Leaning into Jesus

 

One of the deepest desires of my heart, is to spend my entire life, testifying about all the ways God has brought me from death to life. Recently, I’ve had this overwhelming desire to lean into Jesus and dig deeper into the Lord through prayer, scripture, and other spiritual disciplines. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been spending time reading my Bible and in prayer. However, I want to take our relationship deeper.

As a result, I’ve been praying through all of the tools I use to foster spiritual growth in my life. Trying to decide if I should replace these items with something else or continue to use what I have in a different way. I also made a list of the disciplines I want to cultivate such as, intentional goal planning, in depth Bible study, prayer, personal journaling, gratitude, and sermon notes.

Do you long to learn more about the Lord?

If so, please look below to check out, “7 Tools to Help  You Grow in Christ”, which have helped me to get back into the groove of spending time with Jesus. These tools are helpful to get you started and guaranteed to strengthen your relationship with the Lord. These items are not “required”, so please add them to your religious to do list. Like I said, this is what works for me, so take time to pray and ask the Lord was He wants to cultivate in your life right now.

7 Tools to Help You Grow in Christ

1. ESV Bible 

(for Bible reading)

I think it’s hard to learn about Jesus without reading His word. As a result, I have several tools to help me read my Bible throughout the year. My traditional, paper copy is a pink ESV Bible. I got this Bible many years ago. At different points in time, it’s even been written on by my girls. While I study the Bible and take sermon notes, I underline Bible verses which stand out to me. I also write insights in the margins and date it, so I can remember what God taught me through my own study or from a teacher. Slowly but surely, my Bible is being filled up with incredible truths about God. If I ever get another Bible, I’lol probably get a journaling Bible, which will give me even more room to take notes!!

2. The Bible Recap with Tara-Leigh Cobble Bible Reading Plan 

(for Bible reading)

A new tool I’ve been using this year is, “The Bible Recap with Tara-Leigh Cobble Bible Reading Plan” on the YouVersion Bible App on my phone. The Bible Recap follows The Chronological Bible, which has been nice to listen to throughout this year. For further enrichment, I listen to The Bible Recap podcast for more insight and encouragement into the assigned daily Bible reading. I highly recommend this tool, if you’ve always wanted to read through the Bible in one year.

3. Cultivate What Matters: PowerSheets 

(for intentional goal planning)

For years, I’ve been using the Cultivate What Matters: Powersheets Intentional Goal Planner and I get so excited to dive into the prep work to see  what God has in store for me for the upcoming year. The first 50 pages of the book is the prep work where you work through what’s important to you. They help you nail down goals and brainstorm ways to work on them little by little each year. The rest of the book is broken up into months, so each month you can work through your individual to-do lists and action steps you want to take to get you closer to achieving your goal. This year, I’m thankful the Lord helped me to simplify my goals, because the goal pandemic has wrecked all sense of “normal” right now.

4. “Write the Word Journal” 

(to cultivate gratitude, prayer, in depth Bible study)

Back in 2018, when we moved to Hong Kong I wanted to get something which would help me get back into my daily Bible reading after our big move, having twins, and being a new Mom of 5 girls!! Honestly, I just needed something to help to keep me accountable. Thankfully, I already used the PowerSheets, because I follow Lara Casey (founder of Cultivate What Matters) on social media and she introduced me to their “Write the Word Journals”. During this season of life, these journals were the perfect solution for me. They weren’t daunting Bible studies, but a guided journal which would give me space to write out God’s word, spending time in prayer, writing what I was thankful for each day, and a word for the day to summarize what I had learned. To this day, I still use my Write the Word journal and I’ve even incorporated the kids version into our homeschool curriculum.

5. Give Me Jesus Journal 

(to cultivate gratitude, prayer, in depth Bible study)

Based on a friend’s recommendation, I started following Phylicia Masonheimer on Instagram. Phylicia’s love for God and His word is contagious. She offering Bible hacks, book recommendations, Biblical teaching on lots of topics, and so much more!! She also talks about the tools she uses while she studies the Bible and one of her favorites is the “Give Me Jesus Journal” from Well Watered Women Co. It’s a journal with a variety of prompts to help you dive deeper into your specific passage. Honestly, I haven’t used this journal myself, but I plan to buy one when they restock. Even though I don’t have this journal, I’m excited to apply these principles in my personal study of God’s word. 

6. My Personal Journal 

(for journaling and sermon notes)

Ever since I was little, I’ve also had a diary or journal which I would take time to write in each day. To this day, I still use a journal for writing and pouring out my heart to the Lord in written prayers. Also, I use my journal for sermon notes. I used to have a separate journal, but I’ve found it’s easier to just keep everything in the same place. Inevitably, I’m going to wondering what the pastor talked about and it’s easier to have everything all together instead of trying to keep track of even more notebooks. 

7. Val Marie Paper Rhythms (Yearly) Prayer Journal 

(for fostering prayer, written prayers, journaling, and gratitude)

I have used the Val Marie Paper Yearly Prayer Journal, recent renamed the “Rhythms” Prayer Journal, for several years. In 2018, the first year I used the prayer journal, I was inconsistent, because I would skip a month here and there. It felt wasteful!! As a result, in 2019, I didn’t order a prayer journal and just tried to use the months which were still blank in my 2018 prayer journal. Honestly, it was hard to navigate 2019 without a yearly prayer journal. I missed having this tool to help me nourish a healthy prayer life. When it came time to pre-order the 2020 yearly prayer journals, I made it a priority to invest in one again and have some extra encouragement. You all know how crazy 2020 has been and I’m so thankful I had this prayer journal to help me to continue to pray even when as chaos raged around us. All that to say, I’ve already pre-ordered my 2021 Rhythms (yearly) Prayer Journal, because I know things are harder without it.

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Now it’s your turn... 

Please leave me a comment and let me know what are your favorite tools, 

which help you grow in Christ?

August 2020 Homeschool Favorites

In celebration of our new homeschool year, I decided to share some homeschool favorites with you. Honestly, I haven’t done this in a while, so I have tons of favorites to share with you all. That being said, I’ll share some now and wait to share more in the coming months. The favorites I will share today are ones I use everyday in our homeschool and I’ve found these to be so helpful this year.

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Booster Bricks Club

All of my girls, love playing with Legos. As a result, this past Christmas we joined the Booster Bricks Club. There is a new theme each month and we work together as a family to complete the corresponding challenges. You read through the theme-based storybook, which tells you when to complete the specific challenges. There’s even a Facebook page you can join, which gives you a chance to upload pictures of your completed challenges. It may not be a curriculum. However, during the pandemic it has been a fun thing for all of us to work on while we’re cooped up inside. I can see us being apart of this club for many more year to come!!

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Homeschool Supplies Caddy 

Over the years, I’ve tried lots of things to store my girls school supplies. I’ve tried giving them their own individual pencil boxes, pretty lunch boxes, and individual bags with different supplies, like markers or crayons. Unfortunately, nothing has worked very well, because by the end of the school year my big girls dumped all the crayons and everything they didn’t want into Matilda’s bag. Oh my. 

That being said, I’ve been on the hunt for a better solution for our family. I was so excited when I found this wire caddy at Ikea in Hong Kong. I liked it some much, I even shipped it home. As a result, I’ve been collecting empty jars and containers, which I could use to hold all of the school supplies on a daily basis. This basket lives on my bookshelf and I pull it down whenever we work on school. We use what we need, clean up, and put it away when we’re done. No fighting over markers or who doesn’t want a certain color in their pencil bag. It’s been such a nice addition to our homeschool room this year.

Currently, I have scissors, rulers, sharpened pencils, crayons, colored pencils, glue, and markers in my supplies caddy.

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Musical Multiplication from The Good and the Beautiful 

My family loves music based curriculum! Which is why I’ve wanted to buy “Musical Multiplication” from The Good and the Beautiful for a while. For that reason, I just had to share this curriculum, because it is so much fun for all of my girls. We got it at the end of our previous school year and have been using it ever since. We started with Olivia and let her work through the first book with corresponding songs. It’s become such a favorite, all my girls want to take turns working through the book and singing the multiplication songs. I highly recommend this curriculum for children struggling to nail down their multiplication factors.

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Plum Paper Planner

Two years ago, when we lived in Hong Kong, my friend Shelli gave a Homeschool Planner. Honestly, it was the first time I had ever used a homeschool planner. Normally, I just used a weekly planner, which I designed and printed out at home. Each week, I would fill in what we needed to get done for school. Unfortunately, we have the worst luck with printers, so the pre-printed homeschool planner was the perfect solution when I didn’t have a printer.

All that being said, last year I couldn’t find the same type of planner, my friend had given me. As a result, I scoured the internet for the perfect planner which would work for homeschooling. After watching tons of YouTube videos and reading recommendations, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy my very first Plum Paper Planner. I loved it, because I can customize each section as needed and add homeschool sections to the back. It’s been one of my favorite homeschooling tools, so this year I bought another one. The one I got this year is a little bigger, so I have more room to write in my planner each week.

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Sonlight Reader Boxes 

 Once our girls learn to read, we transition from Sing, Spell, Read, and Write to The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts program. In addition, we pair individual The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts curriculum with Sonlight Grade Level Readers. For example, this year Olivia is using The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 3 and Sonlight Grade 4 Readers. Click the link to read more about our 2020-21 Homeschool Curriculum Choices.

As a result, our girls have had stacks of Sonlight Reader books, which they work through each year. In an effort to free up some extra space off of my books shelves, I created Sonlight Reader Boxes for each of my girls. Additionally, I typed up a checklist, so as they read through their books they put a sticker on the chart. Their boxes stay at their spot on our homeschool table, so they can see the progress they’re making each day as they take time to read books out loud. This has been a huge hit with the girls and they’re excited about this fun change to our homeschool room.

What are some of your homeschool favorites this month!?

Cultivating a Love for Reading

I’ve always loved books!! This isn’t too surprising, because I come from a long line of readers. I’m so grateful for the legacy my Grandma began which has been passed down to my Mom, me, and now my girls. It’s just wonderful.

Do you want to know the truth?

Even though I love books, I haven’t always been a good reader. For a long time, I read slowly, didn’t like reading out loud, and struggled with proper pronunciation of new words. For lack of practice, I read very slowly, because I really had to pay attention in order to comprehend what was taking place in the story. Seriously, if I got called on in Sunday school to the Bible passage, I would become overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. I’m not good at pronouncing all those names in the Bible, so I would pray and ask God to help me not mess up too badly. For that reason, when it was my turn to teach, I would listen to the audio Bible on my phone and learn how to pronounce the names before I needed to teach.

The struggle was real!

Additionally, I’ve felt like I never found my niche or specific genre of books which I most loved. Thankfully, in college, my friend Michelle encouraged me to read the Harry Potter series. I took one look at how long those books were, felt intimidated, and said, “No, because I wasn’t a kid anymore, which meant I couldn’t read children’s fiction anymore.” Honestly, I don’t know why I felt this way. Michelle gently explained, just because I was an adult didn’t mean I only had to read adult books. Finding out, I could still read children’s books was a huge paradigm shift for me and suddenly opened up a world of books I never had the opportunity to read when I was a kid.

My friend, continued to present her case to me about the Harry Potter books and how I would learn about the wizarding world right along with Harry Potter himself. She explained, they were a great read and I should just try the first book and if I didn’t like them I could stop. Michelle was so adamant, she took me down to Powell’s Bookstore and bought me my very own copy of “Harry Potter and the Socerers Stone”.

Leaving me without any excuses, I finally caved.

Just as Michelle said, I began to fall in love with the book and its characters!! In no time, I finished the first book and moved on to the next. I was hooked and nothing could stop me now. I was so proud of myself when I finally finished the entire series. To this day, they’re some of my favorite books of all time. Thanks friend for igniting my love of reading, which has never wavered.

After Harry Potter, I continued to read through lots of children’s and young adult fiction, which I had never read before and you can check out the list of some of my favorites below. I can’t imagine missing out on all of these incredible books!!

Fast forward to 2020...now I’m a homeschooling Mom and my job is reading out loud to my girls. Truly, only God could help me face my fears and work on being a better reader. I’ve been far from perfect, but I’m thankful for my girls love and grace as I stumble through unfamiliar words. I’m still a work in progress, so a few years ago one of my goals for the year was to cultivating a love for reading. I tried my best to read 3 good books each month. I also compete in a yearly Goodreads Reading Challenge with my hubby. Last year, I read 135 books, which included all the kids book I read to the girls. I was so proud of myself for reaching my goal and I’m praying we can pass on a love of reading to my own girls.

Normally, I read through a fiction and non-fiction at the same time, because I still feel like I’m still trying to make up for lost time as I continue reading through all kinds of books I never had the chance to read when I was a kid.

How have you been cultivating a love for reading?

Do you enjoy reading? Or do you struggle like me?

For anyone who’s struggling to sit down with an actual book, I encourage you to try listening audio books. Honestly, it took me forever to get used to audiobooks. I starting listening to podcasts, which helped me grow into larger audiobooks. As a busy Mom, this has opened up a world of amazing books, which I wouldn’t have the chance to sit down and read right now. It’s been such a blessing and gives me something to listen to while I clean, make dinner, etc.

Finally, it’s always easier for me to be excited about a book when it’s been recommended by my family or friends. That being said, if you’re trying to get back into reading, I want to give a list of incredible book recommendations as a place to start reigniting your love for reading.

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10 MUST READ  BOOKS  

1. “The Penderwick Series” by, Jeanne Birdsall

2. “The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street” by, Karina Yan Glaser 

3. “The Hunger Games Trilogy” by, Suzanne Collins 

4. “Little Women” by, Louisa May Alcott

5. “The Wild Robot” by, Peter Brown

6. “The Divergent Series” by, Veronica Roth

7. “All of a Kind Family” by, Sydney Taylor

8. “The Giver” by, Lois Lowry

9. “The Harry Potter series” by, J.K. Rowling

10. “Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a Lifetime” by, Janet & Geoff Benge