The Gould Family

For such a time as this…

mominmi — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:14:04 +0000

I’m not sure if you have ever read the story of Esther but it is truly an amazing story. The Israelites have been taken captive by the Babylonians for 70 years and they have finally been allowed to return to their homeland after so many years in exile. There are a few Israelites who remained in the land of exile for whatever reason but God is going to use them to save His people from annihilation. (I love the fact that God uses ordinary people to accomplish His plans in this world because I am one of those ordinary people.) King Xerxes, king of Persia, is having a banquet for all his officials and the last day of the banquet (party) the king summons Vashti, his wife, to come show off her beauty to the people and his nobles. She refuses and this makes the king angry. Actually the Bible says he was furious and his anger burned within him. Why is he so angry? I feel his pride has been wounded and he doesn’t look too good in front of his people. In his anger he banishes Vashti from his presence forever and makes it a law for the women of the land to disobey their husbands. God will use this situation to place Esther in the palace as queen at just the right time. She has come to the kingdom for such a time as this.

What about us? We also are here for such a time as this. God has a plan for our lives. Are we available (like Esther) to be used by God? Our purpose for being in God’s kingdom is this: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10

Why not ask God today what good works you can do for Him?

Learning the states

mominmi — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:11:28 +0000

We are studying US History and will also being learning to locate the states. I printed off a blank map from Donna Young Printables and Resources and had the boys complete it before we started memorizing any of the states. I will keep this map to chart their progress over the next couple of months. I also found several sites with US map puzzles for them to practice locating the states. They will do a different one each day for 4 days and then we will test again to see how many they have learned so far. I think this will be an easier way for them to memorize them as opposed to just staring at a map. Below I have listed the puzzles sites if you want to check them out:

United States Map Puzzle

50 States

United States Geography Game

Have a great day!

First week of school

mominmi — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 01:14:34 +0000

The first day started out terrible. I was starting to get crabby at about 9:00 a.m. I know a little ridiculous. But if you knew how my children were behaving you would understand. I finally calmed down and we got started shortly after that and the rest of the day went fairly well. I have to say I was totally shocked! Today was a little rough because one of my children was in a crabby mood. It is okay for mom but not for the kiddos, right? He finally came around though because I threatened to take away his all-nighter. The older 3 did some extra reading and schoolwork so that they can stay up all night and watch movies. I know probably not a good idea but it got them reading. This was really for one of my sons who just dislikes reading but he finished the book he was suppose to in record time. So I told him next time we would have to double the books he had to read. I don’t think he like that too much.

It was a crazy week but I remained calm and even finished my housework today. So tomorrow I can spend time helping my husband and preparing for the upcoming Bible study. Which I am totally excited about! We will be studying the book of Esther. What a great book!

Well back to the grind…Blessings, grace & peace!

Grace

mominmi — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:26:26 +0000

I have always been overwhelmed with God’s grace. I lived my teen and early twenties for myself. I gave no thought to God and His wonderful gift that He gave me. Even though I grew up in a home where my mom was faithful in taking my sisters and me to church. I deserved shame, dispair, heartache and pain in my own mind for all the things I had done. I looked around me and saw many others who lived a “better” life (We are all sinners.) than I get the short end of the stick. When the Lord finally got a hold of my heart I would spend so much time wondering why I had been blessed. It was because I did not understand God’s grace in my own life. Grace is undeserved favor or merit. I did not deserve God’s forgiveness let alone His peace, joy and love. I did not deserve to have a husband who loved me and blessed with 5 wonderful boys. There were many in my life who had no loving husband or no children but they lived a Christian life. When I realized and accepted that it was because of God’s grace that I was saved and loved by Him then I was amazed.

Ephesians 1:7-8 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. I love this verse! God lavished grace on us! Wow! When I think of the word lavished I think of riches, wealth and jewels being poured out on someone. God’s grace is like a gift of riches waiting for us to take it and accept it.

1 Timothy 1:14 and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. His grace was more than abundant in Jesus Christ. No matter what we have done or what we haven’t done God’s grace is there waiting for us to reach out and grab it.

I have been reading a little book called Every Day Light by Selwyn Hughes and I would like to share with you a quote from his book. “The throne of God, you see is not a throne of righteousness but a throne of grace! Righteousness says: ‘Stay back until you are good enough to approach.’ Grace says: ‘I will put on you robes of righteousness that are provided for you by Christ - now you are good enough.’”

Beloved, we are robed in righteousness because of God’s grace that He has lavished on us. Amen!

Another prayer answered

mominmi — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 21:49:55 +0000

We have other friends who are raising support to go to Africa. They just received about 25% of the support in one donation! Praise God! It is so exciting to see God at work. He does answer when the time is right and according to His perfect plan.

Prayer Answered

mominmi — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:33:00 +0000

I just spent the afternoon with my friend at the park. The kids had a great time playing hide and seek and other fun games. We haven’t seen each other for a long time and had a great time catching up.

My friend and her husband are planning to go to the mission field. They have been called to go to the Philippines. My friend’s dh is a pilot and his main job will be to fly missionaries to the islands. Anyway they have been raising support for about a year and were at 50%. This past Tuesday they received the rest of their money from one person! Praise God! There have also been other things that have been such a blessing over the past few weeks. They also received the money to get the kids visas which was not cheap.

God does work things out in his timing! In this case it was a lot sooner than we had thought it would be…funny how things work out when you least expect them to. I will miss them when they leave which will be in about 3 months. I know they are in the Lord’s will and it will be great to hear what He is doing through them in the Philippines.

Has it been a year?

mominmi — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:27:46 +0000

I cannot believe that it has been a year or more since I last blogged. I guess I lost track of time but I hope and pray this year I can keep up with it. We will see!

We just got back from the beautiful town of Ludington. We had a great time camping together as a family. We went hiking at the state park and the view was great. It was very peaceful! Next we hope to camp right in the state park to enjoy nature at it’s best.

Well our school year will officially begin on the 28th of this month. This year I feel so unprepared - our oldest starts high school! I am anxious and praying that it will be a great experience not only for him but for me. Everyone is so shocked to learn that we plan to homeschool the boys through high school. I think that is where so many doubts come into my mind and plague me. But this is no different than when we started the homeschool adventure and everyone treated us like we were crazy. For the most part I think everyone can see the benefit that it has been to our family. Even though there have many numerous challenges it has been a great experience. I wouldn’t change it for the world!

This year’s curriculum line up is:
We will be using Sonlight for the older 4. Brandon will be doing Church History which includes History, Bible, creative writing, spelling and speech; Bryce and Brock will be doing American History which includes History Bible and Language Arts. Benjamin and Blake will be using My Father’s World first grade curriculum together which includes all subjects. I will be supplementing different reading books for them because they are not at the same level in reading. Math will be using Teaching Textbooks Algrebra for Brandon; Brock and Bryce will be using Alpha Omega curriculum again. This year the family will be learning Spanish using the Learnables curriculum. We use Mavis Beacon for typing. We will be joining a P.E. class this year at a local athletic club and joining a homeschool group for extra curricula activities. There music is done with their dad. He has been working with most of them either on drums or guitar and sometimes both. A few of them like to sing with him so that is included in the music education. Art I have a few books here that we will be using for art class. The younger 3 will be taking part in singing during our youth service this year. The older 3 will be doing a public reading of scripture during the same service and possibly a skit. I will also have the older two do the powerpoint and bulletins for the youth service to give them practice. We also make them take part in any service projects that we have going on at church during the year.

I will keep you posted on how our year progresses…

In Christ,
Tammy

Believing God…

mominmi — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 11:43:21 +0000

…why is it so hard to do? We have countless stories in the Bible of how God did what he promised he would do. But in our daily lives we are not able to practically apply those truths to our circumstance. I am just beginning the study by Beth Moore, Believing God, and it will be a journey that will change my life. As I ponder the things I have learned I realize (again) that our image of God is not always accurate. We have these preconceived ideas about God maybe from church, family or friends but they are not true. God is bigger and better than anything we could imagine. He created us and everything around us out of nothing. He holds it all together and he is in control even if it doesn’t appear to be so. He has a plan and he wants us to be part of it. He wants us to step out in faith and trust him because he knows what is best. We can trust him because he has proven himself to be trustworthy through his word and if we are completely honest with ourselves through our own lives as well.

I Believe God!

Surprises and daily life

mominmi — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 17:55:19 +0000

This week started off with a big surprise. My husband and I celebrated our 14th anniversary this past Tuesday. He surprised me by taking me to a bed and breakfast. I have wanted to go to a bed and breakfast for years! We had such a nice time together. The room was beautiful and decorated with roses and it had a nice jacuzzi. We spent the days walking around a quaint little town (Saugatuck) which is on Lake Michigan. The last day we browsed a hugh antique shop. We used to do that often when we had less children. I found a small porcelain kerosene lantern. It looks nice with my teacups and teapots. (I collect them.) It was refreshing to be away to gather and spend some time renewing our relationship. It was nice to have a conversation without being interrupted.

On a more serious note - School is going good. We have been working hard on our creative writing this year. It has been fun to read some of the stories that the boys come up with. They have always told stories but they were never willing to put it on paper. They are not long but it is a start. I think I came up with a schedule that works well for us. We are trying to find some extra activities for the boys to do that are not too expensive and fit into our schedule. This Monday we are taking our yearly trip to the orchard. We always enjoy getting out and picking apples together.

We are still waiting to hear about Isabelle. The court hearing was Friday but we haven’t heard anything. The caseworker did email and let us know that we would receive a call from her on Monday.

A smile in my day…

mominmi — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 23:18:00 +0000

My two youngest sons during science class today decided to give their lives to Jesus. Yea! I know they are young and do not understand everything but childlike faith is what it is all about. It is wonderful to see them grow and mature in their walk with God. As parents this verse sums up what we strive for:

3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.