Moving and Eating Update on Jon and Bea

Not a ton of time for blogging, and what time there is will be devoted to Hakim Family Videos for a little while yet.  But just wanted to give an update that Jon and Bea are crawling now, and eating some "real food"--Jon fed himself the better part of a slice of bread today.

Am I As Tall As You Now?

          Today is Karissa's third birthday.  This morning, Heather and I sang "happy birthday" to her as soon as she woke up, and she just drank it in,

Praise God from Whom Home Videos Flow

I just plugged an old hard drive from my office into an external enclosure, and on it are home movies from 2002-2009 that I thought had been lost.  Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow!

Blessed to Know the Curse

          Yesterday, our family watched a little clip of a sweet baby boy.  The son of good friends, he was born essentially blind.  Emmet, in particular, of all our children is intensely

June 15, 2010, Lunch Reading - 1Chronicles 26-29 - Loyal, Joyful Subjects of Jesus

           It's a little sad when we get behind in our family reading, because then we have to rush through chapters.  But sometimes, rushing through makes us grab more of the context, which is what happened as we took the last four chapters of 1 Chronicles together at lunch today. 

Bread and Water

          Yesterday, as we sat around talking through what we'd heard from the Word in church in the morning, Beatrice was sitting next to me, and I had a glass of water,

June 11, 2010, Lunch Reading - 1 Chronicles 21-22

Just a couple of highlights from our lunch reading.

RIP TGiN

The parenting/children blog has been merged into the main family blog (i.e. this one).  "Thank God It's Naptime" is no more.

What We Got Karissa for Her Birthday

A Farmer's Wife and a Helper around the House

We haven't done any overt counseling to our daughters yet about the joys of domestic life.  But immersion in Scripture, and the happy example of a (my) wife and (their) mother who delights in her role seem to be having an effect.  Tonight, when Karissa was asked what she wanted for her birthday, she said that she wanted kitchen tools for when she grows up, so that she can help mom now and be like mom then.  And Kessedi announced that she would like to be a farmer, then after but a moment's thought upgraded the idea to that of farmer's wife (this would obviously combine her loves of plants, animals, the outdoors, etc.).  Now, I don't necessarily think baking and farming and wifing are required for godliness--but these are things that the culture gasps in horror to hear a little girl aspire to.  So, tonight I'm thanking God that He has thus far preserved them from this mindset of the culture.  May godly womanhood be the sum of their aspirations, whatever else they are!

Colossians 1-2, lunch and supper readings

         In the first half of Colossians today, we learned about how Jesus transforms people--giving them sure hope and making them full of sincere love.  God designed it this way so that in our salvation--just like in creation and history--Jesus would get great glory.  This was the great "mystery"--not that there was going to be a Messiah, but that this Messiah would be God Himself in the flesh, and that we would be so joined to Him, that His death would be our death, and His resurrection would be our resurrection, and we would live with Him in us!
          Indeed, if we have Jesus, then we have all of God, so we shouldn't worry when other people tell us that we need something else.  We only need whatever the Bible says--and even then, there are many things that we no longer needed, because they looked forward to Jesus, until the "mystery" would be revealed!  Even Satan and his demons can't accuse us: since we're joined to Jesus, when they go to point a finger to accuse, they end up pointing at... Jesus!!  And none of the things that looked forward to Jesus can help us fight against sin at all, so it doesn't make any sense to hold onto them.  God is the One who grows us, and He grows us by knitting us together and building us up more and more into Jesus.

Karissa Turns 3 in a Week

We're still trying to think of birthday presents!

June 10, 2010, Breakfast Reading, 1Chronicles 18-20

         This morning, we continued to read about (and emphasize) how God hadn't forgotten His promises to His people--that the returned exiles could have hope that the best was yet to come for God's people.  So, God is recounting David's reign with an emphasis upon all the goodness, and power, and wisdom, and success of David not to make them pine for the good old days but to say, "and even David wasn't the promised forever-King!"
         The children, of course, knew that this King is Jesus.  What is exciting is that one thing is still as true today as it was in the reading: the best is still yet to come for God's people (cf. Heb 3-4)!
         We also spent some time considering what faith looks like in Joab's pep-talk to Abishai before going to battle against nearly all the great armies of the known world.  Faith hopes only in God.  But faith also uses all of its strength.  It plans carefully and fights hard (because wisdom and strength are gifts from God and debts owed to God), but it refuses to find any of its hope or comfort in how well it has planned or fought. (cf. 1Chr 19:6-13)