Head coverings

I know, ya'll already think I've totally lost it with some of my personal beliefs (Hey, I'm just following God's word!), but I'm going to go even weirder on you tonight. Ready?

The early church studied the doctrinal teachings of the apostles, and one of those teachings was on head coverings. I think that the reason there is not much space devoted to it in the New Testament is because back in those times it was more easily understood.

Okay, so I have been studying 1 Cor. 11 for a few months now, and in the beginning I was just convicted to be more submissive to my husband, and out of that came the decision to grow my hair back out again (because of the passage AND because he never wanted it short to begin with). That was all very clear to me, but now God is taking me deeper, and it's just not quite as clear. I just wanted to ask your opinion on it.

How do you feel about head coverings? Paul is clearly talking about a material covering as opposed to the hair, but I am finding two different beliefs on this. One is that a woman should ONLY cover while praying or prophesying (which includes reading the Bible aloud) in corporate worship, which I understand why they believe this, but I just have never completely agreed with it. The other, more common, belief is that women of those times were covered at ALL times when in public as part of their modest attire, and that Paul was saying to leave the cover on while praying or prophesying (don't take it off). I have read that there were prophetesses who would remove their cover when they prayed or prophesied (because they were doing a man's work), and that is what Paul was referring to. (But note that later he says that women should remain silent in the church!)

Paul specifically tells them to keep it on (I believe.....the 2nd take on it), and though this is based in part on cultural dress, I think we, as Christian women today, should also include a head covering as part of our modest ensemble! It is clear, if you study head coverings throughout the centuries, that women gradually changed to more fashionable coverings, designer hats and then stylish hairdos because of current styles........so does that make it okay NOT to cover just because the majority of women in our modern culture do not??? What do you think? I really do want to hear what your understanding of this apostolic teaching is!

And keep in mind, we were called out as a peculiar people to be different from the world! I'm all over that one! :)

Wow!

I've got so much I can say about this, but I'll just let the video speak for itself. It is very eye-opening!

Baptism

The other night I had a dream, and though I am not one to blindly believe that all dreams (or even very many of them) will come true, I do not ignore them either. I love the spiritual dreams though. They do not come very often, but when they do they always make me think about that particular topic the whole day following the dream.

A week or so ago I dreamed about baptism. It was just simply an analogy that has made me rethink the meaning of baptism, and I've been thinking about it all week! I don't really remember a lot of detail, but it was such a cool analogy.

Okay, so most Christians have heard the analogy of the wedding ring, that baptism SHOWS others that we are a Christian like a wedding ring shows people we are married. My dream did not agree with that!

Baptism is actually more like the wedding CEREMONY. When a couple is in love and decides to spend the rest of their life together, they make a commitment, a covenant to each other, in front of the whole world (or at least 2 witnesses). When a person decides to follow Christ, they make it official and make a public commitment in front of the whole world that they have decided to follow Christ!

I shared this with Myles, and he thought about it for a few minutes then added even more. The wedding RING is similar to our spiritual fruit. Matthew 7:20 says, "Therefore by their fruits you will know them." And we know someone is married by seeing a ring on their finger. Cool, huh? :)

What do you think?

Ds1 will be baptized this coming Sunday, August 2nd. We had a talk with him about what it means to be a Christian......to be a true follower of Christ, and that means daily! We have seen him maturing so much lately. He has been asking some of the deepest questions and is showing more responsibility. There was a time when he was younger when he "asked Jesus into his heart" (which is not exactly biblical), and he remembers it well, but he hasn't really been a Christ follower and taken up his cross daily. He says he is ready to make that commitment! Praise God!!! Dd1 will probably be baptized soon too, but we tried to have the same conversation with her and she was giggly and distracted. She has said for a while now that she is a Christian and wants to follow Christ daily, and we will encourage her to do that, but we just don't think she is ready to make that public commitment yet. Soon though, Lord-willing!

Changes in my teaching style.....

I know it's been nearly 3 weeks since my last post, but we have had a LOT going on around here, including buying a brand new Chevrolet HHR! I know the price was higher and we have more debt, BUT we were able to get cash back to pay off our stinkin' credit cards once and for all, and the car payments are a set amount for a set time, then we're debt-free!!!! Well, except for the house, but then we'll roll everything over to the mortgage and kick that out of our lives too!

We have also had some personal things going on, some good, some not so much, but we know that all things work together for good to those who love God who are called according to His purpose. And that has been some of it, we are growing in the LORD and understand more what His call is and what it means! And sometimes growing hurts, but it's for the best!

One of the things I am excited about though is our upcoming "school year". We are still going to have sort of an "unschooly" approach, but we will have a little table time, a little more structured work, mostly for MY sake (I never thought I'd say that). I am very excited though because I am just going to plan out my own "lessons" each day using the Bible as the textbook! We may not use it exclusively, but I don't really want to add other things in, so we'll use it as exclusively as possible. And what I mean by that is we probably won't focus much on American or state history, for example, but more on world history straight from the Bible! :) Spelling, reading and grammar should be easy to take from it, writing will mostly be copying verses and science will begin with Creation, of course! Math......now THERE'S an awesome way to use all those begots and ages! :) Lots of possibilities for art of all kinds, geography should be a cinch to take from all of the countries mentioned (and we can even use those cool maps in the back of the Bible!), health....lots of health laws and healthy foods mentioned many times (and we can incorporate nutrition facts easily), economics should be fun, and most importantly, "Bible class" will be woven throughout everything! We will be focusing on some doctrines though as well as Scripture memorization. I also want to find a fun way to use Scripture to help learn the alphabet and learn to read! Fun, huh? :)


I will try to update as we go along. The older ones will obviously do more and understand more, but I think I will just teach all 4 of them together. It should be a lot of fun! We will still be pretty relaxed about it, so if someone is having a bad day or if we have to go somewhere and miss a day, it shouldn't be a big deal. We can just pick up next time where we left off. We will also continue to learn in everything we do, and I do not intend to completely separate each "subject" since they will likely all intertwine some, but we will have themes or some kind of order to it.

I am really looking forward to this new adventure though! My kids already seem so smart and are very sweet, loving people, but sometimes they just need a challenge or some kind of change, so this is it! And they are excited as well!

Visit to the Zoo

I think I was laughing pretty hard by the time Myles took this picture. He was taking forever with the camera and we were all just getting soaked in the mister! We had a great time at the zoo last week, but boy was it humid! Fun times! :)

Bike riding

I am finally posting those pictures from the other day!

Advice to anyone who has not bought a house yet and plans to have kids or grandkids at your future house, get one with a long, paved driveway! I do not let my kids ride on the street yet, so they don't ride nearly as much as they would like to. When we drive out in the country we drool over long driveways. Ha!

Yellow Jackets!!!!!

Jacob and Jayla have both been stung 4 times (they attacked each of them on different days), so we have GOT to get rid of these guys! Anyone have any experience with yellow jacket removal? I'm thinking thick clothing and our powerful shop vac!

Here is a picture of ours. They are right outside on our back porch!

Wow, I was just looking at the picture enlarged (click on image), and there are at least 10 of them. They look pretty scary! All I know is I don't want to be stung by them after hearing Jacob and Jayla scream. :'( That was horrifying! I am so glad they are not allergic!

Memories

I posted this on my Facebook status and thought I'd put it here too, just for fun. I will check everyone's blog to see if you do it too so I can comment on yours! If you're on my list on Facebook, feel free to comment there and I'll do the same! Here it is:

If you read this, even if we don't speak often, post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want, either good or bad. When you're finished, post this paragraph on your own status and you'll be surprised at what people remember about you....

Follow me on Twitter!

I don't really "tweet" very often, but if you do, you can follow me by clicking on this button!

LIFE Moment

We're all outside right now riding bikes, scooters and skateboards! Well, okay, so I'm not participating, but all 4 of the kids are, including Jack!

Jonathan is assisting Jack with all of them, while also learning to ride a skateboard! (Myles has two old skateboards from his childhood!)

Jayla is practicing riding her bike and also learning the skateboard.

Jacob is having a blast on the scooter while also learning to be gentle with the kittens. (He has been "grounded" from all animals for the last couple of weeks and is having to relearn how to properly handle them!)

I will have to post the pictures later since Jayla is also taking pictures for me.

Ha!!! Jonathan just put Jayla's basket on the front of his bike and was carrying a kitten around in it!

Fun times!

Fun For Nothin'

I found a blog this morning (by following links on other blogs I am subscribed to) that I just love! I am enjoying the whole blog, but this is the first entry I read from it. Click on the button to go there.

This is just simple ideas of how to have fun with things you already have, like a rope or a box or maybe some pieces of wood! Check it out, and please leave me some comments with your own ideas! I am SOOOO wanting to just ditch all of the toys we have right now and play with "natural" toys that we already have. This makes me think of the book, "Little House on the Prairie" where they use stones and leaves to have a tea party. Fun!