Master's Week Augusta, GA and Intentional Living

I started this a few weeks ago and forgot to post.  Wrapped up and posting.  Yep, chemo brain again, its real!

It is Master's Week in Augusta, GA.   For those not from the area, it's a prestigious golf tournament held yearly in our city.   Most cities have spring break around Easter, but in Augusta it's the week of the golf tournament.    It seems even nature puts on a show for the thousands of folks who come to Augusta.    Everything is abloom from the flowering azaleas and daffodils, to the dogwood, redbud, peach, and cherry trees.   The aroma from the wisteria vines is intoxicating, and they are beautiful to behold as well.   The birds are singing their spring songs.   Of course for folks with allergies, the pollen is also painting everything yellow and making for some miserable headaches, sniffles, and itchy eyes.   Many Augustans head out of town this week, others work extra for the week, and the rest of us may take a break from school, but pretty much keep our normal routine avoiding the Washington Road area if at all possible unless we are fortunate enough to go to the tournament or it's practice rounds.  

If you live here, you have to be intentional not to be more focused on the Master's Tournament this Easter season than the Master and the celebration of His Resurrection.  In fact, the older I get the more I realize that everything tries to steal from the worship the Lord deserves or even His design.  
            We don't do Santa with the munchkins, because he steals from the reason we celebrate Christmas.  
            We don't let our guys buy into the Easter Bunny, he takes the focus away from the Resurrection. 
           We don't celebrate earth day, but thank the Lord continually for the earth that He created for us.   
           I admit we did the "alternative to Halloween" deal before.    Walked away feeling like I was part of the Christianizing of Halloween, dressing it up as a fall festival with "friendlier" costumes and sending kiddos off with a wad of candy so they don't feel like they missed out on anything.  Really?   Really?

You may think we are missing out on some fun childhood memories, but we are purposely making fun memories all the time.   We are not missing out.

Not only are so many things stealing from from the worship that belongs solely to the Lord, His truths are also continually being redefined.    What God defines as a family is continually being redefined by the culture, the media, etc.   The church is not immune from this, and many denominations have chosen political correctness and postmodern thought to Biblical Truth.   God puts humans as stewards over all the earth, and makes us more valuable by creating us in His image.  Yet, people cried out over Michael Vick's dog fighting much louder than the outcry over Kermit Gosnell and his horrific late and after delivery abortions.   We absolutely should be good stewards of animals, the earth, etc.  but they are not more valuable than human life.  These are just a couple of examples.   I have bed time stories to read, prayers and night time smooches to give so let me just wrap this up.   We all have to decide what is stealing from our devotion and worship of the Lord Jesus.  We need to be intentional about searching Scriptures to see what God's standards are and how He wants us to live.  Don't get me wrong how we celebrate holidays IS NOT a salvation issue.   Those are choices we made in our family to help us stay focused.    What is a salvation issue is who or what am I worshiping?   Warren Wiersbe defines worship this way…Worship is the believer’s response of all that they are – mind, emotions, will, body – to what God is and says and does.  Lastly a prayer from John Piper, “Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity." Amen.

 

Teaching Our Daughters week 5 & 6

REVIEW WEEK 6
Sewing:  We made pillowcases.   They turned out sooo cute.    For next time, bring 2/3 yd, 36” fabric such as heavy broadcloth, burlap, denim or other fabric of your choice and 2 24” wooden dowels or metal curtain rods, thread, cord (for hanging bulletin board), scissors, sewing machine, straight pins to make a Hanging Bulletin Board next class.

Gardening:    Make a list of 7-10 vegetable to grow in your garden.  Try to include some root vegetables (onion, radish, beets, carrot, turnips, potatoes), some leaf vegetables (lettuce, spinach kale, cabbage and some fruit/seed vegetables (peas, bean, corn, squash, zucchini, tomatoes).   The end of chapter 5 of Square Foot Gardening has a list of easy-to-grow crops.  You might also consider carrots and spinach.  Look at garden catalogs.   Order your seeds.   Be sure you’ve read up to page 39.

Cooking & Baking:   We made vegetable tray and dip.


Bible
We read “A Child’s Puzzle” and “Jennie Browning” and talked about obedience and never to fight our conscience.

REVIEW WEEK 5
Sewing:  Talked about all we learned thus far, and then discussed modesty.   Read this article from this website:  http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/2012/03/dear-daughter-heart-of-modesty.html

Gardening:    Read about “your” weeds in Weeds and What they tell.  Summarize and record information.  Keep it in your notebook.  Relect on what “weeds” we’ve allowed to grow in our hearts.   Pray for GOD’s weeding job.

Cooking & Baking:   We made homemade tortillas.  Then we used them to make quesadillas.


Bible
We read “Nothing Finished” and talked about finishing the thing we begin, and guarding our time if extra things are keeping us from doing things well.