Creative, Curious, Christian
(smaller button below)
For the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe. We’re pretty relaxed over here, and stories and photos are as welcome as menus and recipes. When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button to paste at the top of your post. It ties us together visually. Then fill in the boxes of this linky tool to join the fun!
(smaller button below)
For the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe. We’re pretty relaxed over here, and stories and photos are as welcome as menus and recipes.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (sorry for the delay on the promised button battle…more later on that) to paste at the top of your post. It ties us together visually.Then fill in the boxes of this linky tool to join the fun! [Read more...]
(smaller button below)
For the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe. We’re pretty relaxed over here, and stories and photos are as welcome as menus and recipes.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (My daughter doesn’t quite have the new one ready, and now a second daughter wants to battle it out by offering her own version! Until they’re ready, grab the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post. It ties us together visually.Then fill in the boxes of this linky tool to join the fun! [Read more...]
My Slow-Down Fast didn’t wrap up quite how I expected.
I imagined creating quiet moments of contemplation leading up to Easter, and in a way I did enjoy more moments of interaction with the Lord, but not necessarily in long stretches of quiet solitude. I haven’t had a lot of down time, but I have been able to focus when I am silently interacting with the Lord, communing privately in brief snatches throughout the days. It’s everyday conversation. This dialogue is possible, I think, because, as I am more settled than I was back in March—more rested and less agitated—leaving me more open to listening to the voice of God.
But from a scheduling perspective, my slow-down fast was slow but more full than I anticipated it would be when I launched this concept at the beginning of Lent. This weekend we are enjoying out-of-town guests, and Holy Saturday fell on the birthday of one of my daughters.
Instead of a quiet, reflective, contemplative day leading up to Easter, we went bowling and played indoor Putt-Putt.
Instead of an austere day of fasting, I baked cupcakes and dished out ice cream.
At lunch, however, we paused and pulled out our collection of Resurrection Eggs that highlight moments in the last days of our Lord Jesus Christ’s time on earth, and after a review of each item, we opened the egg that contained the stone that sealed shut the tomb.
We took a minute to remember that at that time, everyone—the disciples, the women who traveled with Him, the soldiers who watched Him die, the chief priests and Pharisees—all surely assumed that “it is finished” just meant “the end.” He was dead, after all. It surely looked like it was over and all was lost.
But all was not lost.
All was won.
Easter morning is the day we open an empty Easter egg—empty because our Lord is not dead.He has risen, just as He said. This is cause for celebration.
Joy to the world, He is risen, Alleluia!
These final days leading up to Easter, we’ve continued to open the Easter Story Eggs and read the related passages from the Gospels.
This week in our reading, we came across another critical moment in the story that’s not represented in the egg collection. So, to enrich the journey, we added a symbol in another egg and inserted it directly after the praying hands. [Read more...]
After attending a bridal shower on Saturday, I drove home and changed into running clothes fully intending to get out and pound the pavement.Instead, I climbed into bed and fell asleep.Four hours later, I woke up.I needed exercise, but I guess I needed to slow down and rest even more. [Read more...]
Years ago we bought a set of “Resurrection Eggs,” twelve plastic eggs filled with small symbols representing moments in the Easter story, including a donkey for Palm Sunday, a tiny metal wine goblet and plastic bread for the Last Supper, and a rock for the stone rolled in front of the tomb. The kids would take turns opening an egg each night at dinner and we would read the correlating story from one of the Gospels. The last egg (empty) is opened on Easter Sunday.But twelve eggs didn’t seem like enough.
So we added to the collection, filling additional eggs in order to drag the story out. We agreed the unnamed lady from Mark 14:3-9 who anointed Jesus with perfume needed to be in the story after reading “wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” So we found a tiny Playmobil pitcher to represent the alabaster jar.
We also added a small brown sandal to remind us of the time Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. A little wooden bench and fake money (also Playmobil) is for the moment when He turned over the money changers’ tables and drove them out of the temple. A small coin is for the widow’s mite or the time Jesus was challenged about paying taxes to Caesar (two stories in one!).
This set of eggs serves as a simple story-prompting tool during Lent. We are reading, thinking and praying together as we walk closer and closer to Good Friday and Easter Sunday; we’re slowing down by gathering around the table to read through those moments recorded in Scripture…moments that changed everything.
How do you slow? How do you fast? Write it up and link, or tell us in the comments.
My nine-year-old son spent most of Wednesday curled up on the couch recovering from a stomach virus while I worked on the computer at my desk a few feet away. At some point, he got up to get a book, and when he returned he stuck a Mozart symphony in the CD player and pressed play.Music filled the room.I sighed. [Read more...]
We home educate, which allows considerable flexibility in our schedules throughout the week. But we supplement with once-a-week classes in a cooperative effort involving multiple families. The parents share the teaching, and I offered to teach high school writing.This means, of course, that I assign, read and evaluate a lot of papers. Last week I finished grading the last of the ten-page research papers my writing students completed. This was the first time they undertook an official research paper assignment, so they needed to learn the process from beginning to end: how to brainstorm for ideas, narrow down the topic, develop a working thesis, do initial research, modify that thesis based on the initial research, find reputable sources, begin in-depth and focused research by digging into online databases, organize note cards (yes, I had them use note cards), fuse outlines, write a rough draft, revise that draft, and turn in a final copy on time with all the requested elements.They did it all; they turned in their papers.And then I got to grade them.Lucky me.But I paced myself throughout the week. This is unusual for me. My tendency is to put off the tasks that I dread and then spend one panicked day cramming in the work I should have spread out over time.What a pleasant surprise to finish up the grading and pack my bags for co-op classes by 10:00 p.m.! I know this whole idea of spreading out the work falls into Time Management 101, but I guess I realized that this is a way I can slow down and simplify.
I can look at the week and schedule my to-do list tasks over several days so that my pace is measured and sane. While doing that, I can make time for the really important things. I want to find a pace that allows me to pray and play and ponder things like this:
Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (1 John 2:6)
Please link up your Lenten reflections below:
The morning began very slowly, causing me to write and publish this later than I intended. Perhaps that is somewhat appropriate for a “slow-down fast”?Sunlight streamed through the windows as I sat at the kitchen table this morning. This is noteworthy, after countless days of sorrowful gray skies. As the heat hit my cheeks, I felt myself warming and thought of Psalm 36:9, “in your light, we see light.” [Read more...]
Blogger: Pursuing a Christ-centered, creative, curious, slightly quirky, slow-down life and sharing it with you, post after post. (Home of Food on Fridays).
Author: Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families
Content Editor: The High Calling (Family/Parenting)
I'm in this book along with many other amazing women and hope that the words within will encourage you in your motherhood journey. Click through from this link to purchase a copy, and I will receive a modest sales commission. 
ann kroeker. curator. (read it, liked it)
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