Journal ~ Homechurch, Homemaking, A woman's nest

I call by faith, Hannah my daughter, keeper of the home.


Hello Sisters!

We have been very busy around here lately. The mornings have consisted of Jesus, chores, some reading, some math, swimming in the afternoon and neighbors in the evening. My husband said to me, "Shannon, if we were going to a religious building once or twice a week, we would never have time to get to know and serve our neighbors." One family had their whole life direction, in just a matter of days make a COMPLETE turn around. This father is meeting with my hubby on almost a daily basis and they are reading the Word together, they are digging in and asking the Lord to show them about who HE is! Our families make food together, eat together, have fun together, and most importantly, talk about Jesus.

It seems like the Lord will bring us a family in our neighborhood to heap His love on. We do this by what I just mentioned above. Then He will bring us another family, and another. Sometimes the Word falls on stony soil, sometimes it is choked out by the weeds, and sometimes it produces a bumper crop. But whatever the case may be, as we step away from these families/singles and let them start growing up (meat and potatoes as opposed to milk) we don't judge them if they continue in the Lord or not. But what we do do is continue to write them little notes of encouragement with scriptures (the girls started making their own cards..picture in last blog) and bring them desserts or food as we make them for our family. We also continue to have them over as the Lord leads or just when they are walking by our house, we'll call them in for coffee, or we'll pick something up for them we saw in the store that reminded us of them. It's SIMPLE little things. After 15 years of going to a religious building and actually working in the ministry, I have to say that BEING the church is much more effective than going to one. Now, I'm not putting church down, the most important thing we need to do is LISTEN to the Lord on where and what we should be doing and I'm sure we all agree on that. :)

Some other highlights of the week are my oldest daughter (Hannah 15) told me she thinks the Lord wants her stop college (she said she had to continue to pray about it, but I said..."why" :). YEA!!!! YEA!!!!! and YEA!!!!! I've been praying about that for a long time! When I started homeschooling 10 years ago, of course you send your girls to college, that's what all the other home school families do...right? So that is what I programmed my daughter to think. Anyway, as each day passes I see the utmost importance for my daughter's to be trained in the art of homemaking and not only homemaking, but the ability to be passionate about being a help meet to her husband. WOW!!! now that's progress in the right direction.

I gotta tell you something beautiful before I go. A year or so ago I was laying in bed with my girls and some how we got on the topic of the womb. I told my girls that their womb was a "nest" to grow babies in and how wonderful and thoughtful the Lord was in His whole plan to continue the human race. For weeks afterward (and even still today) when my girls have their tummies exposed they rub it and say, "Mom, look at my nest!" Isn't that beautiful?

Blessings,
Shannon