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Embracing the Call

Practicing the art of intentional living

How To Create A Purposeful Christmas

I love this season.  The beautiful decorations, sipping hot chocolate with the children, holiday parties, classic movies, church events, and gifts make for a festive time of the year!

Now that my husband and I have a young family of our own, we are responsible for creating traditions that will welcome this season with purpose and anticipation.

Creating a purposeful Christmas

Please note affiliate links are mentioned in this post, visit my full disclosure policy here.

Pioneering your own traditions can be daunting.  At the start, I was pretty overwhelmed with creating new ideas that reflected a Christmas that focused on Christ 

Choosing to focus on celebrating the birth of Jesus can be exciting and full of fun activities.

Today, I’m sharing how you can make Christmas more purposeful this year:

Incorporate Christ-centered Holiday Decor

Our family favorite is this kid-friendly nativity scene.  You can also include an Advent calendar or a wall art decal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A Christmas Bible Study

Choose a time to gather together as a family or have your children read aloud, the story of Jesus’ birth in Matthew 1:18-25; 2:1-23.  Discuss, and ask your children questions about what they have learned.

Give To Others

There are those who are less fortunate than we are.  Participate in feeding the hungry, at a local shelter or community kitchen.  Provide gifts to others through programs like Angel Tree, Compassion International, or give to those in your own community.

On Christmas Day, attend a church service

Begin your day, by preparing your heart and mind with the Word of God.

Host a Holiday Party

Express the gift of hospitality by inviting friends and family, serve them and honor Jesus.

Serve (and Think of) Others

Christmas isn’t a magical holiday for everyone, some people are dealing with not-so-good memories of the past or the loss of loved ones. Invite them over to enjoy Christmas day with your family or bake treats and deliver them.  Most of all, let us keep them in prayer during this season.

Read Christ-centered Children Stories

There are several books available that tell the story of Jesus’ birth.  For the last few years, we’ve been reading this one.

Make Crafts

Creating fun projects for your children can be another way for them to learn more about the real reason for Christmas.

Play Christ-centered Christmas Music

Check your local stations or find your favorite Christian music on apps like Pandora, Itunes or Amazon Music.

Create a Special Holiday Menu

Developing a special holiday menu for this time of the year can be exciting for everyone!  Enjoy, a feast in honor of the birth of King Jesus!

This is a great time to teach our children and share with others the true reason for this season!  I pray these ideas will help you create a more purposeful Christmas.

How do you make Christmas more meaningful? Name one family tradition you plan to include this year?


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Filed Under: Children, Faith, FAmily, Homemaking, Intentional Living, Jesus Tagged: Christ-centered Christmas, Encouragement, Family, Jesus

4 Activities To Help Build Your Children’s Prayer Life

Recently, I discussed essential reasons to build our children’s prayer life. I also believe that giving them ways to apply prayer makes their communication with God more enriching.

Prayer Life Activities Post

Today, I am sharing four activities that will build your children’s prayer life:

1. Memorizing The Lords Prayer. This foundational prayer is a great place to start. This is the model of prayer Jesus gave to us! When we pray The Lord’s prayer we can be confident in how we present our praise, concerns, and requests to the Father.

Here’s a printable of The Lord’s Prayer I created for my children to memorize, you can grab your copy here.

2. Encourage them to lead family prayer time. This teaches confidence in praying publicly and it also gives them the opportunity to focus on the needs of others.

3. Create a prayer list. This is such as encouraging activity! We started this a couple of years ago. The prayer list includes prayer request and date, when the prayer is answered and the date. It’s so delightful to watch our children witness their prayers being answered!

Click on this link to get a copy of our Prayer List template.

4. Encourage prayer in everyday life situations. During bad dreams, struggles, hurts, victories. losses, etc. inspire them to develop a habit of prayer throughout life’s circumstances.

Lastly, being an example is the best model we can give to them. When we demonstrate a consistent prayer life, they will learn from us.

As the old saying goes “more is caught than taught.”

What ways do you encourage your children to apply prayer in their lives?

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Filed Under: Children, Encouragement, Faith, FAmily, Home, Homemaking, Homeschool, Intentional Living, Motherhood Tagged: Christian Mom, Encouragement, Faith, God, Jesus, Life, prayer, purposeful living, raising godly children

10 Simple Easter Activities For Young Homeschoolers 

Easter is right around the corner.  I am sure you’ve noticed the bunnies, candy, and baskets that are vying for our attention during this time of the year.  These items are fun and yummy, but I have purposed to look beyond the bunny and teach my children the real reason for this season.

As a Christian and Mom, it’s my responsibility to teach my children about Jesus and the purpose of Easter.

And why not have fun doing it?

Homeschool is a great opportunity to incorporate lessons about Resurrection Sunday.

Here are 10 simple Easter activities for young homeschoolers:

  1. Coloring pages are a great art activity for young learners, these pages can provide a visual as they a learning about Jesus.
  2. The Jelly Bean Prayer is a yummy idea to help children learn a beautiful prayer that shares the story of Easter.
  3. The Stained Glass Easter Cross is an artful way to display the Cross in your window during Easter, or all year long.
  4. The Easter Story Wreath is a wonderful way to teach older children about the events that lead up to Resurrection Sunday.
  5. Resurrection Eggs takes the fun and tradition of an Easter egg hunt while adding a more meaningful approach to the activity.
  6. The Cross Fingerpaint Craft is a fun, colorful art project and Bible lesson for children young and old.
  7. The Easter Story Game is an innovative way to tell the story of Jesus.
  8. Story Books are a great way to teach the true meaning of Easter.
  9. Easter Bingo is a clever way to use a classic game to tell the story of Easter.  The website suggests using jelly beans as makers.
  10. Videos that are based on the story of Jesus are another way to illustrate and teach our children.

These ideas would also be great for your family or a Sunday school class activity.

Have a wonderful Easter!

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Filed Under: Children, Encouragement, Faith, FAmily, Homeschool, Intentional Living, Jesus Tagged: Bible study, Children's Church, Easter, EAster activities, Family, Homeschool, Jesus, Sunday school

Beautiful Surrender: A Lesson From Mary

As the children and I have been going through our Advent calendar, I have been thinking about the life of Mary.   There is one particular scripture that resonates with me, every time I read it.  The story begins with Mary being greeted by the angel Gabriel, she is introduced to us as “a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph” Luke 1:27.  Gabriel excitedly announces to Mary that she is the favored one, who will conceive a child that will be named Jesus, the Son of God! Luke 1:28-33.

I can imagine Mary being surprised, scared and a bit confused by the news.  She was to be married to her beloved Joseph and now she’s pregnant by God!  Who would believe her?  Will Joseph believe her?  What would others think of her?  I would even suspect, that she had been ridiculed by those who did not believe nor wanted to understand.

The most amazing part of this story, is her response in Luke 1:28:

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

No matter how she felt, or the current circumstances; she decided to yield to the Lord.  She gave her life, her rights, in exchange for His will.

How can we learn from Mary today?

Are we willing to obey God, even if it’s uncomfortable, and we risk being mocked by others?

Are we willing to surrender:

The number of children we will have?

In our marriages as a godly wife?

How we raise our children?

Our health?

Our role at home?

Our thought life?

Our dreams and aspirations?

Our words?

Our relationships?

Our lives to God?

___________________ (You fill in the blank).

We know the rest of Mary’s story, ( you can read about it here, here  and here) her journey was no cakewalk, but she continued to trust in the Father.  Through all of her trials, she became the mother of the Savior of the world!

We can take note from Mary, although this life can be unpredictable, challenging and God may be calling us to do that unpopular thing…let us exercise our own sweet surrender, by repeating the words of Mary:

Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word… Luke 1:38 (ESV)

Sweet friend, let’s not miss the beauty in this verse!  When we give our lives to God, we are not missing out, we are actually gaining an abundant life in Him!

Jesus assures us of this in Matthew 10:39 (ESV):

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

What will you surrender to God today?

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Filed Under: Children, Encouragement, Faith, FAmily, Intentional Living, Jesus, Motherhood Tagged: Christian Mom, Christian women, Faith, Jesus, Mary, Surrender, Trust in God

Embracing A Life Of Contentment

Please note there are affiliate links mentioned in this post, for more information, visit my full disclosure policy here.

When we first bought our home, we thought we would only be here for five years. My husband planned this loosely, but I was hoping that we would move on to bigger and better at year 5.  I am the one that looks at newer, bigger houses, save the links and subtly send them to my husband.

embracing a life of contentment

I also, look at every challenge as an opportunity to move out of this home to something “better.” I have become discontented in a place which at one time, was a blessing from God. One day, as I was talking about moving again, my husband challenged me to “fall in love with the home I am in now.”  I was reluctant to accept his challenge, but the more I thought about it.  Why not?

I began to think about the blessings of being in my current home:

  1. We have good neighbors, some we have cultivated a neighborly friendship in which we look out for each other and serve one another.
  2. My children enjoy playing with the kids in our neighborhood.
  3. We live in a good community, and have access to plenty of stores for our convenience.
  4. Our pediatrician and dentist is in walking distance.
  5. Our home is pretty spacious for our family of 6.
  6. We have the opportunity to create a living space that we desire.

How do we develop an attitude of discontentment?  

Based on my own situation, here are several examples you may be able to relate to:

  1.  Keeping up with the Joneses,  you’ve heard of this before right?  It means when we see others with bigger and better things we are influenced to do the same.  We don’t want to be left out, so we join them and buy the new and shinier toys  too!
  2. Paying too much attention to what the culture says, the business of commercials, advertisements and television shows intice us into believing we need what they are selling in order to have a better life.
  3. Believing that the more we have (i.e., the bigger home, the newest car, the latest style, etc.) will make us more established or liked by others.

The common factor here seems to be covetousness, and according to the bible this is a sin.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary describes convetousness as a strong desire after the possession of worldly things.

There are many scriptures that warn against covetousness, I found this one to be most relevant to our topic of discussion:

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction

-1 Timothy 6:9 (ESV)

Additionally in today’s church culture, especially in the United States, we glorify prosperity more than the actual Gospel of Jesus.  Instead of desiring to be a servant of God, sadly, we are more concerned about how does this serve me?

This quote by David Platt author of Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream, sums it up in a way that may make us feel uneasy:

Yet in the American dream, where self reigns as King (or Queen), we have a dangerous tendency to misunderstand, minimize, and even manipulate the gospel in order to accomodate our assumptions and our desires. As a result, we desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is American and how much is biblical.

Ouch, yeah I know, sometimes the truth hurts and we need to hear it.

While I was dreaming and taking snap shots of my “bigger and better home”  there are more pressing issues concerning people that are less fortunate than I am.  According to the United Nations, 21,000 people die of hunger and hunger-related deaths everyday, mostly children.

My heart is hurting.

I am not trying to lay the guilt trip on you, or tell you what to do with your hard earned money.

I am only asking that we take our eyes off of ourselves and consider what God would have us to do with our resources.

We were never promised nice cars, big houses, expensive clothing, but we are instructed to be satisfied with our needs being met (Matthew 6:25-33).  Let’s read 1 Timothy 6: 7-8 (the scriptures right before our previous reading in the book of Timothy):

for we brought nothing into the world, and[c] we cannot take anything out of the world.8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

When we become gratified with our needs being  met, we have the opportunity to selflessly serve and meet the needs of others.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[f] you did it to me.

-Matthew 25:35-40

Stay tuned for part 2…

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Filed Under: Encouragement, Faith, FAmily, Home, Intentional Living Tagged: contentment, God, intentional living, Jesus, money, Selfless living, The Gospel

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Hello, I'm Nisha, and my desire is to encourage and inspire you to live an intentional life in the areas of faith, family, health and home. Read More…

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