Why??

Yesterday I wrote "why not?"  Why are people who are not Christians..not?  I think it is an important question to ask.  One person responded on my Facebook as to why she is not and I appreciate her response.  I will not re-post (because she posted there and not on my blog) but you are welcome to go look at yesterday's Facebook post if you are my friend. At the end she did indicate that she is curious why a person would want to be a Christian.

So that is today...

Why?

Why are you a Christian?

For me it is easy.  I am so less than perfect.  I do feel the need for a savior.  I believe in the next life, in heaven and hell, and I believe that if we go by works I am screwed.  (Pardon my french.)  We had a Jehovah's Witness here one time and they believe that if you have had blood transfusions you are not eligible anymore.  Guess I'm out eh?  (Yes we brought that up with them and they had no answer.)  I can not do enough to get there.  And thankfully I have a Savior that bridges the gap.  I can not get there by works.

For honesty's sake, I will say that sometimes, I believe because I just don't like the other options.  Sometimes I choose Jesus because everything else just does not give me something to believe in.  I also, as I mentioned above, know and feel I fall short.  So we are back to the need for a Savior.

Also..it works.  I pray to Jesus.  I see answers.  And I NEED answers on a daily basis.  They are not always as I think he should answer...but I have faith that he will work out the big and the little.  I have seen it.  I have felt it.  I will share just one small story.  AJ was having a 'moment' and I knew I needed to remove myself from the room and just go pray.  I did...that AJ would just feel the Holy Spirit move.  He comes to find me and says, "I can't get the fruit of the Spirit song out of my head!!!!"  Because he went from meltdown to that because of me lifting my words to God, I  knew he was real.  In that moment..and always.

For me also, it isn't about the value of being a Christian.  I do KNOW there are good people in every religion.   Again it is almost about NOT being good and needing a savior.  Guilt and redemption are at the core.   Again, my son often exemplifies the need for a Savior...and sometimes I think we are put smack dab in the middle of the Christian homeschool community to show others that indeed Christians are not perfect and in need of forgiveness.  I have so many stories on that front.  One that still touches my heart is from last year at our co-op.  (Or maybe 2 years ago...I have lost count of the years.)  My dear son went and popped a girl about half his size in a class.  I was mortified.  The next week I had to DRAG myself there because I was beyond embarrassed.  AJ's  'stuff' sometimes manifests in behavior but it still makes me want to go run and hide.  (I believe that is part of the devil's plan.)   By that time AJ was repentant and the girl said she forgave Andrew.  The mom said, "I just told my daughter that AJ is still learning and that although it was wrong we need to forgive."  It melted my heart...forgiveness with skin on.  Just imagine my God doing that a million fold.    I have quite a few stories from our co-op that are like that.  There have been times that people have not been as forgiving and in those instances I get a chance to forgive...and let go.


I also think that other religions can appear to 'work' in this life.  But it gets back to eternity for me.  And I'm not willing to gamble.  God is gracious and has provided me proof when I have asked. But the prayer needs to be asked.  When I asked Jesus fully into my heart in my early 30s I wasn't quite sure what I had signed up for.  I just asked him to be REAL for me.  And He was..and He is...

Please share WHY you believe... either in comments, email or on FB.  (amylapain@yahoo.com)

Why not?

I was in the shower.. thinking.  It is where all great thoughts happen.  I was wondering about my 'Sinners welcome' post yesterday.  And I thought..WHY are people NOT Christian?  I can guess the reasons. I looked up to see if there is a Facebook poll on it because there are a bunch of polls going around right now with a new feature they have.  (There is not.)  So the QOD is, if you are not a Christian, why not?  (If you are and want to share your story...hold that thought.)  Feel free to inbox me on Facebook if you are my friend, or email me at amylapain@yahoo.com...or leave a comment.  Anonymous comments welcome.    I'm not going to try and convince you necessarily but I welcome questions.    I pretty much lay it out there and wear my heart on my sleeve when I talk about my faith. But I just wondered...why NOT?  (Maybe I will do a FB poll.)  I think this post goes right along with Lent.

Tomorrow's post will be for those that wish to share why they ARE Christians.

KinderBach- A TOS Review

Kinderbach is a online or dvd piano curriculum for young children that you can do at home.  We received a membership as part of our Crew team on The Old Schoolhouse.

So how did we like it?  Well, first of all, it is not captioned.  There are parts of the videos that have background noise.  Andrew WAS able to hear it and discern some parts and not others. I asked them if they had captions via the Internet or DVD option and they said, "I’m sorry.  We do not.   We learned the technology as we produced the videos.  Hindsight is always 20/20."  That was a tad disappointing.  I always hope a company will have captions at least in their future plans.  


  Andrew enjoyed the ditties presented in each but it was geared to a younger crowd.  (He is 10.  And although younger developmentally, this was geared visually to a younger age.  It is listed as for ages 3-7.)  Each lesson was very short which I liked.  By short I mean less than five minutes.   This VERY much works for us.  We are at the 'preschool' age of attention.

There were also PDF books to download with activities.  The activity books for each level are over 40 pages long. There are 6 levels in this program and 10 lessons in each level.    Although not all lessons use a piano, you do need a piano or keyboard to do this curriculum.

Because I do play the piano but don't teach it, I found it interesting the way that they presented the material.  They would call a quarter note a 'walk' and would speed things up or slow then down depending on the note used.  I think that might work well with younger kids but I found myself wanting to describe exactly what the note was called versus a comparison.  I was hoping that because this was geared to the younger crowd that it might work well for Andrew because that is where his attention 'age' is at.  Sometimes that works..sometimes it doesn't.




Because Andrew had some difficulty understanding the instructor because of the background noise...coupled with the fact that he spent most of his time laughing at the videos instead of doing what they asked.. it provided nice entertainment but not learning of how to play the piano.

I recognize that everyone is different and you may indeed like this.  As always you can click on the banner below to find others that reviewed the product.  In addition, you can do a free trial lesson.  So please look at other reviews and the website yourself to make your own opinions.

You can find the full price structure by going to THIS page on the KinderBach webiste.  It is $19.99 a month or $95.88 for the year.  You can buy DVD packages or pay the fee for online access.

I received this product in exchange for my honest review.

Sinners Welcome

My cousin took this picture in a drive by.  I just love it!!!  All churches should post it.  I just had a conversation Saturday discussing the fact that is a key difference between Christianity and other religions...  you don't have to DO anything.  It is all by grace.   That IS Easter.  I might have added.."Sinners Welcome.  You'll fit right in."

Only Grace....

I have a whole post I wrote yesterday to put up this morning but this came to mind in the middle of the night.  I love this song.  For me it encompasses Easter to the core.  Only Grace by Matthew West:

There is no guilt here
There is no shame
No pointing fingers

There is no blame

What happened yesterdayhas disappeared

The dirt has washed away

And now it's clear

There's only grace

There's only love

There's only mercy and believe me it's enough

Your sins are gone

Without a trace

And there's nothing left now

There's only grace

You're starting over now

Under the sun

You're stepping forward now

A new life has begun

Your new life has begun

An there's only grace

There's only love

There's only mercy and believe meit's enough

Your sins are gone

Without a trace

And there's nothing left now

There's only grace

And if you should fall again

Get back up, get back up

Reach out and take my hand

Get back up, get back up

Get back up again

Ohhgetbackupagain

There's only grace

There's only love

There's only mercy and believe me it's enoughits enough

Your sins are gone

Without a trace

And there's nothing left now

There's onlytheres onlygrace

There's only mercy and believe me it's enoughits enough

Your sins are gone

Without a trace

And there's nothing left now

Theres onlygrace

So get back upget back up again

Get back up again.

Song School Latin- A TOS Review

I received Song School Latin from Classical Academic Press for review. First the info about the program. This is the first in the Latin series from them. There is a teacher's manual, student text, a CD and flash cards. We received the first three with a sampling of the flash cards. You can buy these as a bundle for $64.95 or purchase each individually.

If you recall, a few months ago we reviewed a Spanish language program and Andrew took to it very quickly. This was no different. This is CD versus a video but each lesson has a song to sing along with the words in the book. And sing Andrew did... the ditties stuck in my brain as he would walk around the house singing the song. They were a great way to get to learn the words.

Each lesson had the vocabulary words to learn and then various other ways to cement them in the brain including copy work, stories where you wrote the words in and Q&A. The monkey who was pictured through the book cracked Andrew up! The fun cartoons did definitely help make the Latin more appealing.

I must admit that I don't understand the difference between ecclesiastical versus classical Latin. I also thought that Latin was not spoken so I didn't quite understand why one would go to the trouble of learning to pronounce the words but several friends who have children who have learned Latin either in home or private school have said that this is how kids typically start out learning the language. I think it helps cement the roots in you brain.

There are, from my understanding, a wide variety of choices out there for Latin curriculum. I have not researched them at all. We will finish this initial program and then take a peek at the next lesson. Other crew members reviewed Latin for Children and Latin Alive from Classical Academic Press. Take a peek at the banner below to see these.

I received this program in exchange for my honest review.

Easter Colors- Lent post

I went scrapbooking this weekend. First time in MANY years. Here is one of the pages I did from 2009. It includes the Easter Color poem. I think many people apply it to jelly beans but it works for Easter Eggs too! It is a wonderful way to tie in Jesus while you are coloring your eggs. (Just don't forget to boil them first. Not saying I have ever done that....just reminding you.)

BigIQKids- a TOS Crew Review

I had the opportunity to review the premium edition of BigIQkids. They have both paid and free versions of the program which provides grade level instruction and practice for spelling, math, vocabulary and spelling. The pricing varies depending on the length that you purchase the product for and which ones you purchase. You can find all that information on this chart here.

First overall, I find this program very adaptable. Andrew is a wide age range for his skills and I did not have to commit to one grade level for all subjects and could vary what we were doing in each subject. I did not need to contact them to do this and it was accomplished in the parent section of the program.

Before I go into each subject, I wanted to mention that basically the way this works is that you do the school item, you are awarded a 'coin' and then you can go and play games in the game section with the amount of coins that you have. You can change this to be able to only use the coins on the weekend or turn it off entirely. You can also save them up and play more games at one time.

There are also timers in each section that you can turn off when the student is doing the work. I find this helpful for those that try too hard to beat the clock.

I liked the spelling the best. You are presented with words at the beginning of a week/lesson. They then take you thru spelling bees, word scrambles and pop quizzes with a test at the end. FYI: For the hearing impaired, they typically present written sentences so if you are familiar with the words, you can gather what word they are asking for even with the sound turned off. The sound is a tad Stephen Hawking but Andrew could understand it most of the time. I also liked in the spelling that the parent can bypass any of the lessons, add words and assign what is to be done next.

We mostly used the timed practice for math. I believe there were tests in that section but we used it just for practice. If you have read this blog for any length of time you know we don't love tests. The timed practice is nice because you can turn off the clock for the child so they don't know they are being timed. I liked that this got Andrew to do 50 math problems at a time. (That number is flexible as well in the parent / teacher section of the page.) We seem to have issues with ANY online program with clicker speed...Andrew wants to see HOW fast he can click the answer without any regard to accuracy. So at the beginning, when this was new, it was great. Then he wanted to make a 'game' out of lesson versus working on the math, and all heck broke loose. If your kid doesn't have this issue, this is a great way to practice your math.

On the states section, we again had clicker happy problems. It starts out TELLING you where the state is, and then later on you have to find it. Andrew just wanted to click away. We have found that we (parent/teacher) needs to control the materials when working on learning items and it is just so very hard to do that with a computer program. I think I will be using this program for myself for a refresher! It truly is a good way to practice your states.

Andrew has a giant, colossal, enormous, whale of a vocabulary. Doing this section at grade level would be for pure show. But I did like the format, and how they went about presenting the material. Then I found that I could do a level for SAT vocabulary. I am not one to do academics just for the sake of it but when some areas of work are not up to grade level, it does both Andrew and I some good to do something completely above where he is 'suppose' to be at. It was great fun and he did quite well on this section. That is one thing I really love about BigIQKids. You can toggle between grade levels very easily.

As usual, you can click on the banner below to see what others thought of this product. I think this is at least worth a peek with the free options. Depending on how much you use it it could be worth the dollars as well.

I received a subscription to BigIQKids in return for my honest review.

The Three Trees - Lent Post

Sometimes I find a resource and I sit there and wonder, how did I miss this before? That is the case with The Tale of Three Trees. This is a wonderful book about God's purpose!

And, because you can find (almost) anything on the Internet, I dug up a lapbook. And..it is free! You can do everything on the linked page or just print out the lapbook which is one of the first links. I had forgotten about the entire link I posted and we kept it very simple.

If you want to read the entire story you can go here. But I highly recommend getting the book for the pictures. The link above is the edition I purchased. There are others but I liked the art in this one.

I haven't posted much this week. First, I am trying to STAY ON TASK. That is not easy for me. Also, I am going scrapbooking this weekend! First time in 6 years or so and my mind is focused on that. And, I am spending time preparing for a Seder meal! Andrew has requested it. I am excited!! I will be posting on that for sure.

Lent Meditations

I have started to post several times this week and the posts are just to 'personal' even for me! We had a wonderful example of sacrifice from my son on Friday. It is good to know God is working.

I just read a great poem from a Lent book I am reading. the book is Devotions for Lent and less than $2 on the Kindle. Even though it is two weeks into Lent I do recommend. If you don't have a kindle it is under $3. I was going to post the poem that 'hit' me but that was 'just for me' I think.

If you don't even want to spring for the book, or even if you do, I highly recommend hopping over to House Up The Rock which you can find via the button on each day I do a Lent post. She has some terrific ideas as do the folks that are linking up. There is one she just posted based off another person's blog regarding lighting candles and naming them as sins and then snuffing them out. What a wonderful word picture for kids. Hop over there though..she is a great photographer and has pictures to go along with the post.