Category Archives: Little_Souls

Heartbeat by Sharon Creech -My Review-

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HeartbeatHeartbeat by Sharon Creech

My review -is this really a review? I am not sure-.

I cried
cried,
cried.
The kind of cry
that closes your
throat
and will not let you speak.

My little one
and I
curled together,
we both loved the book.

We are buying an apple,
and choosing a list
of many forbidden words.
We will take out our thesaurus
and we’ll write,
write,
write.

I closed the book
and looked at her
I don’t really want her to run.
But I know she will,
and I will see her running,
and I will cheer her,
and I will be there,
and I will love her
very, very, very much.

View all my reviews

Becky

The New England Primer -A Lesson for Children: A-Z-

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We are studying the period of time when the Puritans were establishing the New Colonies in America. And to show my little one how the children were taught, we will go through some of the things found in The New England Primer; and I thought it would be a good idea to share my favorite ones with you. So the next few Wednesdays, bring your children and let us learn together!

“The New England Primer was the first reading primer designed for the American Colonies. It became the most successful educational textbook published in 18th century America and it became the foundation of most schooling before the 1790s.

In the 17th century, the schoolbooks in use had been brought over from England. By 1690, Boston publishers were reprinting the English Protestant Tutor under the title of The New England Primer. The Primer included additional material that made it widely popular and colonial schools until it was supplanted by Noah Webster’s Blue Back Speller after 1790.” (source)

Source

This poem is from The English Primer, 1777 ed.

 

A In ADAM’S Fall
We sinned all. 
 
B Heaven to find;
The Bible Mind. 
 
C Christ crucify’d
For sinners dy’d. 
 
D The Deluge drown’d
The Earth around. 
 
E ELIJAH hid
By Ravens fed. 
 
F The judgment made
FELIX afraid.
 
G As runs the Glass,
Our Life doth pass. 
 
H My Book and Heart
Must never part. 
 
J JOB feels the Rod,–
Yet blesses GOD. 
 
K Proud Korah’s troop
Was swallowed up 
 
L LOT fled to Zoar,
Saw fiery Shower
On Sodom pour. 
 
M MOSES was he
Who Israel’s Host
Led thro’ the Sea


N NOAH did view
The old world & new. 
O Young OBADIAS,
DAVID, JOSIAS,
All were pious. 
P PETER deny’d
His Lord and cry’d. 
Q Queen ESTHER sues
And saves the Jews. 
R Young pious RUTH,
Left all for Truth. 
S Young SAM’L dear,
The Lord did fear.
 
T Young TIMOTHY
Learnt sin to fly. 
V VASHTI for Pride
Was set aside. 
W Whales in the Sea,
GOD’s Voice obey. 
X XERXES did die,
And so must I. 
Y While youth do chear
Death may be near. 
Z ZACCHEUS he
Did climb the Tree
Our Lord to see.

 

Becky

Blogging About Your Kids

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From what we live with our children day by day we learn so many things, so many lessons that could not be learned in another different way. However, I have seen that many women like to share too much on their blogs (or Facebook) about these lessons in a very “specific and detailed” way; and I am sure it is neither wise nor God-honoring to be sharing every one of our children’s faults and mistakes, and the way we react to each one of them, just to “bless others with our experience”.

Maybe your son is 10 yo; and he doesn’t even read your blog right now; maybe if you ask him, he will say that he doesn’t really care if you write about *that* specific situation between you and him. BUT, he will grow, and he will read, and the most probable thing is that he will not be happy with what he’ll see on your blog. Be careful.

This doesn’t mean that you are being a hypocrite; it means that you are being prudent and wise. We all agree (I hope!), that it would not be correct to sit on a coffee shop with your friends to talk about the latest “terrible things” your children have done, and how mad you got, and how you managed to control your temper. Why then, we don’t feel uncomfortable when we read these stories? Or when some of us decide to write them?

“When words are many, transgression is not lacking,
but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
The tongue of the righteous is choice silver;
the heart of the wicked is of little worth.”
Proverbs 10:18-20

You and I are not perfect, our families are not perfect; we all know that,  and even though it is OK to write about the lessons we learn in our daily life; and about the grace we have found in those difficult day-to-day circumstances, we must be very wise and prudent, because we don’t  want to share unnecessary details that others might find “encouraging”, but at the end will harm our children’s heart.

“Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets,
but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.”
Proverbs 11: 13

The easiest way to relate to this is to think… “What if my husband had a blog, and he decided that he would write about those words I said to him last night, and the way he lost his patience with me and how the Lord helped us through?” Yes, I am sure you would not enjoy that. Let us think on what we write about our children. Our children are more important than our readers; and we need to remember that must keep certain, many things under our roof, covered because we love them so much.

Happy blogging!

Becky

>The All Seeing God by Isaac Watts

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>For little souls to memorize….

The All Seeing God by Isaac Watts
Almighty God, thy piercing eye
Strikes through the shades on night;
And our most secret actions lie
All open to thy sight.
There’s not a sin that we comit,
Nor wicked word we say,
But in thy dreadful book ’tis writ,
Against the judgment day.
And must the crimes that I have done
Be read and published there;
Be all exposed before the sun,
While men and angel hear?
Lord, at thy foot ahamed I lie;
Upward I dare not to look;
Pardon my sins before I die,
And blot them from thy book.
Remember all the dying pains
That my Redeemer felt,
And let his blood wash out my stains,
And answer for my guilt.
Oh may I now for ever fear
To indulge a sinful thought;
Since the great God can see and hear,
And writes down every fault.

Have a most blessed Lord’s Day, dear Friends.

>Celebrating the Incarnation of our Lord III – for little souls-

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Today I am writing for the little souls in your home; this post is for them.

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This story my little one, is true, so pay attention to what I have to say.

Remember the garden your mom has told you about, the most glorious garden that has ever existed? Yes, the Garden of Eden, the beautiful garden where God used to walked with Adam and Eve. It all started in that beautiful place. The serpent came, with lies that Eve believed and they, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God by eating from the only tree God had forbidden them to eat. You know what was the big lie they believed? The serpent told them that they were going to be like God if they took a bite of that forbidden fruit which, of course, looked delicious and pleasant to the eyes. Maybe you say that if you were there you would have never done that; but that is not possible. We all like to believe that same lie; we all like to be our own god. We want to do things our own way, we don’t like to hear precepts and commands, and we don’t like to obey dad or mom. We love our sin; we don’t want God to rule our lives.

Do you know what happened next? Adam and Eve died. First they died spiritually, they were not longer happy in God’s presence; instead, they wanted to run away from Him; they became fugitives. They did not want to seek God. They were, instead, always looking for darker places to hide from Him. Years later they also died physically. And so it is today, sinners are running away from God they are dead, even when we see them walking and shopping. They are fugitives; they do not look for God, they are hiding from Him. All sinners from Adam to the last baby who was born this past second deserve the penalty of death; we all deserve to live far from God, in darkness, in our sin. We all are fugitives.

But God had a plan. He had a plan even before He created Adam and Eve. He had a plan to rescue men and women whose names He had already written even before they were created in a beautiful book which is in Heaven called the Book of Life. The plan was amazing, listen to this:  God, the Son, would become flesh to pay the penalty of those whose names were written in the Book of Life. Who could have imagined such a thing? Yes! He, God-the Son would have to come to this ugly world full of sinful people, in the form of a man; He was going to come, not as a king or an important person, but as a servant. He was going to come to the world He had created; and walked under the sun He had created and eat the fish He had created. He had to come and no one would recognize Him. Isn’t that incredible? Yes, it amazes me too, to think that He left all His glory in Heaven to come as a man so every one who saw Him did not recognize Him as God, as the Creator of all.

This is what Christmas is all about, my little one; it is about the coming of God to this world as a Baby in a manger, who was born with no sin and who never sinned. It is about God taking the form of a man and laying His perfect life on the cross to pay the penalty of death which we deserved and could not pay with our own lives. It is about Jesus’ coming to defeat death; It is about Jesus, the Light of The World who shines with such a splendor that darkness flees from Him. It is about Jesus, the Author of Life conquering death; defeating it when He rose from the death.

This story is about you and I, too. It is the story of our redemption. Now we can walk again with God, not fleeing from Him; we are no longer fugitives, trying to hide in the darkest place, not to be found by God. He came to rescue us. We didn’t do anything! We did not choose to be rescued; we did not write the plan; we were death in our sins; we wanted to be our own gods. But He had a plan, He made a promise and He fulfilled His promise.

He came to us, now we can come to Him.

Peace and Joy be to you, little one.

Related posts in this series:

Celebrating the Incarnation of our Lord -This is what Christmas is all about-
Celebrating the Incarnation of our Lord – Gifts we Bring, by Elizabeth DeBarros-
Celebrating the Incarnation of our Lord – A read aloud for little souls-

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>A Song Book for Children

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>Looking for a good book of poems for children, I asked Grace and Truth Books (on Facebook) which books they recommended; they suggested few and I bought three, one is a song book for children and the other two are poetry books. (I will tell you about the poetry ones later this week, they are beautiful!)

This is what I found, a treasure indeed that was first printed in 1713, Divine and Moral Songs for Children by Isaac Watts; compiled, arranged, and edited by Carris J Koscher, from the Old Path Series.

I read on the introduction, (which is very interesting), that this book  “is the pinnacle of Puritan literature for children”

This is not a simple book with songs, it is a book that teaches biblical truths. “It will help bind parents and their children into a working faith that will give a cohesive strength to the basic of any society:  the family.” this is a book, that as you can well imagine was wherever the Mom’s Bible was, because as the author of the introduction says, in those days “it was not the responsibility of the Sunday School, or the Grammar School, but of the parents” to teach their children the Christian Religion.

The author of this great introduction, goes on to compare what children read before 1776, with what children read today (1975) in order to stress the importance of this small book of Divine songs. You will certainly enjoy reading her thoughts on this, just look at this:

“The homes (in those days) were happy and harmonious, and children were considered as a joyous blessing from the Almighty and treated as such. It is true that children read lengthy sermons, memorized Scripture and knew by heart the basic tenets of Christianity and were present and quiet in church on Sunday, but the results of this type of child rearing made children responsible, productive and happy. The stark contrast to the child of today is shocking in the extreme.” 
“Divine and Moral Songs for the Use of Children by Isaac Watts is exactly the type of book children need. It takes great and eternal truths and places it on the level of a child’s understanding. It will give children a positive Christian faith, and in working out its implications in their lives, responsibility, and leadership, will be developed more readily. It will serve as a bulwark against modern heresies and lay a sound foundation for later development…
The purpose of Watt’s songs is to educate for maturity. It is maturity this world needs, godly maturity.Isaac Watts assumed at all times that it was the duty of an adult to equip a child with a mature faith capable of conquering the world. Education which falls short of that is irrelevant and non Christian”

So, we happily opened the book, and we decided that first song we will learn by heart is  Song II, Praise for Creation and Providence, my oldest children will play the piano and we will raise our voices to praise Him in Spirit and in Truth.

I already put this little green book by my Bible, it is a treasure that I want to give to my children.

Some of the titles of the songs are these:

Praise to God for Our Redemption

Praise God for mercies Spiritual and Temporal

Praise God for the Gospels

The Excellency of the Bible

Praise God for Learning to Read

Heaven and Hell

The Advantages of Early Religion

The Ten Commandments

Our Saviour’s Golden Rule

And so many more…

Aren’t these things what we long to listen our children sing about?

Today, Lord, I am so grateful for godly people who have worked hard to preserve Christian literature through the years.  I want to thank them by making use of the books they worked hard to publish again, I am sure they would be very happy to see that!

I am so excited about this, in our home we will start today , will you join us?

I will give away one of this books for your family to enjoy; just leave a comment and we will announce a winner this coming Saturday. (USA, Canada and Mexico only)

This post is also linked to Raising Homemakers

For some strange reason I cannot upload images from my computer, 
so I will try to come later and add my pictures.  Done 🙂

Remember that starting on December 1st, I will be hosting every Wednesday on December a celebration here…We will be Celebrating the Incarnation; you are invited to come and link to your post; share what this amazing doctrine means, how do you keep it the main thing during the season, share with us the goodness!