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Greetings!

Deborah Wuehler and family

Thirteen days and counting. Is it possible to slow that down a bit? I wish it were. But the count goes on, and I must fit everything in. It could become a time of stress (and yes, today was no exception!), but it doesn't have to be if I would remain in a spirit of celebration in all I do and prepare. If my heart is stressed, I know that I need to have my "heart prepare Him room." Instead of celebrating the celebration, I need to slow down enough to focus on celebrating Christ.

How do we do that? We come to Him. Throughout the Scriptures, you will hear this plea repeated, "Come to me."

Before we sing "Oh, come all ye faithful" we need to come to The Faithful One and "adore Him, Christ the King." This adoration takes pause. In other words, we need to pause what we are doing throughout the day, and come to Him to offer our adoration. Even if you remain busy on the outside, at least your heart will be in the right place and your spirit will be slowed down enough to focus on the eternal. The red flag of stress should be the signal to bend the knee in worship.

Tomorrow, I will speak on celebrating Christ as I talk about a few Christmas hymns as well as some child-focused activity ideas for these last two weeks before Christmas. It's free! I would love for you to come say, "Hi" as we chat with each other there. Sign up here: www.SchoolhouseExpo.com. 

Make this week be a true heart celebration of the One who set us free from sin and death. Pause, and turn your focus from the Christmas tree to the tree of Calvary. Believe it or not, you will find more hope in the latter than the former. And in this stressful time, you will meet the Prince of Peace.

Pausing to slow down with you,

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given : and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).

~Deborah

TOS Senior Editor

SeniorEditor@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com  

Diana Waring

Relational Homeschooling

www.DianaWaring.com

Dear Friends,

What a great topic! I'd like to consider it in two parts: "slowing down" and "for Christmas."

Okay. Slowing down . . .

Imagine yourself driving on back country roads where the speed limit is 45 miles per hour.  Everything is going just fine. You glance at your watch and think, "Okay, I have just enough time to get to Whoville by noon." And then a sign suddenly appears. The speed limit is now 30 miles per hour.

Are you with me so far?

Well, you might be extremely tempted to ignore the sign and keep going at your brisk pace--to get there on time.

Suddenly, a police officer is behind you, with siren wailing and lights blazing. Don't you just hate that?

"I am so sorry, officer, I really meant to slow down. Honestly, I did, but, you see, I-had-to-get-to-my-destination-on-time-and-I-was-running-out-of-time-and-I-wanted-to-slow-down-but-I-couldn't-because-then-I-would-have-been-late-and-the-world-would-have-ended!"

When we put the pedal to the metal and leave it there, our good intentions of slowing down don't actually result in any perceptible change.

I know this personally, because I intended to slow down in August, after a trip to the E.R., but I didn't actually slow down until my second trip to the E.R. It taught me that slowing down means slowing down.

Okay.  For Christmas . . .

Why don't we expect to slow down for Thanksgiving or 4th of July or Easter or any other number of holidays? What is it about Christmas that speaks deeply to our hearts that  urges us to pause and reflect, to consider and quietly cherish?

These weeks before Christmas are known as Advent. Think about how the advent, or coming, of the promised Messiah two thousand years ago is quite different than many images of Christmas abounding right now.

If we slow down, if we lay down the unrealistic expectations we labor under, it can provide us and our children the time to imagine and talk about the first Advent: what it would have been like for the Jewish people during the Roman occupation of Palestine, as they longed for their Messiah to come and set up His throne again in Jerusalem; what it would have been to know their Scriptures promised a virgin would conceive and have a child, that His name would be called Wonderful, Counselor, Prince of Peace--all the while living under the yoke of foreigners who were oppressively controlling everything except the hearts and minds of the people?

Dear friends, as we consider the yearning of their hearts for the advent of the Messiah, it is a powerful moment to share with our children our own yearning for the second advent of this Messiah.

This quiet message cannot be heard by our hearts unless we slow down . . .

It is relational.

Diana

P.S. To better help you imagine with your children what it was like for the people who longed for their Messiah, you might enjoy my CD, The First Christmas. Receive it free when you purchase $25 or more during our 15% off sale, through this Saturday, December 15 at Diana Waring Presents.

Raising Real Men

www.RaisingRealMen.com  

Hal & Melanie Young

HAH! We're writing this in the van at 10 pm on the way back from the Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle performance, our fifth dress rehearsal or performance of some kind in four days. What in the world do we have to say to this subject?

Well, stress is often as much a result of heart attitude as it is circumstances. At least, it seems to be for us. In the past several years we have lived lives that from the outside seem like nothing but stress--stage IV cancer, life-threatening heart condition in a newborn, hospitalizations, and surgeries, not to mention our life-style traveling around the country speaking with tons of children in a fifteen-passenger van. We wouldn't trade with a soul, though. God's gifts and provisions and joy have been just too precious to miss! So, how do you de-stress? How do you slow down enough, at least in your heart, to get some joy back?

Spend time with God. There's no one too busy for that. Listen to an audio-Bible if you have to, but feed yourself spiritually every day from the Word of God, or you'll start to soul-starve. Then, pray. Every time you worry--whether it's if your loved one will live or your cookies will turn out--pray! If you respond to anxiety with prayer, the enemy will soon stop tempting you that way!

Do the next thing. Elizabeth Elliot once shared an old poem (Click here to read it on our site.) that changed the way we think about things. It says that when you can't figure out what to do, when you feel overwhelmed, to just do the next thing. Put one foot in front of the other and do the most immediate task. Don't take on all the dozens or hundreds of tasks in front of you; do one at the time. That's hard, these days, when we're so easily distracted, but do it.

Keep your eyes on eternity. It won't matter if our houses are perfect, or the cookies gorgeous, or we make every event, if we miss the opportunity to do the eternally important things--to talk to our children about the Savior, to read to our quickly-growing up little ones, to welcome a child on a stool in the kitchen, even if it slows us down. Our children need us. No one can take our place in their lives. Let's let discipleship be a priority this season.

Merry Christmas, dear friends!

Hal & Melanie

You can support our ministry during these lean months when we're not traveling by shopping in our Christmas Shop where you'll find classic, good toys and gifts--the kinds of things that will be around for your grandchildren. Click here to go there. 

Our next stop will be the Exploring Homeschool Conference in Anaheim, CA on January 18th-19th. Join us there if you can--it's free! 

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