I Can Do All Things…

For about an hour to an hour and a half each day, my daughter has been working on her Peter Rabbit longstitch (with supervision, of course), but the best thing about this is that we have worked out how to longstitch together, and I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. My daughter has learned a new skill, and I think that you’ll have to agree, Peter Rabbit’s looking pretty impressive!

All that remains is to put his whiskers on, his mouth and work the background. The results with longstitch are very quick, and my daughter and I have enjoyed the “special” time spent together learning this new craft.

Oh, how we limit our God when we doubt ourselves and our abilities! Our God is an awesome God, and we can do all things through Him.

Baby Steps…

Today my daughter finished her school work early, and I had promised her that if she finished early, we would start on her longstitch. We bought this longstitch for her about three years ago, and it has taken me all of that time to pluck up the courage to be able to start it.

If you have been told all of your life that you can’t do anything, you’ll never amount to anything and that you’re no good, then you’re set up for failure your whole life, and your confidence takes a very real battering. It takes a lot of determination and trust, both in God and in self to break out of that whole cycle of self-doubt, but that is exactly what I have done (through God) today.

By doubting self, I was doubting God and His ability to change me, and also doubting the promise in His Word that says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”. I have taken hold of that promise, and today my daughter and I started on that longstitch – it wasn’t easy, as I have never been taught how to do anything in the way of stitch work, but we managed to make a start on it, and I feel good. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

How can I tell our children that they can do all things through Christ which strengthens them if I dare to doubt what He says in His Word? I can now look them straight in the eye and tell them that they can do all things through Christ which strengthens them, knowing that I have walked the path of trust first.

We thoroughly enjoyed tackling the starting of this project, and it has given me a degree of self God confidence, knowing that I can do things that I haven’t tried before.  I  have taught my daughter how to do it, and she has now taken over, with me supervising. My daughter did all of the brown area, and I’m so happy, and so is she. We just need to have the confidence to take that first baby step…

What Do We Celebrate when We Celebrate Easter?

This is a card that I made for my friend, Gwenda, and it has symbolism within the design of the card. The red symbolises the blood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; the black symbolises our sin prior to His death on the Cross and the white represents the righteousness of the Saints, which is only received through God’s grace and Jesus shed blood on the Cross of Calvary.

Do we celebrate Easter? Well, I know that Easter has long been associated with Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, but we don’t worship her in our home. We worship the one true God, the one who died on the Cross so that we could have everlasting forgiveness of our sins. There was to be no more sacrifice, as the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.

Easter has been associated with many things – Easter eggs and hot cross buns, but we need to remember the true reason for Easter, and that is the love that God had for us in sending His Son to be the substitutionary sacrifice for us all. It’s not about furry bunnies, Easter eggs or hot cross buns.

Easter is defined by Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary as:

• A feast that commemorates Christ’s resurrection and is observed with variations of date due to different calendars on the first Sunday after the paschal full moon.

While the Collins Concise Dictionary that we have at home defines Easter as:

• A festival of the Christian church commemorating the Resurrection of Christ: falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

And World Book Encyclopaedia defines Easter as being:

• The most important Christian festival of the year. Easter celebrates the return to life of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, after His Crucifixion.

Jesus came to give us life and that we might have it more abundantly (John10:10), and it is only through our faith in Jesus Christ that we receive this free gift of eternal life. Christ’s death and resurrection is the message that we should be sending to our friends and loved ones, and it should be His death and resurrection that we celebrate, knowing the love that our heavenly Father has for us.

Crafty Cards

Yesterday my daughter and I made another crafty card – this time for our friend, Gwenda, in Tumby Bay, as her favourite colours are purple and shades of purple. Although the butterflies don’t look like it, they are actually a deep, rich purple.

Making cards is so easy, especially with double-sided tape and all of the card accessories that can be obtained cheaply from Spotlight and Cheap-as-Chips, which are discount stores in Australia. We started out with the shades of purple that we were going to use, and checked the adornments that we were adding before we made them permanent. Initially we were going to have a dragonfly on the cover, but it wouldn’t travel well through the post, so it was back to the drawing board.

Eventually we came up with this simple but elegant design for our card. The rhinestones don’t really show up that well in the photo, but they look glittery and sparkly in real life and add a little pizzazz to the card. Our favourite card verses come from here, and Michelle has written a verse for every occasion that you can think of – there are also inspirationals, devotionals for men, women and children; Bible stories and poetry pages. Hers is a wonderful site to explore if you have a few spare hours!

What about you? Do you like making cards, or perhaps you have another craft that you’re particularly interested in?

A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24

Highlights of Our Day

Today my daughter and I created a birthday card for one of our friends. Card-making is so much fun, and best of all, it can be included as a part of your homeschooling programme under design and technology, especially if you design the inside of the card using the computer and a programme such as MS Word.

After we had finished card-making and cleaning up, my daughter galloped off outside and came back in a short while later with some beautifully ripe blackberries, and she informed me that there are hundreds more on the vine that are nearly ripe. Praise God for His provision over us!

What was my son doing while we were otherwise occupied with card-making? He loves our bantam chickens with a passion, and he was out photographing them. The bantams are growing so quickly, and they love spending time in our back yard. He snapped a photo of them sitting near the grape vine – aren’t they ever so cute?