Discussing Death with Children

I'm not 100% sure how I ended up with the responsibility of discussing death with our Sunday School students, but today that was my charge.  As this is the first Sunday following All Saints Day, the topic was discussing family and friends that had passed.  Fortunately, our new curriculum, the Whole People of God, had a terrific plan to cover the issue. 

Since many of our children are very young, I was very nervous about how they were going to react to the subject.  Unfortunately, our poor little kids have lost far too much in their lives and each of them had lost someone close to them.  One family had even lost a sister.  This sad truth didn't bring a depressing bend to the conversation, but instead uplifted us all. These little ones had a better understand / acceptance of death than most of us adults. Part of the object lesson that the curricula suggested included the use of a rock and a feather.  The rock represented sadness.  The feather represents a light heart knowing that your loved one was with God.  The kids understood the sadness, tears, and heaviness; but I was concerned that they would not understand the happiness that can also be associated with death.  I cautiously asked why we might feel happy for someone that died.  I waited for some Smart Alec to say that they were happy because they didn't like the person anyway, but none said that.  The kids understood right away.  They knew that we could be happy because our loved one was now with God.

Even more special is that they knew how to keep a loved one alive.  They understood that we could share our loved ones with others through stories, that we can remember them through activities that we once shared together, and that we can keep our loved one alive through memories. 

While I went into this class nervous about broaching such a difficult subject, I left class blessed to have seen God shine through little angels.  Clearly, they were more in touch with the flow of life than most adults.

"The LORD is my shepherd;

I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul;

He leads me in the paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

For You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."  23 Psalm: 1-4 (KJV)

Didgeirdoo

Some people say that homeschoolers can be a bit odd and in most cases I would argue that this is a stereotype, but today I will have to admit that we are a bit wierd.  My son, who is two weeks shy of 14, has been playing a faux didgeridoo.  He found that blowing in the wrapping paper core makes and interesting noise and that depending on the length and diameter of the core, he can get different sounds.  Most kids would be fascinated by this for about 10 minutes.  We are now pushing days!

Abundance of Apples

Ok, what do you do with a bushell and a half of apples when you bought them for Halloween and have most of them left over?

  An apple pie is obvious, and I did make one for the family.  However, that only accounted for 5 cups out of a lot, lot more.

So, I just kept going.  I didn't make whole pies, but just the insides.  I read up on freezing pies and people were very positive about multiple ways to do it.  I opted for space reasons to just  do the insides of the pies.  They are mixed according to the recipe and then frozen. 

When I am ready to make the pies, I will take them out, thaw them, put them in the pie shell, and cook normally.  Given all the extra apples we have, our family should be having pie about twice a month through spring.  Would you like to come for dessert?

Note:  If you are wondering why I bought so many, I must confess that I have a condition that requires me to over cook for company, over plan our trips, and over purchase for any activity that I am not 100% sure of the number of people attending.  And frankly I think this is a fairly common female affliction.

Time is Relative - Einstein's Theory of Relativity

Einstein theorized that time is not a constant like we think of it.  There are ways to "adjust" the speed of time.  Most people believe that this theory is important to physicists, astronauts, etc., but that it doesn't really apply to themselves.  When are we going to loop around the sun or surpass the speed of light?  But I think this theory has a lot more relevance than we give it credit for.  For average people, we don't have to worry about "actual" changes in time, but perceived changes in time.  For example,  why when we are in times of extreme stress does time slow down and seconds seem eternal?  Why when we are doing something we enjoy does time speed by? Why is realizing that our perception of time is important?  Because we have one life.  Do we want our life to speed by or would you like to savor it?

How does time speed away? I find that we schedule it away.  Today for example, I am working on Advent and the Christmas Pageant.  How can I enjoy November if I'm already thinking of December?  I have harnessed this over scheduled beast a bit in my life, but somehow he still gets away from me once in a while.  But harnessing him, was a challenge, and it continues to be a challenge to keep him under control.  I find minimizing my schedule to be helpful.  Also, truly being in the moment to be the other secret.  If I am cooking, then I should be fully cooking and not thinking of the ten other things on my mind.  This is certainly a challenge especially for a mother, homeschooler, and community activist, but it is possible.

Today, challenge yourself to slow down.  I don't mean to take smaller steps, but let time slow. 

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."  NIV Matthew 6:34

Don't Forget to Vote

Did you hear me!  Stop watching!!!

Go Vote!

Giving Thanks Challenge

How funny it is when things happen near each other.  I believe synchronicity would be the term.  Well, just after I posted earlier today, DD introduced me to the Giving Thanks Challenge. I think giving thanks is another great way to lift your spirits; so I have decided to join this challenge and I hope you will consider joining too.  My list will be located in my right sidebar.  Each day, you will see a little more of my thankfulness.  I look forward to seeing all that you are grateful for.  We are all well blessed.  Sometimes, we just need to remember to look around to find the blessings.  My first blessing is my family.

Doing Good = Feeling Good

Do you have those friends that seem like depression is their friend?  They just don't seem happy unless they are complaining?  I swear Facebook has made this even worse.  Some people have turned complaining into an art form.  I think that they are bolstered by the people that post supportive comments, but the positive comments don't actually seem to encourage the people to change:  it just encourages them to complain even more. 

My husband is fascinated by one of our friends who begs for Friday every Monday.  Not once in a while, but every single week.  We've decided that if life is really that bad then maybe it is time to move on and change your life so that Monday is a good day.  Hating 1/7th of your life is not the way to live.

Then there is a certain family member that tells us how awful life is: how tired, uncomfortable, and out of shape he is.  At least once a day, among the many, many posts we are reminded how bad his life is.  We started by trying to be supportive, but clearly he doesn't want or just can't accept help.

So, I'm not sure if my post the other day was in response to this negativity, but my post was "Doing good = Feeling Good". This is a sentiment that I not only espouse but live.  This weekend for example, DD and I worked a blood drive on Friday.  Saturday, we visited our former foster child. Sunday, we wrapped Operation Christmas Child boxes in the morning and then returned to church to hand out Halloween Fair Trade Candy.  All and all it was an amazing weekend.

I think that doing good and helping others is better than any anti-depressant out there.  The power of one making a difference is almost intoxicating.  And I'm always reminded that one + one = even more good work getting done. The only thing better than doing good work yourself is doing good work with others.

I hope that you will find a way to help others and then you can post about it so that we can all be uplifted to do more.