A few books

I love books! Seriously, they make me happy. However we own some amazing books that I cannot find the time to read. This year for Christmas I limited myself to these books because I knew I would read them and I have wanted them for awhile. 

I have been wanting to read Fit to Burst since it was released, I loved Loving the Little Years. One thing I appreciate about her books is the brevity. I walk away encouraged without slogging through a LONG book about motherhood.

I have read various reviews about Extravagant Grace and have wanted to read it for awhile. The subtitle is "God's Glory Displayed in Our Weakness". The author takes the works of John Owen and helps us to understand how God can be glorified amidst our own guilt and failures. I am actually reading this aloud with my husband. So far it has been excellent!

Reading God's Story is a chronological daily Bible that takes you through the Bible in one year chronologically. I am most excited about this because our pastors will be preaching on something we have read from our reading that week. I am excited to see what God is going to do through the reading of His word in my life and the life of my church.

Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson has been on my "want to read list" for awhile. I am looking forward to this read as I know many people have recommended this book to me over the years!

One book not pictured because I haven't received my copy yet is The Question by Leigh Bortins. The Question is the follow up book to The Core which I read this summer. Leigh Bortins is the founder of Classical Conversations and I have been blessed and encouraged time and time again by her writing.

1st Grade Read Alouds

I confess, I am not the best homeschool mom read alouder... I realize alouder is not a word but you get the point. It is hard work to read to little people who barely listen. It takes time to sit down and read books. Especially ones without pictures!!! 

We have managed to make it through a few books over the past 2 years. We started with a beautifully illustrated copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Followed by Flat Stanley. We had a smattering of Winnie-the-Pooh until we finally complete the first book. A few others we have completed are, Pippi Longstocking, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,  My Father's Dragon and Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Needless to say we are not plowing through our read aloud books at lightening speed.

 

After listening to a lecture by Andrew Pudewa of Institute for Excellence in Writing I became convinced and convicted about the need for and lack thereof read aloud time in the life of our family. I love to read and get lost in books! I just lack the drive to read aloud regularly to my children. To remedy this situation I am created a 1st grade read aloud list.

• Little House in the Big Woods (currently reading)
• Wind in the Willows
• Mr. Popper's Penguins
• The Door in the Wall
• Stuart Little
• Swiss Family Robinson
• The Moffats
• The Hundred Dresses

This book list is intended to be a goal and a target for our reading. I used various book lists I pinned on pinterest and my favorite resource recommend to me long ago, Honey for A Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt to create my list.

 I am looking forward to cuddling up and diving into these books with my kiddos. (Who am I kidding my cute two year old will be running circles around the living room) What are your favorite read aloud books? What books do you remember from your childhood?

Happy Reading!

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Reading

As of late I have been enjoying reading again! The busyness of the summer and life has kept me from reading like I want to but nonetheless I am attempting to plod through a few books. I updated my currently reading and have read lists at the bottom. I mixed a few fiction books into the mix back in May. I finished Gospel Powered Parenting last week and it was one of the best reads on parenting I have read. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge to keep the gospel in the center of my parenting. It has caused me to think deeper and harder about the gospel and how it intersects with my life and Kyla's life at every moment. How does the cross speak to her unkindness, what does the gospel say to me about my laziness. One of my top parenting picks, hands down! One side-note: it is written and geared toward fathers as spiritual leaders but we moms have something to glean out of it as well. 

A friend loaned me The Joy of the Word Filled Family a few weeks ago and I have enjoyed reading a chapter or so a day (it is a pretty thick book and could be intimidating). It has encouraged and exhorted me to be Godly and Word filled so that my family too may be filled with God's word! I am also reading How People Change to become better equipped so that I can grow in godliness and point others toward that path also! I will keep you posted on how they both end up!

A few on my next up list are: 

Love that Lasts 

(we are going to be taking a few couples through pre-marital counseling with this book) 

When People are Big and God is Small

Disciplines of a Godly Woman

Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling

The Gospel for Real Life II

The Gospel for Real Life

The Pleasure of Obedience – Chapter Three
The pleasure of obedience seems a concept so far from our grasp because we know how radically sinful we are. But for Jesus, there was pleasure in His obedience. Not only was Jesus outwardly sinless by action, but also inwardly by thought. This is not so for us, many times we act very proper on the outside, but sin in our hearts. What is key about Jesus is that He not only obeyed the Law of God, He always desired to do so. Obedience that is not delighted in is not perfect obedience.

So what does that matter for us? We can no longer continue to only look at Jesus' death we must revel in His perfect life. Why is this, because Jesus not only died for us, He also LIVED for us. All that Christ did in life and death, He did in our place as our substitute. There are two ways Jesus' perfect obedience applies to us. The first is that He came to do what we, because of sin could not do. It is this perfect obedience to the moral will of God that is called His active obedience. He actively obeyed the Father's universal moral will, which we call the Law of God. The second way this applies to us is that Jesus suffered in our place, that is His passive obedience. Jesus obeyed the Father's specific will for Him by suffering under the penalty of sin. This wasn't just at the cross, this was also by laying aside His divine glory and assuming a human nature when He came to us as a baby. In a sense Jesus reaped what we have sown.

The difference that this should make in our lives is that Jesus assumed our obligation and liability, obeying and suffering in our place. Jesus was appointed by God the Father as our legal representative. It is only because He lived and died as our representative that His work becomes beneficial to us. We can accurately say that when Jesus lived a perfect life, we lived a perfect life. When He died on the cross to suffer the penalty of sin, we died on the cross. All that Jesus did, we did, because of our legal union with Him. All that Christ did was credited to us, by faith, because we are united with Him.

Justice Satisfied – Chapter Four


We often think of justice in human terms and it is often tainted by sin. We need to remember that God's justice is perfect. Justice may be defined as rending to everyone according to one's due. Two things to note about God's justice, it is certain and it is inflexible. It is certain in the idea that it is coming, it is inflexible meaning, we get exactly what we deserve – nothing more, nothing less. God does not exalt His mercy at the expense of His justice. In order to maintain his justice, all sin without exception must be punished. We often want God just to let us off, that cannot be so. People think that God will somehow relax His inflexible justice and pardon all of us by mere sovereign prerogative. What is important to know is that God by the perfection of His nature cannot do that. He cannot exalt one attribute (mercy) at the expense of another (justice). Justice must be satisfied.

So where is our hope? As we looked at in chapter three we know Jesus served as our legal representative in life and death. Just as Jesus fully obeyed God's Law in our place, He also suffered its full penalty in our place. Jesus bore the full brunt of God's justice and He received the full punishment that was due to us. Jesus fully and completely satisfied the justice of God on our behalf as our substitute.

As believers we must steadily keep in mind that Christ has satisfied the justice of God on our behalf. Never again should we fear the retributive justice of God. We must not allow the accusations of Satan or the condemning indictments of our conscious to bring us under a sense of God's unrequited justice. Instead, we should by faith lay hold of the wonderful truth that God's justice has been satisfied for us by our Lord Jesus Christ. (46)

The Gospel for Real Life

I have often said one of my favorite books is The Gospel for Real Life by Jerry Bridges. This book is life changing and I do not say that lightly. Jerry Bridges challenges believers to put the gospel where it rightly belongs, in our every day life! I reading through it for the second time as I am leading our summer ladies Bible Study. I am excited to see how the gospel will not only continually shape and alter my life, but the lives of the women involved in the study. My hope is to blog a brief summary of each chapter to encourage you to seek to interact with the gospel in your life every single day and in every aspect of your life.  All these comments are either direct quotes or summarized thoughts from the book. 

Unsearchable Riches – Chapter One

Unsearchable riches are found in the gospel, however we set the gospel aside at the moment of salvation and seek to be disciples. What we forget is without the gospel we cannot become true followers of Jesus Christ. Instead of living victorious lives many believers live defeated and in desperation.  Why is that, “One answer is that we have a truncated view of the gospel, tending to see it only as a door we walk through to become a Christian… we fail to see the gospel as the solution to our greatest problem – our guilt, condemnation and alienation from God. Beyond that we fail to see it as the basis of our day-to-day acceptance with Him. As a result many believers live in spiritual poverty.” (14-15)

The gospel is the good news that directly addresses the bad news in our lives. Because of the gospel “we can begin each day with the realization that I am accepted by God, not on the basis of my personal performance, but on the basis of the infinitely perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.” (18)

Why the Cross – Chapter Two

Before we can ultimately understand the good news we must begin to understand the desperate need that we have as a result of our sinful condition.  Between God and mankind there is a huge spiritual debt that must be paid, the payment is found in the cross.

When Adam & Eve were placed in the garden they were placed with one restriction, not to eat of the forbidden tree.  This involved no hardship, no inconvenience, just simple obedience.  We know the story that the failed to obey and as a result we have the “fall.” The will that was bent towards God is now bent towards evil. Adam serves as our legal representative (this is called federal headship) because of the fall we also have a sin nature and are guilty before God.

Not only do we bear original sin but we consciously and unconsciously, willfully and unintentionally sin every day.  We fail to keep the greatest commandment (Love the Lord your God) and often do not even consider the second great commandment (love your neighbor as yourself). We must understand that our sinful nature affects and pollutes everything we do. 

The importance of understanding our own sin is “not to be measured by our own sense of need, but by what God has done to meet that need… the cross is an expression of God’s wrath toward sin as well as his love to us… God’s holiness demands it (the cross) as punishment for our sins, and God’s love provided it to save us from our sins.” (29)

“It is only against the dark backdrop of our sinfulness that we can see the glory of the cross shining forth in all its brilliance and splendor. And, as we gaze upon the glory of the cross, we will also discover that Christ, in His great work for us, not only resolved our sin problem, but also secured for us those “unsearchable riches” (30) 

I welcome and would love to hear your comments and interactions with these thoughts! Stay tuned for chapter's 3 & 4 next week!

God-Centered Holiness

Along with my daily Bible readings I am reading some sort of short, thought provoking meditation. In February I read Comforts From the Cross by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and I just started Holiness Day by Day by Jerry Bridges. 

My reading for today was titled God-Centered Holiness.  

Many believers want to be holy, strive to be holy but we don't experience it daily! We struggle with our sin and we constantly feel defeated! Bridges states, and I agree, our first problem is our attitude toward sin is self-centered not God-centered. We tend to focus on beating sin and claiming victory rather than the fact that our sin grieves God. We don't like sin because we fail... when in reality we should hate sin because it is offensive to God. 

Bridges reminds us that God wants us to walk in obedience not victory! Obedience orients us toward God and victory is oriented toward self. To walk in holiness we must pursue obedience, not victory! The good news is that victory is a by-product of obedience. 

Believer, let focus on honoring God by following him obediently and rejoice in the victory we are granted over sin! When our eyes are on the Savior, they are far from self!

...abiding...

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

John 15:9

I love the imagery Jesus uses throughout the Gospels! In particular I have been thinking of Jesus referring to Himself as the vine, and His people as the fruit. I have been contemplating how as fruit we do nothing, but bloom and blossom. We cannot become fruit of our own doing, we cannot choose to bloom, it is the Vine that produces fruit! 

Me and I can guess WE often focus on what we can do to abide and remain in Christ. We focus on our duty and actions, yet we fail to look to the vine. We fail to realize that remaining and abiding is a work of the vine. Once the fruit has ripened it falls off the vine, that is not the fruits doing but the vines! Be of good cheer, we are  not attached to a vine that is weak and dying, as believers we are trusting in an eternal hope that promises to bear fruit! 

Take heart in these promises,

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 

Ephesians 2:10

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit 

John 15:2

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 

Philippians 1:6

thoughts are from my meditation on John 15 and day 20 of Comforts from the Cross by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

S-A-L-E

Run don't walk (well you get the point) over to Sovereign Grace's website for their fabulous February Sale!!

They have CD's for $6.00 or the Audio Download for $5.00

Most books for $7

If you need any recommendations on what to buy

Books:

Living the Cross Centered Life (I have read the shorter version the Cross Centered Life, this one combines that book with another) is one of the best books I have read, and it is a quick read!

Humility (really it is humbling and encouraging!!)

I haven't read but want

Feminine Appeal

Shopping for Time 

Girl Talk

Radical Womanhood

Music: 

all of it is AMAZINGLY Gospel Centered and really you cannot go wrong!!

My favorite is their newest Sons & Daughters

my second favorite is The Valley of Vision

Justin really likes Come Weary Saints & In a Little While

We also enjoy the Awesome God Kid's CD and will be buying the To Be Like Jesus CD 

go check them out!!

www.sovereigngracestore.com

A little bit of an update!

Well I have been so wrapped up in this whole photography thing I haven't written much else!

Justin has started classes. He has Biblical Counseling and a New Testament Class! He is going to enjoy both classes. It is hard to believe that school is starting again. I finally miss school. Not so much the work as the stimulating lectures. I realie that I do not challenge myself as my classes did. That is probably something I need to work on!

Justin bought Kyla a Bible. He bought her the Jesus Storybook Bible
It is really great! Every story points to Jesus. Reading it to her is going to teach us so much about the WHOLE story! I love the illustrations aswell! She likes it for oh about 5 minutes!

The photography things is going really well. I enjoy it so much! I am learning all about my camera and shooting primarily in Manual. This weekend I have a maternity shoot, family shoot, and engagements pictures. I am still building up my portfolio so I am not charging yet. I am contemplating on the name still and trying to figure out the best options for going online! Thanks for your support and encouragement friends!

I pray all is going well in your worlds! please let me know how I can be praying for you!
~ Kara

Librarything!

For you book lovers out there I need to recommend Librarything.com. It is really great! For a lifetime subscription and we can add as many books as we want we can have an online library for $25 buckaroos! So we now have our 600+ books cataloged! It is pretty cool because you can see what other people have the same books as you and so forth.... check it out! Want to see our library click here!