The Iowa Farmer's Wife: Bible

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Comparison is a Thief.

"Comparison is the thief of JOY." ~Theodore Roosevelt

And yet, I do it. Every day.

Even though I know it gets me nowhere. NO. WHERE. Well, it gets me somewhere. Just not where I want to be.
And I don't just do it with material things. Like comparing my house with a bigger one. I compare my mothering with other mothers. My acts of service with others' acts of service. My child with another child. I compare my entire day with a snapshot I see of another mom's day on Instagram. It's never-ending.
And it robs me of my Joy. My daily successes. My favorite bits of the day. The tiny moments of life meant just for me. It comes silently and rips them from my grip until all I see are my failures. My not so great bits of the day. And a cloud settles over me. It takes my joy and leaves me riddled with guilt and self-pity and "if I'd only."
But. I have found that comparison sneaks in ONLY when I am seeking the approval of man rather than God. Galatians 1:10 says, "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." How can I serve Christ if I'm constantly comparing my life with someone else's?
I can't.
If I continue to compare myself with others, I'll never measure up. Because there's no end to comparison. It goes on and on and on until it completely sucks the joy right out of life. Until there is nothing left, but envy and anxiety and dissatisfaction and resentment.
So I have a choice. I can choose to compare (which is basically like telling God, "hey! This life you gave me? Yeah, it's not good enough so....") and continue to feel empty with each comparison I make. Or I can choose to seek the approval of God and focus on what He wants for me.
I choose the latter and the happiness and contentment that comes with it. Is it gonna go perfectly? Nope. Probably not. But I'm sure gonna try.
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7 Day Nativity Activity For Kids

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We do several different Advent calendar activities, but this year I wanted to do start a tradition of telling the Nativity story in parts over 7 days using our Melissa & Doug Nativity set. We received it last year as a Christmas gift so this is really the first time we've gotten to play with it since it got packed away in our Christmas decor soon after we arrived home from Christmas last year.

You can use any Nativity set for this activity, but Melissa & Doug's set is by far my favorite of the few that we have. I love the durability of the wooden pieces and the adoration on each of the figures' faces. My absolute FAVORITE part is that the manger is double-sided and you can save baby Jesus for Christmas day.

I broke the story down and created the following 7-day plan:

Set out the figures the night before (see below for ideas on how to use the printable) and allow your child(ren) to explore the pieces when they wake each morning. We have a breakfast picnic and read the scripture during this time, but setting up the Nativity scene on your kitchen or dining table works as well.

Day 1: The Annunciation
The Archangel Gabriel visits Mary
Luke 1:26-28

Nativity Figures Needed: Mary & the Angel
Discussion: What did the angel say to Mary when she was scared? What name did the angel say to give the baby?
Song to be Sung or Listened to: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Day 2: The Dream
The Archangel Gabriel appears to Joseph in a dream
Matthew 1:18-25

Nativity Figures Needed: Joseph & the Angel
Discussion: Who is Joseph? Talk about Jesus' earthly father and heavenly Father.
Song to be Sung or Listened to: Joseph's Lullaby - Mercy Me

Day 3: The Visitation
Mary visits Elizabeth
Luke 1:29-56

Nativity Figures Needed: Mary & an additional woman/girl figurine
Discussion: What happened when Mary greeted Elizabeth? Talk about a baby's movements inside the womb.

Song to be Sung or Listened to: Believe - Josh Groban

Day 4: Census
Mary & Joseph travel to Bethlehem for Jesus' birth
Luke 2:1-7

Nativity Figures Needed: Joseph, Mary, Jesus & stable animals
Discussion: Talk about a census. Where did Mary & Joseph have to go to pay taxes? Where did Mary lay baby Jesus after He was born?
Song to be Sung or Listened to: Away in a Manger

Notice that baby Jesus is not in the manger

Day 5: Gloria in Excelsis Deo
Angels visit the Shepherds
Luke 2:18-24

Nativity Figures Needed: The Angel & Shepherds
Discussion: Why did the angels appear to the shepherds? Discuss how Jesus is the Lamb of God.
Song to be Sung or Listened to: Angels We Have Heard on High

Day 6: Shepherds
Shepherds visit the Christ child
Luke 2:15-20

Nativity Figures Needed: Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Shepherds & stable animals
Discussion: How did the shepherds find baby Jesus? Who did the shepherds tell about Jesus?
Song to be Sung or Listened to: O Come All Ye Faithful

Baby Jesus in the manger

Day 7: Magi
3 Kings visit the Christ child
Matthew 2:1-12

Nativity Figures Needed: Joseph, Mary, Jesus, 3 Kings & stable animals

Discussion: What made the star they saw different than the others? What type of gift would you give Jesus for His birthday? Discuss ways you could give Jesus a birthday gift by volunteering, serving or donating.

Song to be Sung or Listened to: We Three Kings

I also created a printable to go along with each day. Print, laminate and cut out cards to place by the Nativity figures each day. You could also hide the cards in your tree for the kids to find. Or keep the printable as a whole document to reference each day.

FTC Disclosure: All personal opinions and/or views regarding Melissa & Doug are my own and may differ from other users of Melissa & Doug products. I'll be compensated by Melissa & Doug for this post.

There are SO many different ways (from simple to elaborate) to celebrate the Christmas story with your children. My plan is to focus on the Nativity as much as possible when they are young so that as they grow, they realize that Christmas isn't about gifts, or toys, or a Santa, or Christmas trees. It's about a King who was born of a virgin mother, suffered, died and rose again to save us.

The linky below is filled with beautiful ideas for activities, books, crafts that celebrate the Nativity. Please take a moment to visit a few other links and don't forget to link up YOUR Nativity activities!

Here is a list of the 28 fabulous bloggers participating in the Focus on the Nativity Blog Hop today!

The Imagination Tree

Living Montessori Now

Kindergarten & Preschool for Parents & Teachers

My Nearest And Dearest

Life At The Zoo

Creative Connection for Kids

This Reading Mama

Adventures in Mommydom

Sun Hats and Wellieboots

The Fairy and The Frog

Housing a Forest

The Iowa Farmers Wife

{Readathon 2012} Love Never Fails

The theme for week 3 of the MeMeTales Readathon is Character Development. I thought long and hard about what we might do to talk about different elements of our character, manners and positive behavior, and was having a hard time coming up with something other than reading more books about positive behavior (which we did in fact do).

Sweet P and I read Good Habits to Have and talked about different ways we could be kind to others. She's still learning about honesty so we read Hermie and Wormie in the Flood of Lies (Max Lucado's Hermie & Friends) to discuss the importance of telling the truth. We also read A Life God Rewards for Little Ones (Breakthrough Series), The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners , Please Is a Good Word to Say by Barbara Joosse and Pat Them Gently (a $1 book from Target).

After the kids went to bed that night I got out my materials for my personal bible study. I'm in the midst of doing a personal bible study at our church where we learn 6 different bible study methods. This week's method is the Word Study method by Rick Warren and pretty in-depth. You begin the method by choosing a word to study in the bible. There were several examples and a list of word choices, but I decided I'd work within the theme of the week and chose the word Character.

There are several parts of the study including looking up the definition, translation, origin and meaning of the word you choose: Character. I discovered that character comes from the Greek word Ethos (if you're familiar with Aristotle's Rhetoric), which refers to moral competence, or showing moral character. The Latin form is ethicus, which we now know as ethics. (Are you lost, yet?)

After finding the meaning, you go hunting for where the word appears in the bible. I was a bit surprised to see that it only occurs 3-4 times (depending on your translation).

The most well-known being Romans 5:4

Not only so, but we[c] also glory in our sufferings,because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Through suffering we learn to persevere (keep trying), which builds character (moral competence), which leads to hope. And hope does not disappoint (different translation of Romans 5:5).

I found other scripture passages that referred to character such as 1 Corinthians 15:33and Hebrews 13:5. But the verse that took me in another direction (where I'm going with this) was 2 Peter 1:5-7, which lists the characteristics of someone with good character.

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.

Okay, here we see faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance (there it is again), godliness, mutual affection (or brotherly kindness) and love. Sound familiar? I thought so, too. Several of these characteristics are also mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23 (also known as the Fruit of the Spirit passage):

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

We see love again, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, goodness and a few other characteristics to embody. From here I saw that LOVE appeared over and over (which should come as no surprise). And I also saw hope and faith. Can you see where I'm going? I said the verse "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." in my head and thought, "of course." Then I turned to 1 Corinthians 13.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.

And as I read the passage, one I've read more times than I can count, I suddenly realized that in teaching my children to love God and love others as He loves us, they inherently learn patience, kindness, humility, integrity, honesty, self-control, gentleness and perseverance.

All of these character qualities are found in love and the perfect example of love comes from God's love for us. If we can strive to love and teach our children to love as God loves us, then all the other characteristics follow.

The word LOVE appears in the bible over 7,000 times (NIV).

Turns out that's what He's been teaching us all along.

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Family Bible Time: The Armor of God

A few weeks ago we began Family Bible Time on Sunday nights. We'd tried this previously, but didn't really have much structure. We don't really have much structure now, but the Farmer and I alternate on who comes up with the scripture and activity for the night. Our activities are simple and the verses are pretty short because Sweet P is at an age where she loses interest quickly if there aren't pictures to look at!

Making the activity as applicable as possible helps her better understand what we read and actively participate in the Bible time. Here is what we did last weekend:

The Reading:

The Armor of God: Ephesians 6:10-17

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

The Activity:

While Sweet P and the Farmer went to the playground I gathered everything we'd need for the activity and made a shield. Here is what we used as our props:

Belt of Truth: a super cool belt I saved that resides in Sweet P's dress up box

Breastplate of Righteousness: her vest put on backward

Boots of Readiness: cowboy boots

Shield of Faith: a shield I made out of cardboard, paper, paint and some stickers

Helmet of Salvation: her bicycle helmet

Sword of the Spirit/Word of God: a Spanish Bible (because she loves it!)

The Farmer read the passage, pausing after each section while I helped Sweet P put on each item. We talked about each item and she thought it was pretty neat. It didn't stay on long though, she was ready to take it off after she finished looking at her Spanish Bible (this is the Farmer's, but Sweet P is really attached to it for some reason!).

Tot Preschool: Letter Jj

Sweet P is 30.5 mos old

The week of Letter J was our first week without any visitors (isn't that crazy?!). We have a super awesome family and they all came to see us during the month of October (and Auntie K came during Letter K...I'm a bit behind). We had a great time with Letter J and will do more of it during the month of December for the birth of Jesus.

Verse: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Bible Figures: Jonah and Joseph (Jacob's son)

Activities:

Dotting Upper and Lowercase Letters: I made these (obviously!) for her to dot individual letters and practice listening and following directions.

J maze from Shannon's Tot School: These are for fun, but she did a good job dotting just the J's! She doesn't go in order of the maze, yet.

Letter J collage: Pink letter J with magazine cut outs and stickers of items starting with letter J. We had lots of Jesus stickers for her to put on this that she was pretty excited about!

Turkey: The Farmer brought home a turkey from work for her to color and she loved it! She wanted to color it for several days in a row.

J is for Jam from A Heart for a Home: She did this with dot markers this week and did great at following directions (numbered coloring).

COAH's J is for Jesus coloring page: She traced the letters on the top and then colored the manger scene. We practiced more with following directions by me telling her "Color Mary's dress blue", etc.

DLTK's J is for Jug: She wanted to use regular markers instead of dot markers for this so she colored in the dots with lines. Sweet P LOVES to color!

Joseph's Coat: See link for details.

Pouring Jingle bells: She LOVES pouring and loves jingle bells so this was the perfect activity for letter J.

Shaving cream: We played with and traced letter J in shaving cream! She loves this sensory activity!

Pouring and using a dropper: One night while I was making dinner, Sweet P poured water and used a dropper to transfer water back and forth between the two cups.

Thankful Turkey: See link for details.

Jonah and the Whale: I made Jonah and the whale out of foam and we acted out the story several times that week. I drew a surprised face on one side of Jonah and a happy face for when the whale spit him out!

Upstairs Shelves:

Circo Alphabet puzzle
Melissa & Doug Dress-up Bear: Great for teaching emotions!

Fall Sensory Bucket

Other Activities:

Snow Play!: See post for details

Playing on the playmat with Baby Brother!

Joseph's Colored Coat Paper Bag Craft

Last week when we did letter J our bible figures were Jonah and Joseph. We had a foam craft for Jonah so I wracked my brain for something to do for Joseph. I thought about cutting a flat coat out of construction paper, but wanted it to be bigger than a regular sheet of paper. Then one afternoon while Sweet P and Baby Brother napped at the same time I got the idea to use a paper bag! I've gotta say it turned out awesome!

The Craft: Joseph's Colored Coat

What you need:
A large paper bag
Construction paper
Tissue paper
Markers
Crayons
Stickers
Glue stick
ModPodge
Any other decorative supplies

I used a Trader Joe's bag, cut it into the shape of a "coat" (looks more like a vest) and turned it inside out so the wording on the bag wouldn't show. I had to tape portions back together, but it worked.

Then, let your kiddo go to town on the coat. We used a glue stick and modpodge for the adhesive. At the end she decided it needed some Easter stickers, but most of them fell off.

As she made it we talked to her about how Joseph's father gave him this coat because he loved him so much.

Don't forget to have your child model the coat!

The Bible as a Student and Teacher's Guide

I'm gonna be really honest with you all and tell you that I grew up Catholic and there wasn't a whole lot of emphasis put on the Bible. Don't get me wrong. I had a Bible (it was Precious Moments with my name engraved on the front and I still have it), I just didn't know what to do with it. Eventually I opened it and read a few pages, but if I'm being brutally honest, the first few books of the Old Testament (past the Creation story and the flood) aren't exactly easy for a 7 year old to read and understand without a child's Bible.

All that to say that now that I have a child of my own, I very much want her to know the Bible and all its glory. At 31, I know VERY little of what is contained in those pages. I can tell you the gist of most stories and probably quote 1 or 2 verses (not kidding), but like I said, verses weren't something we focused on parochial school. (NOTE: I have NOTHING against parochial school, I simply wish the Bible had been a more integral part of my schooling).

And ALL that to say that we have 2 great toddler devotional books and a children's Bible on the way (she has one, but it's for older kids) to help us teach Sweet P about the amazing power of God. We read one of the devotional books on a regular basis (both are ABC designed) and we've dabbled in the other, but we're saving it until Tot School starts for us next week. We decided to start helping her "learn" verses. I wasn't sure how this would go and honestly I wasn't really thinking she'd "memorize" or even learn the verse, but thought it'd be something to talk to her about. I was AMAZED at what she retained.

We spent about 3 weeks on the first one (simply because I didn't change it) and before long all I had to say, "Let's say our verse..." and out of the babe's mouth it'd come. We've learned one other since then and are now on our 3rd. I have to say, that even if she doesn't retain the information, the Farmer and I are having a great time learning these verses! And they are so applicable to our lives! Here are our first 3. The first one is from ABC Bible Verses, the second we chose one night when she was having sleep issues and the 3rd is from Big Thoughts for Little People (we have an old version that was the Farmer's as a kid!!!).

I'm so excited to introduce Sweet P (and us!) to a new verse each week. Since we don't officially start our Tot School until next week we picked a random verse (the 3rd one) this week. Here's what we've used so far:

"A soft answer turns away wrath." Proverbs 15:1 (this is such a great verse for both moms and kiddos!)

"When I am afraid, I will trust in you." Psalm 56:3

"Jesus said, "If you love me, obey me." John 14:15

What are your favorite verses: to use as a teaching tool or otherwise?

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