Lonia: A Conversion Story

I found a great little resource for helping kids and teens understand the process of conversion of a believer. It is called Lonia: A Conversion Story. It was written by James Greendyk and put out by Reformation Heritage Books.

Lonia is a young girl orphaned. This is the story of how she comes to understand her sin and her need for a Savior and learns how to give herself over to the work of Christ in her life.

Update

I haven't had any time to blog, but I have been reading a lot. I am still reading Mere Christianity. I have been reading lots of Christian fiction. I recently read Karen Kingsbury's Even Now and Ever After. Great books! I also read Beverly Lewis' Heritage of Lancaster County trilogy. They were my first Lewis books.

The biggest thing I have to blog about is Dr. Phil McGraw's Ultimate Weight Solution. I am progressing steadily through it. To be honest, the timing for picking up this book was amazing. My doctor told me a couple of weeks ago that my weight issue is coming from stress. The stress topic wasn't new between my doctor and I. At first, I was not so sure what that meant. The more I contemplated it, the more I began to see how the two could be related. Then I came across the book. Once before I had skimmed it, skipped to certain chapters and discarded it. This book can not be broched in this manner to be of any help! It must be read and applied. So, I began to read slowly and take notes. Was my doctor ever right!

Through the first "key" I discovered the fallacy of my negative self talk. I have been thinking of how these keys apply to the Bible as I have gone through them. For this key, I was reminded of Philippians 4:8 "Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise". The negative thoughts we allow to control our thinking in no way meet this criteria!

The second key is emotional healing. This is about how we take in stress and allow it to affect us. The Bible says that we should "take every thought captive", so I know allowing my emotions to be out of control does not glorify Him. When a serious event happens in my life, out of my control, I tend to have very strong reactions. Like yesterday, when my son came in with blood spouting out the back of his head. The book says it is not about the stressful event, it is about the negative things I say in to my self that scare myself. It is about allowing my mind to go over and over and over it again. It is about calming myself with deep breathing, prayer, reading the Word, ect. Basically, it is about my reaction. So, today I realized that I get a great rush of adrenaline that sets my system off, sometimes for days. So here, I have to decide to let it go, exercise or something to release it all, be thankful it wasn't worse and move on! And when the event involves feeling hurt by someone, talk to them, or write a letter, forgive, choose to not let it change me and move on! What does this have to do with weight? Don't allow food to be what soothes me when all of this process it taking place. Makes sense huh?

So, I'm on to Key 3 now. Looking forward to it!!!

Little House on the Prairie: The Pilot

I know many of us love the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have only just begun to read them this year with my AO Year 2 children. However, I grew up watching the TV show.

I have heard from many LHotP book fans about how far the TV show strayed after the first couple of seasons. Recently, I purchased the Little House on the Prairie: The Pilot and was amazed at how well it stuck to the story line. Not, only that, but it is actually the WHOLE book! Then, the series picks up with the next book, On the Banks of Plum Creek, when they move to Walnut Grove.

I was disturbed with the way they portray Ma as disagreeing with Pa about many things, which she did not do in the book (although she wasn't fond of Indians, she was never disrespectful to Pa about it). However, she does realize the error of her ways reguarding Edwards and the Indians!

I quite enjoyed the Pilot and cannot wait to watch it with the boys when we finish the book in the next couple of weeks.

Book from the perspective of an Autistic person

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon is written from the perspective of a young boy with Autism.

Christopher is a 15 year old boy. He finds his neighbors dog murdered and ends up in jail. He decides he must solve the murder case himself. I was fascinated to watch his simple and logical approach to solving the murder as well as facing his difficulties with the world around him.

I would recommend this book for adults only due to the language especially. I do believe it is quite valuable in seeing into the mind and ways of persons on the Spectrum. It was helpful to me to watch what went through his mind as well as how he coped when he experienced sensory overload. The ideas would of course not be the same for every person, but perhaps the pattern helps us understand.

Loving someone on the Spectrum myself, I was drawn into the world of Christopher. I am glad I met him.

I would love to find some one on the Autistic Spectrum's opinion of this book.

What We are Reading

We are reading lots of new books right now, but none of them will be finished anytime soon. Ambleside Online spreads the readings out over a longer period of time. I think this forces you to take the book in slowly, as opposed to devouring it to get to the bottom of the story and not really taking the time to make connections and a build a relationship with the story.

My Year 2 students are reading:

Our Island Story
The Little Duke
The Little Pilgrim's Progress
Understood Betsy
The Tree in the Trail
Parables from Nature
Tales from Shakespeare
Trial and Triumph
the poetry of Walter De la Mare

Of course they are also reading Exploring Creation with Zoology I, doing math, grammar/reading, spelling ect.

My Year 0 student is different however. We have read all of the books with a star by them in the list on the side of my blog. We have really enjoyed the Billy and Blaze book. We have three of them so far: Billy and Blaze: A Boy and His Pony, Blaze and the Forest Fire and Blaze and Thunderbolt. I am even enjoying their adventures!

I began last year reading to my ds at bedtime. He never wanted me to read to him until I offered to read to him at bedtime. Now, he will not let me miss a night!!! I have noticed a drastic difference in his attention span. He is able to follow the story well! My how much he has grown from our nightly readings.