The Battle is ON!

I read somewhere that if we as parents, who love and care the most about our children, don't pray for them, then who will?

Well, maybe grandparents or really good friends on occassion, but ultimately it is our job as their parents.

Recently, the Lord has been teaching me what it means to be a prayer warrior on my family's behalf. As i have been pondering this and learning about this, i've noticed the spiritual warfare beginning. Satan likes it when we are complacent and mainstream, that's where he wants us, not making any waves. Only when we choose to go against that, does the battle begin. And it is so real!

To fill you in a little, ever since Owen was born, i have felt strongly that the Lord is going to use him for His glory in some way. Of course, i have no idea how that will look, but my friend Kim told me that we, as his parents, have an even greater responsiblity to train and guide him in his early years. This way when the Lord calls him, he will be ready to answer (as it should be with any of our children).

So recently, it was like a light bulb went off when the Lord showed me why Owen has been our most challenging child. It's not because he just likes irritating us or making things difficult, but because Satan wants him and is willing to do all he can to divert him, and us, from training and disciplining him the way God wants us to.

Owen wants so much to do good and be "good" but he will honestly look at me and say from his heart, "Mommy, I just don't know how to do it" or "why can't I just be good?" It almost breaks my heart to hear this, but I now realize that the turmoil in his heart is a raging battle between good and evil, even at his young age. He really can't do it himself. It is only going to happen when he surrenders his life to Christ and lately, he has been asking lots of questions about that. However, I know that I am to gently and lovingly and constantly redirect him to the Lord every single time he does something wrong. Even when its the 20th time that day, i am to faithfully train or discipline him again and again.

Those who know Owen, know he has a wonderful, funny, sweet side to him also, which thankfully is what most people see, but for some reason, he is the one we struggle with most. When he is happy, he is such a joy to be around, but when he gets upset, hold on tight because it's going to be a bumpy ride!

(The pictures above were taken and compiled by Amber Butler Photography. She tries to catch children in their own and of course, Owen showed his own to her. I will always love these pictures! She has lots of pictures on her website of our children at http://www.giggleboxphotography.com/ that are great!)

Back to my original story.

I have heard it said, that dreams involving snakes, can represent a struggle with satan. Every time i have a dream with a snake (which thankfully isn't often), it is chasing me and i can't get away. I wake up feeling as if the dream was so real that i have a strong hatred towards snakes. I can't even look at pictures of snakes and am constantly on the look out for them since we live in the country. (I will spare you and myself from a snake picture here!)

So, as i have been praying consistently for my family, another snake dream came recently. I share this not because i want you all to think i have really fallen off the deep end, but to show you how amazing God is and that He can speak to us even through a dream.

Here's my dream:

My children and i were all together somewhere, i don't know where, but it was a room. A snake aggressivly began chasing and striking at my children. I was running after it, not afraid of it, but so determined to protect my babies. However, it struck at Cody and got him on the leg, but he was ok. I reached down and grabbed it by the back of the head and began trying to squeeze it in my hand. When i realized i couldn't kill it that way, i pushed it down on the ground with my hand and then took my heel and crushed it to death.

For the first time, I beat the snake in my dream! I didn't wake up scared and exhausted from running from it, but i woke up feeling victorious!

That i could win the spiritual battle for my children's souls through prayer and sound, biblical parenting!

That they belong to Jesus Christ and are His only, bought with a price, His chosen people!

That Satan can't have my children's minds, thoughts, dreams, or actions anymore!

They belong to God!

I also was immediately reminded after waking up of how similar my dream was to the excerpt in Genesis where God cursed Satan after tempting Eve:

"From now on, you and the woman will be enemies, and your offspring and her offspring will be enemies. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel." Genesis 3:15

The footnote in my NLT bible says this:

"Satan is our enemy. He will do anything he can to get us to follow his evil, deadly path. The phrase 'you will strike his heel' refers to Satan's repeated attempts to defeat Christ during his life on earth. 'He will crush your head' foreshadows Satan's defeat when Christ rose from the dead. A strike on the heel is not deadly, but a crushing blow to the head is. Already God was revealing his plan to defeat Satan and offer salvation to the world through his Son, Jesus Christ."

I don't know for sure what it all means, but I do know that God will be victorious! It doesn't mean that there won't be struggles or trials or even temptations, but in the end, He will win!

So all you parents out there, PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!

It's is so important!

Your children's eternity depends on it!

It's not hard to do, just commit to doing it everyday. Right now for me, I pray specifically for this every night when i sit down in the rocking chair to nurse Kate before bed. It can be when you're driving, or taking a shower, or making dinner. It doesn't matter when, just faithfully commit to a time and do it!

Sowing Seeds of Peace

Seems like every time I read these emails, they are so convicting and worth sharing. Visit Above Rubies (links) for more!

Discipline for Peace

This doesn't sound very peaceful, does it? We often think that if we rock the boat we won't have peace! But the opposite is true. Discipline precedes peace! Read that again. Yes, discipline precedes peace! If your children are playing up, disobeying, being defiant and causing havoc in the home, you won't have any peace. To get peace, you must deal with the disobedience or bad behavior.

One of my favorite Scriptures for parenting is Proverbs 29:17, "Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul."

Do you want rest and peace in your home? Don't gloss over disobedience. Deal with the issues. Sow loving but firm discipline for disobedient behavior and you will reap a reward of rest. Many parents have no rest. Their children are a constant hassle to them because they have not been trained. They constantly yell at them but their behavior doesn't change.

It is a joy to watch parents who live a life of rest. I think of my daughter, Evangeline, who has nine children. Her husband, Howard and she have trained their children to respond with instant obedience from the time they were very little. They have never allowed disobedience or defiant behavior. They dealt with it immediately. They have reaped a wonderful reward of rest. Their children, aged from 15 years to 16 months are extraordinarily behaved. They give delight to their parents and everyone who is around them. They can take them anywhere and trust their behavior. Evangeline lives a life of a queen for her children give her no bother.

Hebrews 12:11 reiterates this, "Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."

I was quite taken aback when reading Romans 16:20 recently, "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." You would think that when it speaks of God defeating the devil that He would be referred to as the God or War or the Lord of hosts (which is the Lord of the armies of heaven). It will not be a peaceful task to conquer Satan. It will be war and blood and tears. But, no. He is called the God of peace. I am sure this is because there can never be true peace while evil reigns and therefore it is the God of peace who wages war to bring peace.

If you have to have a little war before you have peace, don't be afraid. Covering over things will not bring peace. It is like a festering sore that will not heal until it is totally cleansed.

Keep sowing seeds of peace.

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

The Clothesline...

A clothes line was a news forecast

To neighbors passing by.

There were no secrets you could keep

When clothes were hung to dry.

It also was a friendly link

For neighbors always knew

If company had stopped on by

To spend a night or two.

For then you’d see the ‘fancy sheets’

And towels upon the line;

You’d see the ‘company table cloths’

With intricate design.

The line announced a baby’s birth

To folks who lived inside

As brand new infant clothes were hung

So carefully with pride.

The ages of the children could

So readily be known

By watching how the sizes changed

You’d know how much they’d grown.

It also told when illness struck,

As extra sheets were hung;

Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,

Haphazardly were strung.

It said, ‘Gone on vacation now’

When lines hung limp and bare.

It told, ‘We’re back!’ when full lines sagged

With not an inch to spare.

New folks in town were scorned upon

If wash was dingy gray,

As neighbors carefully raised their brows,

And looked the other way.

But clotheslines now are of the past

For dryers make work less.

Now what goes on inside a home

Is anybody’s guess.

I really miss that way of life.

It was a friendly sign

When neighbors knew each other best

By what hung on the line!

Author unknown

I ran across this at www.homesteadoriginals.com They have lots of great tips and homemaking info along with a store monthly giveaway. This month's giveaway is a bar of their homemade soap. If you like free stuff, check it out!

Homemade Laundry Soap

If you are interested in saving your family some money but not willing or able to go as far as something like cloth diapers or make your own bread, (yet!), here is a great project for you (and your children) that will wow everyone when you say, "we make our own laundry soap!"

I ran across this recipe in a free quarterly magazine that Beeyoutiful (link on right) sends out. (FYI-More Than Alive and Bulk Herb Store also send out free magazines/catalog full of lots or great tips and info!) It was originally a conversation from a forum board at http://www.welltellme.com/ on how to make homemade laundry soap. I am so amazed at how well this works every time we make it. There are lots of differing opinions as to how much bar soap to put in the recipe and how much to put in the washing machine but this will get you started. Then you can play with it and figure out what works best for you! Post a comment if you find something that worked well for you or you have any other tips.

Homemade Laundry Soap:

2 bars soap (Ivory is cheapest but has a strong scent; a natural soap is best but costs more; some recipes say to use less soap??)

1 cup Borax (detergent aisle; some like to omit this item & just use 2 c. washing soda instead-this will make your soap more "green" (edible if you use gray water to water a garden /lawn with)

1 cup Washing Powder (Arm & Hammer makes a big yellow box found on the detergent aisle)

5 gallon bucket

Essential Oils-optional-whatever scent you like; lime, lemon, orange, etc.

Grate soap bars with a cheese grater, put in a small saucepan , & cover with water. Heat on low until dissolved. Fill 5 gallon bucket with hot water and add soap. Stir to combine. Add washing soda and borax, mix well. As it cools it will thicken. May be used immediately. Use 1-2 cups per load.

~~~~

I put the 5 gallon bucket in the bath tub, fill it with everything, and give my children yardsticks to stir until their hearts content. This way the spills are contained and the bath tub getts a little free cleaning : ) It is so cool how it starts to thicken and get globby. Then we use a 1 cup measuring cup and keep it by the machine so Cody, my loader, can just scoop up a cup and put it in.

I sometimes use vinegar as a fabric softener, so a couple of times we added vinegar to the bucket. I will warn you however that if you wait to add it until everything else is already in and the bucket is full, you will have a mess and waste quite a bit. The next time we did it, we added the vinegar to everything else but only filled it with half water. What happens is a great science experiment making lots of fizzing and bubbling. It's like a volcano explosion experiment on a much larger scale and your not wasting all the ingredients. Lots of fun!

Let me know how it goes or if you have a questions.

Soil Test

I was recently reading in a magazine called Homeschool Today when i ran across this statement by the publisher Steve Murphy. He wrote:

"(our prayer is) not that you will read this issue and want to become gardeners, but that after having dirtied your hands in the rich fertilizer of these pages, you'll be reminded that you already are a gardener and that your children are the soil in which you invest your life. Add to that soil daily the rich, life-giving Word of God. Develop a hatred for weeds and rocks. Work it diligently with careful planning and deliberate action. Finally, just as we do with our earthly gardens, watch with anticipation and thank God for his faithfulness when the fruitful harvest comes in."

Wow- another great garden analogy. The Bible refers to gardens and gardening many times in relation to our earthly lives. I encourage you to look some of them up!

This should be the overall picture we have in mind as we walk down the path of parenting and tend the soil of our children's lives. Not how we choose to school them or whether or not they go to college or even how much money we have, but that we richly fertilize a love of God in them. That they see it daily in our actions and words.

So, what does your soil look like? Is it full of weeds and rocks like material things, the love of money, and worldliness or is it full of the fruitfulness and abundance that can only be found in Lord. Do your children know that all that is important is a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, not toys, not movies, not school, not fame or fortune, nothing?

What do you plant in their soil? The fruits of the spirit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control? Or do you plant greed, selfishness, materialism, glutony, immaturity, disobedience, and rebellion?

We are the gardeners, they are our garden.

Do not let your garden wilt and die! Choose to reap a bountiful harvest!

We Love Cloth!

Diapers, that is!

There are so many reasons to use cloth diapers these days.

Here is my unofficial list of why i like cloth diapers:

*They are so much better for the environment-research says that disposables can take up to 500 years to decompose in a land fill (although this hasn't been time tested :) so i like knowing that i am not leaving hundreds of pounds of diapers buried under the ground for my great-grandchildren to deal with (i feel this way about trash too-i recycle as much as i can). If you don't want to mess with cloth diapering, check out http://www.gdiapers.com/ -these are so cool, they are flushable!! Gdiapers has a wealth of information on cloth vs. disposable vs. flushable. Be prepared to be amazed!

*I love all the cute patterns and styles available these days. Cloth diapering is so much easier than 30 years ago. I am currently using one size All-In-Ones which are literally just snapped or velcroed on like a disposable and used from birth through toddler.When it's dirty, i throw it in a dry diaper bag that hangs on a door knob and wash them all every 2 or 3 days. That's it! It really is so easy! There are several links to the diapers i am using right now in the column on the right. I love to help, so if you have questions, just ask!!!

*I like knowing that my baby is wrapped in super soft cotton instead of plastic. Many of the ingredients used in disposable diapers today are, at the least, not good for our babies growing bodies, some research even shows links to cancer. I really don't like my baby sitting in a urine filled diaper all night that may be leaching chemicals and bleach into her skin. Right now, i am using Seventh Generation diapers at night which are non-chlorine and not bleached, so they are a tan color. My baby is a heavy wetter so i have to change her cloth diapers during the night or i can use a Seventh Generation diaper and not have to change it. I choose to sleep for now!

*Cloth diapers really are cheaper! Here is a cost comparison of disposable vs. Mommy's Touch cloth diapers taken from their website:

"Disposable Diapers
Average 7 per day @ $0.35 each = $2.45 per day
$2.45 X 365 days = $894.25 per year!
Over three years that's a total of $2,682.65. That does not even count the cost of disposable wipes or pull-ups!

vs.
Mommy's Touch One Size Pocket Diapers
$16.95 Each + Insert $5.00 = Total cost of Diaper $21.95 (buying used or 2nds saves lots!!)
12 diapers, washing once per day: $263.40, or
24 diapers, washing two times per week: $526.80 total cost of diapering a baby.

Plus they can be saved for the next child!

That is an impressive savings of between $2,419 and $2,155! You can save even more if you use the diapers on more than one baby.

Hmmm.... Now what could you do with an extra couple of thousand dollars in your pocket? Did you need new living room furniture, or a deck maybe?"

*Personal Note: Cloth diapering can be addicting since there are so many different ways to put them together and styles available. There are hundred and hundreds of kinds, brands, and sizes available now. It's also overwhelming at first if you know nothing. You can get lost quickly in the world of AIO, inserts, covers, hemp, microfiber, wool, etc. Start with a couple of the main brands like Bum Genius, Fuzzi Bunz, or Mommy's Touch and research what you might like best. Then buy only one or two of your favorites to try out. Then after you narrow it down to the one you like best, buy several.

Happy Diapering!