Kindness matters!

In a world where many people are grumpy, irritable, and impatient, it is nice to run into someone who shows a little bit of kindness.

I was recently reminded of the value of being kind to others.  As I closed my trunk after loading up my groceries, I turned to take my cart back to the cart holder.  At that moment a random stranger said he would take my cart for me as he was pushing his own the same direction.  This happened to me at a previous shopping trip as well.  A lady was walking by and told me she'd take my cart for me.  I had forgotten about the incident until the same thing happened again this week. 

It reminded me how nice it is to have someone do something unexpectedly for you.  It would not have hurt me to walk the extra steps to put my cart away.  But to have someone come along and do this task for me just made me smile.  It made me think about ways I can show kindness to others in my life.  Kindness does not have to cost anything.  There are many ways that you can bless someone's day. 

What kind things can you personally do this weekend for someone else? I posted this on Facebook this week and was so touched by the variety of answers left by friends.

Kindness matters!

Have a day of blessings!

Building Character: Obedience

It has been a long while since I shared about one of our family lessons on Building Character.  This Wednesday we were to the topic of obedience.  I thought I'd share with you what we did.  I got some ideas from the Kids of Integrity website. 

We started with a game of "Dad says" (like the game Simon Says) which brought a lot of laughs. Then we sat down and started talking about obedience.  What does the word obedience mean?  One thing that I noticed when I was getting ready for the lesson was that obedience isn't just doing what someone tells you to do.  For one thing, what kind of attitude are you having while you are doing it?  It is really having an obedient heart if you are groaning and rolling your eyes while doing the task? 

Also, obedience is doing a job completely.  Our example was taking out the trash.  If we tell Caleb to take out the trash and then later we go out and find he left it sitting by the dumpster instead of putting it inside the dumpster, he really hasn't been obedient to complete the whole task.  He knows what is required of this chore...remove the filled trash bag, take it to the dumpster outside, and put in a new trash bag.

There are many verses on obedience we can find in the Bible.  One we read was Philippians 2:8 where it tells us Christ was humbly obedient in his dying on the cross. We also talked about examples of obedient people in the Bible.  One was Jesus.  As a boy (Luke 2:40--52) he was obedient to his parents Luke 2:51 even though he wanted to stay at the temple.  Caleb brought up Daniel as an example that he obeyed God instead of the king. 

I've been thinking of other examples. Some were examples to us in their disobedience like Moses when he struck the rock instead of speaking to it as God told him (Numbers 20:1-17).  Another is Jonah who was swallowed by a big fish when he disobeyed God (Jonah 1-4).  

Can you think of others who chose to obey or disobey?      

Have a day of blessings!

Building Character: Creativity

Our recent family lesson was on the character quality of creativity.  I knew this would be another fun lesson for us, and I was right! 
We have a poster board where we are keeping a list of all the character qualities we study.  Caleb writes them with  marker, however he wants, on the poster.   He got down on the floor to start writing as I started spelling CREATIVITY.  He was writing it in a pattern with the letters going backwards and forwards.  I almost stopped him and then I thought "wait, what is the word he is writing?" and let him continue writing it in his own creative way! 

For the lesson we talked about our Creator God and His creativity in creating us and our world.  We talked about ways we could be creative at home and at work/school to do routine things in a new and fun way. 

For an activity I gave each of us 15 sticks.  We sat in different areas of the house, I set the timer, and we each had to create something.  My creation was totally different from the other two.  Daddy added stuff to his which was creative because we hadn't said you couldn't use anything else in your creation.  It was a fun quick activity to show how we all think differently and come up with different things. 

Daddy's little house with extra items for a roof.

Caleb's little building

I wrote a word with my sticks.  I was going to write LOVE but didn't have enough sticks!

Have a day of blessings!

Building Character: Courtesy

Our recent Wednesday night family lesson was on the topic of courtesy.  I found so many great ideas for this lesson and it turned out being very fun. 

We talked about courtesy and what that looks like in our lives.  We looked up some verses related to using courteous words and this verse in I John 3:18--"Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth."   Another point we talked about was thinking before speaking to make sure what we say is appropriate and courteous.

For the activity we did an activity I found on the Kids of Integrity site. 

I mixed up chocolate pudding and put it into two bags. 

Then I cut a tiny hole in the bottom corner of each bag.  I gave my husband and son both a bag and a plate and told them to decorate the plate with the pudding. 

One of their creations

Once the pudding was out of the bag, I told them now they needed to put it back into their bag.  My husband turned his bag inside out and using it as a glove tried to pick up the pudding so it would be in the bag.  Then my son tried this too.  It made quite the mess!   

I made the point that it was easy and fun to squirt the pudding out of the bag and make designs and then quite difficult to get all the pudding back into the bag.  It is the same with our words. If we say things without thinking, those words are out and we can't take them back again or "unsay" them.  Once they are out they are out.  Sometimes people will remember the words we say forever, long after they are spoken and maybe even forgotten by the speaker.  We need to make sure our words are uplifting and courteous to others.   

This was a fun lesson and serves as a great reminder to all of us to be courteous in our words and actions. 

Have a day of blessings!

Building Character! Carefulness

"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."  Ephesians 5:15, 16

The character quality was carefulness for a recent Wednesday night family lesson. As I was preparing this lesson, I was struck by all the different areas of life where we need to be careful.  The children's song "Oh be careful little eyes what you see...." came to mind.  We must be careful about the things we see, the words we listen to or read, the places we go.  We must also be careful in how we spend our time and our money.  There are times we need to be careful so that we will be physically safe.  Being careful means making wise choices and thinking about the consequences before making choices. 

Are you living carefully? 

Have a day of blessings!

Building Character! Attentiveness

(You can read about the purpose of these lessons in this previous post if you'd like.)

The character quality of one of our recent lessons was attentiveness.

Attentiveness is defined on our list (from Association of Christian Schools International) as "Listening with the ears, eyes, and heart." 

The example of Jesus was the passage from Mark 10:46--52.  This is the story of the blind man Bartimaeus sitting by the road begging.  As Jesus is going by the blind man starts hollering for Jesus to have mercy on him.  Everyone tells the man to be quiet.  The beginning of verse 49 is what jumped out to me in this lesson.  It's just two little words... "Jesus stopped." 

I can just picture this scene in my mind....the big crowd leaving the city with Jesus and the disciples and then this blind man starts hollering for Jesus.  Think of all the things that Jesus could have done.  He could have continued on His way, He could have called back to the man and healed him with His spoken word.  But He didn't do that.  Instead He stopped. 

Jesus cared enough about this man to stop what He was doing to see to this man's need. 

The point of our family doing these lessons is for us to learn the character qualities of Jesus that we can emulate.  We want to learn ways for us to be like Jesus.  So how does this story apply to us? 

In my life when someone needs me, do I stop?  Do I give them my attention, my FULL attention?  Am I attentive to the people around me and listen with my heart to their needs and concerns?  This was a great reminder for me to be more attentive to the people in my life. 

So many things can be seeking after our attention and if we aren't careful we can ignore the important ones who are calling to us.  Do you need to STOP when people around you are calling your name? 

Have a day of blessings!

Building Character!

Since Caleb has been in school instead of attending to service at our local church on Wednesday nights during the school year, we have a family lesson time at home.  I knew when he was in kindergarten that going would make a late night for him and many nights he was asleep by 7:45.  This plan has worked well for us.  The teacher in me likes planning the lessons.  I have found many of the ideas online and I love putting the lessons together.  The first year I did a different topic each month pretty much.  Last year was different with our move, but I found some good lessons to do week by week on a website.  We have done the Fruit of the Spirit, Creation, and Armor of God to name a few topics.   
In the summer I read a book by Jill Savage called My Heart's at Home (which reminds me I need to do my book review on this great resource).  In it she included a list of character qualities from the Bible, and the list is from the Association of Christian Schools International.  It gives a character trait, definition, verse, and example story of Jesus showing that character quality.

I thought this would be great for our Wednesday night lessons this year as we have started a new school year.  We have done two of these lessons so far.  I have found it such a great way to learn from each other and thought I might share some of these lessons here on my blog from time to time, maybe on Fridays! 

Have a day of blessings!