One of my favorite summer traditions with my kids is our tri-weekly outdoor devotionals. The layout is fairly simple........We bike a couple miles until the we find a quiet, secluded area that beckons us.
Mom is in charge of bringing the notebooks, the scriptures, the water bottles, the snack, the diapers, the helmets (ect.)
Kids are in charge of putting on their shoes.
I think the responsibility balance is a little off here.
The devotional consists of.......
Exploration-my kids are really good at this.
Meditation- my kids are not so good at this.
Scripture reading- because we need this.
No arguing- because at home we had too much of this.
Thought recording- this week it went something like this.....
Me: I want you guys to close your eyes and think about how you feel when we are alone in nature and it's completely quiet ( now what I'm trying to do here is teach the concept of "pondering" have you ever tried to teach this concept? it's hard, and in the world we live in it's incredibly hard and absolutely crucial.) Now ideally this concept should be taught without the use of yelling things like "if you don't sit down right now and listen to this devotional and feel the peacefulness all around you I'm going to be really mad."
Let's just go with that's the ideal.
So thought recording.......
Olivia said " Oh mom you know I can't record my feelings, I feel too much. I love everything about the outside world, except severe weather."
Luke said " instead of feelings, I'm just going to draw bugs ok? and maybe a horse."
Sophie Kate said "when I'm outside I feel Jesus."
You win Sophie Kate.
5 comments:
what a great idea. I might just have to take this one from ya. I hope you guys are doing well. Your family is growing up so much and are a beautiful as ever.
What a great mom you are. Your kids are going to be very grounded when they grow up.
someone loves the picture of Olivia up in the tree...and by "loves" it I mean LOVES it.
I also had big plans to be a good mom this week. I decided I wanted to make a fun story time once a day while I nursed the babe. I set out a special blanket with pillows, snacks and stacks of books...needless to say the kids wrestled and yelled and I ended up near tears shouting idle threats that I could not enforce because of the babe attached to my bosom. So lovely. But hey, we're trying here right? Sophie does win, but Grace wins for cutest diva-gone-pioneer.
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