Bible you can only find the answers that will make sense if you use the Nave's Compact edition. So if you are buying level 4 Old Testament, or New Testament, you will need the Nave's Compact Topical Bible.

The next section, the review, the boys do a review of the parts of the stick figure timeline we have covered so far and review some of their verses.

In the lesson section we read the Bible and then the boys draw the stick figures while I go over the lesson details, which I am printing at home little by little in b&w, and sometimes we go over specific words used in the stories (vocabulary). The vocabulary suggestions are in the teacher edition. The lesson takes two days and at the end of the second day we do a lesson review.


Every 5 or 6 lessons there is a review with the same questions that are asked in each lesson review. There is also a midterm review and then at the end a final review, where hopefully the boys will be able to draw the whole timeline, from the beginning of the book, from memory; answer the questions with accuracy and recite or write all their verses.

The boys like doing this curriculum all together and they like doing the stick figuring™. Here are some quotes about the curriculum from my boys. "I like it a lot. Much better then what we had been using. I especially like drawing the stick figures," says Nathan. Christopher said, "I like it better too. I like doing the Quest where we get to use the concordance and the Topical Bible and the Bible dictionary to search for answers."

When we ordered both the Old and New Testament I was not sure what we would do with them. Would the boys want to cover different ones, or do the same? We needed to at least do some of both to see the similarities and differences for the review. We got the student books and teacher books as e-books. We looked them over and the boys decided they both wanted to do the whole Old Testament curriculum this year. I liked the looks of them so much that I decided to have the Old Testament books printed at Staples and bound with a spiral binding for each boy. Nathan and I did 4 weeks of the New Testament for the review and then both boys are doing the whole thing next year. They are excited to have 2 years to do this curriculum.

One of the things I like the best about the curriculum is that due to the vocabulary word suggestions and the discussion notes for the lessons, both of which are in the teacher edition, we have had a number of great discussions about the Bible, and we are only on the story of Job! One of the deep discussions we had was about one of our Bible verses. When we covered the verse in our lesson we went over what it meant. The verse was Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and though shalt bruise his heel." We talked about who was speaking (God) and who he was speaking to (the serpent, Satan). We discussed who the seed was (the Messiah) and then what this verse was about. Which wound is more serious? Is one deadly? After asking some the boys some questions I lead them to discover this was talking about the crucifixion of Christ and the final destruction of Satan in Revelation. The boys were excited to understand, for the first time, that the Messiah's coming and Satan's ultimate demise was promised by God in the first chapters of the Bible. How exciting it was for me to watch their discovery and the impact this had on them.

Are you interested in good Bible curriculum. They have levels for ages 5 to adult. They also have multi-level books on a variety of subjects like Esther and Biblical Feasts and Holy Days that you can do with all your kids no matter what age.

Here are the links to the books we reviewed:

Chapter 6 "Lies Women Believe about Marriage"
Oh which lie to choose, which lie to choose. All but one of the lies in this chapter are lies I have believed and therefore acted on at one time or another. This book is good not only in that it identifies the lies but it also helps us see the Truth from the Word of God so we can continue to combat the lies of Satan and the world. I will give you an overview of the chapter.

There are six lies in this chapter. The first is about being having to have a husband to be happy, and related to that, that once you are married your husband is the one who is supposed to make you happy. The Truth is the purpose of marriage like all other things we do is to Glorify God! True happiness can only be found in a relationship with Christ not in a human, no matter how close we are to them.

The second lie is that we can change our mates. Though I know now that I cannot change my husband, I have, in the past, fallen for this lie, and once in a while find myself trying to change my husband. As Nancy point out and I know we can only change ourselves. We must pray and leave it to the Holy Spirit to lead and change our husbands. We must trust God to do His work in our spouses life because what we think is best may not be what is best.

The third lie is not so much a problem for me "My Husband is Supposed to Serve Me." I know the woman was created to be the helper for the man, but sometimes I expect certain things of my husband and when he does not do them I am disappointed. I need to not focus on what I deserve but on what I can do for him.

The 4th lie is a hard one, "If I Submit to my Husband, I'll be Miserable." Nancy goes into a lot of detail on this lie and has many good points on this subject. Although we could not find any information on whether Nancy was married or not, we think she is not married, the points she makes are Biblical ones and ones that you do not need to be married to know about. Though this gives her no practical experience in this area the truth is still the truth.

The fifth is about husbands not getting things done and many times I have stepped in where I did not belong and took over when I thought my husband was not doing something he should be doing or not doing something "right". Here is a bold and hit you between the eyes with a 2 by 4 quote. "I can't help but wonder to what extent we women have demotivated and emasculated the men around us by our quickness to take the reins rather than waiting on the Lord to move men to action. We can so easily strip men of the motivation to rise to the challenge and provide the necessary leadership." She goes on and I have much of this chapter highlighted. Read it for yourself and you will see.

The last lie of this chapter is on divorce and I don't have a problem with that. I said till death do us part and I spoke those vows solemnly to God, my husband and the witnesses at our wedding and I meant it. Come what may divorce is not an option. There have been rough times, many of them. But we will work it out and stick it out no matter what circumstances come into our lives.

Chapter 7 "Lies Women Believe About Children"
This is one of the chapters we had the most difficulty with as a group. I am not going to go into that debate because it is to sensitive and personal. I will tell you it was about lie #27 and you will have to read the book to determine your opinion on this subject. If you have read this book please do not leave me a comment about this subject. I will most likely delete it, that is how difficult this was for me. Praise the Lord that he forgives us of everything.

There were other lies we discussed and I felt I had to bite my tongue. Especially this one, "Children Need to Get Exposed to the 'Real World' so that they can Lean to Function in it." We shelter our children a lot more that others of our church. I did not want to start an argument at Bible study so I said nothing about some of these children issues. My children do not really fit in with their peers at church. They sit with us for Sunday School and Church Service, do not go to youth group and have not been involved except were we can do it as a family. We have helped with VBS and we all help in the nursery now, except my dh. We homeschool and we do not do to many homeschool activities either. Some of the activities we dropped out of because of the peer pressure, clicks and general social problems our children were experiencing with the other homeschool kids, some of the things we dropped out of because of finances. I do not think kids need to be exposed to more of the 'real world' they get plenty of that and we try to protect them from as much as we can for as long as we can.

Chapter 8 "Lies Women Believe About Emotions"
This is the chapter we did yesterday. This whole chapter and our discussion of it was good. I don't know if that was just because we had taken a month off and were glad to be back together or if it was the topic or what, but it was good. This chapter is especially pertinent to me at this time because my emotions are all over the place. I have had some depression the last 4 years since my husbands back injury. I have not sought medical help. The section on depression opened my eyes to some things. Here is my favorite quote from this section pg 204-205.

"What we do know is that in many cases, physiological symptoms connected with depression are the fruit of issues that are in the realm of the soul and spirit -- issues such as ingratitude, unresolved conflict, irresponsibility, guilt, bitterness, unforgiveness, unbelief, claiming of rights, anger, and self-centeredness." I know that guilt, bitterness and unbelief were contributing factors in my depression and the depressed feelings lead to irresponsibility which lead to more guilt and the vicious cycle went round and round. "... my emotional lows are generally the result of my reaction to things not going 'my way'."

My wake up call was a difficulty I had with my son. He admitted to me that he had not been doing his math. I had no idea because I had not been keeping up with him and checking on him or his brother to make sure they were doing what they should. I did the bare minimum and then went to my room to play games, watch movies, read, blog or whatever... to escape reality. We now have many consequences to my actions that we have to deal with. My son is still not done last years math. I have to be on them about every little thing because I was so lax they think they can get away with not doing what they are told. We have work from last year to make up, like lapbooks that need to be glued together and checked to make sure all the mini booklets were filled out... and on it goes. Some days I want to revert to that mom that runs and hides but I know that will not solve anything and if I don't face things now they will only get worse. My husband and I are drawing the line and standing firm. Thank goodness he is feeling better healthwise (beside his bad back he has lymes, diabetes, and celiac disease) and he has been helping keep me and the boys accountable. That is a great help. The boys need their Dad to be more involved in their homeschooling.

I will end on a good note with one more small quote from the chapter on emotions. "Nothing less than the 'God of all comfort' can meet our deepest needs..."

Debbie

I will not go into detail on everything I have read in Lies Women Believe by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. I was going to do a post on each chapter but that did not happen so. I will tell you the high points of each chapter for me and how they have been challenging me.

Note: after having done a bunch of these chapters I see that this is a long post, though I said I would not be to detailed. I think I will split it up so I don't overwhelm you. I will post part of it today and though I am writing it all now I will schedule it to post the second part tomorrow.

I already did a post on chapter 1 and chapter 2. You can read them if you want by clicking the chapter links.

Chapter 3 - "Lies Women Believe About Themselves"
The lies that hit me the most in this chapter were lie 7 "I'm Not Worth Anything." and lie 8 "I Need To Learn To Love Myself." Both are the result of low self esteem and Nancy gives us the truth as usual. Here is the part that really hit me:
"We are constantly looking out for ourselves, deeply sensitive to our own feelings and needs, always conscious of how things and pople affect us. The reason some of us get hurt so easily is not because we hate ourselves but because we love ourselves! We want to be accepted, cherished, and treated well. If we did not care so much about ourselves, we would not be so concerned about being rejected, neglected, or mistreated.
The fact is, we do not hate ourselves, nor do we need to learn to love ourselves. We need to learn to deny ourselves, so we can do that which does not come naturally-- to truly love God and others." pg 70

Wow! Nancy, thanks for opening my eyes yet again. I am such a selfish person. So much I need More of Christ Less of Me. Eph. 5:29 (though speaking to men specifically it applies to us as well) "For no man [woman] ever hated his [her] own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it..." If we are secure in the Love that God showed us by sending his Son to save us and shows us every day as His children we will not be so dependent on the approval of others.

Lord, help me see and appreciate your love for me!

Chapter 4 " Lies Women Believe About Sin"
I guess the lie that hit me the most in this chapter was lie 14 "My Sin Isn't Really That Bad." Nancy says, "Those of us who have grown up in good homes or in the church and have learned how to "act right" are particularly susceptible to this deception." "Compared to others who commit... "serious" sins, its easy for ust to feel that we aren't so bad. Our sins of wasting time, ... eating... too much, a sharp tongue, a critical spirit, ...worry,...or complaining don't seem all that major." (pg 99) I left some of the sins out but put in the ones that hit me most.

The truth is one I don't like to admit. All sin is the same to God. We may prefer to call our sins "... weaknesses, struggles or personality traits." (pg 99) but we need to call them what God calls them, Sin, and we need to confess to God and ask forgiveness, and we need to ask forgiveness of others if necessary. Christ shed his blood for every one of our sins, big or small and that should make it a big deal to us. To many times I gloss over my sin as not so bad and that just accumulates to making me more careless and calloused against the seriousness of sin in my life. I need to see my sin in comparison to the holiness of God not the deeper, "worse" sins of the world.

Chapter 5 "Lies Women Believe About Priorities"
Lie 18 "I Don't Have Time To Do Everything I'm Supposed To Do" This chapter hit me less hard than some of the others. I try to have my priorites straight. I guess the lie that affected me the most in this chapter was lie 19 "I Can Make it Without Consistent Time in the Word and Prayer". I do have time in the Bible, unfortunately it is not consistent. This is one thing I need to strive for. I get busy doing "things" that need to be done for school or my blog or e-mail and then it is time to teach my boys and I don't go back and do my Personal Bible study. I need to make it a priority to do it first. We do Bible for school and we do Family Bible Study, but that does not take the place of personal Bible study.

A few quotes from the chapter: "The Enemy doesn't care if we "believe" in God... as long as he can get us to run on our own steam..." If he can get us to try to "live the Christian life" without cultivating an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus, he knows we will be spiritually impotent and defeated." There are many other good points but I cannot quote the whole book.

continued tomorrow...

Debbie

We are one chapter 7 this week, our Bible study is tomorrow, but I have not done any updates on the other chapters. I meant to do a post for each chapter but I kept putting it off. This book is not an easy read. This book digs deep and cuts to the dividing of bone and marrow since is exposes the lies Satan tells, and unfortunately I believe, and pits them with the Truth of God's Word.

I did a post on chapter 2 but I want to go back the the beginning and do chapter 1( I'm skipping the introduction, it is just a overview of the other chapters). Then I will continue one with 3-7 and will try to get caught up before we do chapter 8 that is due to be read for our next Bible which is on the 19th.

So chapter 1...

Chapter 1 is about Lies and the consequences of believing those lies and how we need to counter them with the Truth of God's Word. Here is my favorite quote from this chapter.

"...the way we behave is invariably based on what we believe to be true--not what we say we believe, but what we actually believe. "As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbws 23:7 KJV, italics added)."

This is so true. We can see by our lives, our actions and choices, what we really believe. We may say one thing and act another way. We may put on a face at church or at a Bible study but we know deep in our hearts that that is not the real us. Usually, our family knows it too. Those who are closest to us know our faults and warts and failures and know if we are hypocrites that say one thing and do another.

I cannot go into to much detail because I do not want to get into trouble for quoting to much of the book but the part where she shows the progression from Sin to Bondage and the steps for going from Bondage to Freedom are also good.

The Progression from Deception to Bondage:

• Listen To A Lie
• Dwell On The Lie
• Believe The Lie
• Act On The Lie

Moving From Bondage To Freedom

1. Identify the area(s) of bondage or sinful behavior
2. Identify the lie(s) at the root of that bondage or behavior
3. Replace the lie(s) with the Truth

This leads us into the various chapters on the Lies Women Believe. The lies are grouped together by the chapter titles. There is more than one lie in each chapter. Each chapter has between 3 and 6 lies. The lies are identified and the Truth is proclaimed!!!

Though, as I said, this is not an easy book to read it is necessary in my life. I, unfortunately have a lot of lies I have listened to and believed and acted on and I am not free from them just by reading this book. Not by a long shot. But it is a start and I do highly recommend it.

I will try and get caught up with the chapters asap.
I hope you enjoy this chapter by chapter review of this book,
Chapter 2's review can be found HERE.

Debbie

Yesterday, my family and I were out in the car on our way to Winterthur to walk around on Rachel's Birthday and had stopped at Wawa for a minute. The kids all went in with my husband and I stayed in the car. They were taking longer than I thought they would and I was getting bored of watching the people so I grabbed the New Testament and Psalms my husband had in the car and opened to a Psalm and this is what I read was very encouraging to me and so I decided to share this little moment I had with God while waiting at Wawa.

scripture in green ... my thoughts to the Lord in blue

I read: Psalm 34:1 "I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth." (convicting!!) Your praise is not continually in my mouth. Complaining seems the be the order of the day for me these days... I know that is not good Lord, I am sorry.

verse 2-3 "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exhalt his name together." I am sorry I have not been magnifying your name Lord and doing it with my children, especially, throughout the day.

verse 4" I sought the Lord, and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears." I then repeated this in prayer about 5 times.

verse 5 "They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed."

verse 6 "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." This I repeated in prayer to the Lord 5 or 6 times. Then I thought of some of our troubles and prayed for the Lord to help us.

verse 7- 10 "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. O fear the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing." Then I said this over a time or two in prayer .

Then I meditated on all the verses again and just let them sink into my soul.

I hope these verses encourage you as you face the week ahead.
Time for bed,
School and many other things ahead this week,

God Bless my Online Friends,
Amen

Debbie

I am doing a Bible study with a group of ladies from my church. We are on chapter two this week and I wanted to share my favorite quote from the book for this week. I hope it will uplift you as it did me. It is from chapter 2, Lies Women Believe about God, it is from Lie #2 "God Doesn't Love Me." We would never say it out loud of course but we live as if we believe it. I know I do some times. I believe that God is love, that God loves the world, but not that God loves ME! Well here is the quote.

"Put together all the tenderest love you know of, the deepest you have ever felt, and the strongest that has ever been poured out upon you, and heap upon it all the love of all the loving human hearts in the world, and then multiply it by infinity, and you will begin, perhaps, to have some faint glimpse of what the love of God is."

The quote is from Lies Women Believe by Nancy Leigh DeMoss pg.52 which is actually a quote from Hannah Whitehall Smith, quoted in Daily Strength for Daily Needs, comp. Mary W. Tileston (Boston: Little, Brown, 1899), 333.

Add to that these verses from the Bible:

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

"He that spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." Ephesians 3:14-21

And there are other verses of course.


God Bless,
Live in His Love,
Debbie

THEME

Personal Goals:
Exercise more, more often and consistently
Eat better and loose weight
Be more consistent in my devotions
Work on E-book I am trying to write
Get back to weekly time with each of my kids, just mom and one of the kids having lunch in my bedroom alone and then doing whatever the child wants to do. Usually a combo of eating, talking and playing board games and/or computer games.
Spend some time scrapbooking
Get back to doing my own personal copywork
Homeschool Goals:
Get my son Nathan more organized and help him keep that way
Get the boys back on our daily "schedule" which is not by time but order of things done. We have been on vacation for two weeks but in Dec. we also did two Christmas units and it is time now to get back to "regular" subjects. We will be finishing up Vikings in the next week or two then moving on to Middle Ages for History.For Science we will be continuing with our Human Body/Health study.
Get back to evening read aloud time with the boys - I have not been doing that, so we are still on Little House in the Big Woods.

Be more consistent on recording daily in our school log. I have not been doing it daily and then have to go back and try to remember what we did the past week.
Read the two Henty novels to the boys that we were supposed to finish a long time ago and never did. We are partly done but never finished. One is For the Temple the other is the Young Carthaginian. I may only read For the Temple because ds got Young Carthaginian on audio for Christmas, I will have to make that decision later.
Family Goals:
Healthier Eating
Exercise (at home on both our Bowflex (for muscle strengthening) and our Elliptical Walker and outside at Winterthur Estate and Gardens where my mom bought us a years membership and my dh and I bought the girls their membership. We have to do it that way because the girls do not qualify to be on the family membership, it is for children 18 and under only. So we bought them the dual membership. It was a blessing from the Lord that one day after we had spoken with my mom about Christmas gifts in early December and I checked my e-mail and I found that Winterthur was doing half price on memberships for that day only!!! When my dh came home we ordered the memberships. What a great deal.
The two above will hopefully result in weight loss for all except dd Jessica
More singing as a family
Regular Personal Devotions for each family member and regular Family Devotions in the evening.
Family evening read-aloud time more consistently.
Get back to meal planning and shopping more wisely because things are more planned and then we will not have to eat the same chicken every night! I am sick of the meals we have had lately.



Well there may be more but that is a good list to get started on.
Hope you knew year goes well,
Debbie

Homeschoolers are very resourceful people. They use what they have and use them to their best ability. I know in our home many times people ask us how we use this or that for learning, and we are happy to explain it’s value. I think the main thing that a lot of people miss is that life is learning, and you must use everything in your home for learning otherwise you won’t fully be prepared.

THEME

This week I want to invite you to share what different games you use for learning in your homeschool. Outside games, board games, or card games, and what purpose or subject you use them for.