PrincipledMom™

You may or may not know that I am the coordinator for kids prayer at my church. I love praying with kids, especially my own. There is such an purity and trust that comes through when they pray. Prayer is simply a conversation with God, and children love to talk to Him--and to hear from Him too.

 I have been teaching a series on "The 7 Be's of Family Prayer" at different churches for over a year now and have had a lot of positive response.  I wanted to summarize this teaching to help your family in this area. I hope something that is said in this series will ignite your family to pray together more often. 

Principle 1: Be Consistent

God rewards faithfulness. Prayer is something that we do everywhere, all the time (Eph. 6:18). Be instant in season and out of season, ready to pray anytime. Make it a lifestyle. When you pray through your day, your children see that you don't just pray at church or at mealtimes, but God is always ready to talk with us. If you hear of a tragedy somewhere or you pass an accident on the road, take a moment to pray about it. If someone comes to your mind several times, especially if you do not often think of them, pray for them. Pray all events that happen in your family.

Encourage your children to have queit time with God. Even 4 or 5 year olds can listen to praise music or a Bible on tape and have a few quiet moments to think about God. Schedule it into their day and as they grow older it will be a habit they treasure.

Make it a routine, not a stale ritual, to take everything to the Lord in prayer. You will grow closer together as a family, you will have more peace because you allowed God into your daily life and you will have greater joy seeing the answers to those prayers.

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If you would like the complete teaching as an mp3 for $4, please contact me. And stay tuned for principle 2.

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Jennie vonEggers is offering a special deal on their Clean N' Flip that's only for a limited time. You can see the info below. Please notice that it's only one per household, you must pay a small S/H fee and it's good in USA and Canada only...

The Clean N' Flip- Free Offer

This cute flipchart walks children quickly and easily through the process of cleaning their room. It takes an overwhelming task and breaks it down into simple parts. Complete a step and flip the page. The fun, simple pictures make it easy for even pre-schoolers to use. A little bit of direction makes life much easier!

• Makes cleaning FUN!
• Complete a task & flip the page
• Add extra personalized chores
• Boosts self-esteem and organizational skills

• Limited to one FREE offer per household
• S&H charge of $3.50 will apply
• US & Canada only

To Get your free Clean N' Flip click here! 

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As home educating mothers, we all strive to do our best and provide our children with the most excellent education we can. As a mom using the Biblical Principle Approach to education (and planning my own lessons), I must spend a good deal of time preparing lessons, researching and such. It is easy to look up and find myself far off the reservation, out in the desert, wondering how on earth I got there. It's dry and itchy and lonely.  I need to get back to the still waters (Psalm 23).

No matter what curriculum, what philosophy we use, it is so easy to get caught up in the planning, studying researching, even teaching. We get caught up in routines, charts, plans and other things. But God has so much more for us--and for our children.

Our focus should be on "the good portion" (Lk 10:42). In the story of Mary and Martha, Martha was caught up in the mechanics of her day. Things needed to get done and someone had to do it. Her issue was not knowing when to take off her homekeeper hat and sit down to listen to Jesus. Mary seemed to have a sense of the importance of the moment and sat down to soak it in.

I want to be like that with my home education. I want to seek first His kingdom (Mt. 6:33) and have all the "little" things added to me. I don't want to miss a single minute of God speaking to us, while I'm distracted with planning and scheduling and the other stuff.  Lord, give me a Mary spirit...

I encourage you to sit at the feet of Jesus with your children. He will richly reward you. You will grow and mature in Him and all the other things will work out just fine.

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If you haven't been to Etsy then you are missing out! It's a community for artists and crafters to sell their work online. It's so much fun to see what people are making.

My new store is now open. I hope you'll take a minute to browse (and order!) something for you or a friend.

Anna Hawthorne Bookworks

some of my offerings:

Now you see why I haven't been posting here!...

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