encouragement

25 TRUTHS: Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us {Crew Review}

July 22, 2013 by Dana

25 TRUTHS: Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us comes to us from Ed Douglas Publications. Ed Douglas has spent more than 3 decades in business, running one of the most prestigious banks in the United States. His knowledge and faith has led him to write helpful guides for building a firm foundation financially and spiritually. 25 TRUTHS is a product of his own life lessons that he has chosen to share with others.

25 TRUTHS discusses the top 25 truths that Ed Douglas feels have been most influential to his life. In this book, Ed discusses how these truths have changed over the years and how you can make these truths prevail in your life bringing them back into the world that they have been immersed into. Truths like being honest, limiting negativity, not giving up, and seeing the world at it’s best when even at it’s worst. Ed brings up poignant points throughout the 25 truthful lessons of the book and teaches the reader to recognize these points, as well as how to correct them for themselves.

I, personally, read through this book and I find that I agree with many of the truths within but not all of them. The content itself leaves the reader thinking through things in life that most don’t really consider daily. However, the chapters left me desiring more content, discussion and explanation. As something to make one open their mind and think, 25 Truths is wonderful but as a study it leaves me desiring more.

This is not a book I would use with younger children but would find it okay for older children in 11th or 12th grade who have more of a reliable grasp on the real world. The book discusses truths in relation to modern day events like adultery that younger children would not necessarily understand and those truths would definitely need to be taught with parental guidance and thorough discussion, possibly even editing out the content and being replaced with content a younger student could better understand.

For an adult, or older teen this book would work wonderfully and leave the reader thinking hard about the truths found within. The content definitely leaves one growing after reading through the 25 Truths within and could further be developed by the reader themselves.

25 TRUTHS: Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us is available from Ed Douglas Publications $15.50 plus shipping for a 5×7 sized paperback. It contains 26 chapters, as well as a Foreword, Preface and a chapter at the end called Plus One. It is 150 pages in length.

Apologia, How to Have a H.E.A.R.T. for Your Kids {Crew Review}

August 29, 2011 by Dana

I am really excited to share with you my very first review for The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. This is my first year with the TOS Crew and it is the Crew’s fourth voyage. It promises to be a fun and interesting year for us all!

Now onto the review!

For my first review, I was asked to read Apologia’s How to Have a H.E.A.R.T. for Your Kids by Apologia’s own Rachael Carman. As you all know, I am a HUGE fan of Apologia’s homeschool curriculum so I was more than THRILLED to find this listed for review right away. In my opinion, Apologia’s line of quality products tops my list of educational favorites.

Though this book is not a part of their already well-known curriculum line, it is an excellent encouragement resource for anyone interested in providing a solid love of God for their family and changing the direction of life for both their children and themselves. You can find the book listed in the Resources for Parents section on Apologia’s website. This is honestly a wonderful resource for all parents, not just those who are home schooling. It is so much more than homeschooling encouragement. It is an encouragement to live a life for God.

H.E.A.R.T. is an acronym. Each letter has a special meaning.

H – Have a Heart for the things of God.
In this section, you will learn how to have a heart for God. In order to have a heart for God we must have a relationship with him. We must find time to fellowship with God, to read His word, to do His work. Throughout this chapter, Mrs. Carman explains just how to do those things through praise, scheduling and so much more.

E – Enrich Your Marriage.
Throughout the bible we are told that we are to put our spouses first, after God. In this section, Mrs. Carman has us take a look at the relationships in our lives: our parents, those we know and our own. She asks us to notice the differences, the truths, the good and the bad of each relationship so that changes can be made to build a stronger H.E.A.R.T. for our family. She asks us to make the changes necessary to make our marriages stronger, to connect to our husbands and allow God to help strengthen our weaknesses in marriage so that we may live to glorify him with our family.

A – Accept Your Children.
Have you really sat back and taken a long look at your children? Have you thought about what you want for their lives? Have you ever consider what God wants for their lives? Have you thought about His purpose for creating your children? After reading this section, you will have done all of these things. Mrs. Carman has us take a long look at each of our children’s interests and how they affect their own single relationships with God and His purposes. She helps us to realize just how important our children are, not only to our own life but for the bigger purpose of glorifying God. She also shows us how to pray for our children, to help them to become stronger individuals in order to live up to the purpose they were created for.

R – Release Them to God.
This is possibly the hardest part of living as a Christian: letting go of the control of our own lives and letting God take over. Even harder is allowing God to control the lives of our precious babies. In this chapter, Mrs. Carman explains how to do that. She has us take another look at the wishes and plans God has for our children and explains how to pray specifically for each of those individual plans. She shows us how to let God take control and allow our children to grow in His name and spirit. She teaches us how to release our own control to allow God to give life to our children in His own way.

T – Teach Them the Truth.
The title of this chapter says it all: Teach them the Truth. Teach your children the truth of His words. Teach your family the love that God has for us all. The bible is a guidebook, written to provide a firm foundation for our relationship with God. This chapter explains how to use this foundation to make our family stronger and bring both ourselves and our families closer to God. Mrs. Carman has us take a look at the good and the bad of our world, along with the word of God to show us how to correctly teach our children the truth of God’s love and wishes for us.

In these five chapters, we are shown how to live our life for God, how to encourage our children’s relationship and our own with God, how to provide strong foundations on which to grow in our relationship and our faith, along with so much more.

After reading this book, I have personally come to realize that I have been pushing my children to live for my purposes and that of our daily society instead of living their lives as God has directed and created them to do. I have learned to pray about the choices my children make, the future they choose and I am learning to let God have control of where He is leading them. In the future I will be allowing God more control of their choices and teaching them to listen to His guidance as they continue to grown in His word.

How to Have a H.E.A.R.T. for Your Kids is written by Rachael Carman and available through Apologia Education Ministries, INC for $13 plus shipping. A free sample chapter is available on the website, along with the book’s Table of Contents. I recommend this book for all parents, regardless of educational preference. It is certain to change your H.E.A.R.T.

To visit The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew blog and read more reviews click here!

*Disclaimer – I received this book for review FREE from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Homeschool Review Crew. I was not asked to provide a positive review but instead asked to provide my honest opinion of the product I was given. I have not received any monetary supplement for reviewing this book, other than the free copy sent in exchange for writing my personal opinion for this review.

Something I Hope To Do In Life {30 Days of Truth – Day 5}

November 8, 2010 by Dana

Today’s truth: Something I hope to Do in My Life. There’s a lot to this one too but if I had to choose one thing I’d have to say raise my kids to be sane, strong, loving, kind adults. This is a very hard thing to do in this day and age. So many things step in our paths that can turn us to very angry humans that it can be scary. Depression is an easy thing to come by now-a-days too. I wish for my children to be able to encourage others, be great friends and an asset to their communities. I do not wish for them to be rich, or well-to-do (though both would be wonderful) but instead I wish for them to be simple and happy in what God provides for their lives (even if one day they come to not believe in God). I want them to stand out among the crowd for choosing to be good in a sea of bad. If I can accomplish guiding my children into an adult like this, I will have done all I hope to do in this lifetime.

Proverbs 22:6 ~ Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.