Count Your Blessings

♪ Count your blessings, name them one by one,
♪ Count your many blessings, see what God has done!

So, not only did I give up my Facebook for Lent (which is harder than I imagined, thank you very much), but I also vowed to spend more time in Bible reading and prayer. Well, I have the time! You can't possibly imagine how much time I have wasted on Facebook!

Each day, I'm diving into a different book of the Bible. In the mornings, I read; in the evenings, I reread and ponder, meditate and pray, and then write. I also have a cool journaling/doodling page I found somewhere on Pinterest. (Don't judge me; I can't give up ALL my social media at once!)

Yesterday was just a regular day. No mountaintop experiences, no "valley of the shadow of death" moments. And yet, as I read I Corinthians 1 last night, I was struck by just how many blessings God had given me in the course of the day. Verse 5 practically jumped off the page and landed in my lap! I have been given so much! In speech and in knowledge, I grow every day! Even the seemingly ordinary days! After all, life is really made up of ordinary days sprinkled with extraordinary moments.

There's another old song (I'm pretty sure it's Bing Crosby) about counting blessings instead of sheep "Tonight, I'll fall asleep counting my blessings..." ♫

Yep, I certainly will!

Writing Practice

My son hates to write.

Let me qualify that statement a bit. My son loves to create stories, enjoys research, and likes using the computer. However, my son hates to write - by hand.

He has always struggled with his handwriting. His printing was nearly illegible (but has improved a bit in the past year). His cursive leaves MUCH to be desired. And he is frustrated by his lack of progress and how difficult this task is for him. He will often snap the lead in his pencil just writing the smallest homework assignment. And writing a whole story? Well, let's just say he prints it first. (Because if he wrote in cursive first, the story would be a WHOLE lot shorter!)

So, I'm always trying to think of ways to encourage him to write -- for fun. I think the dying art of letter writing is helpful, but I need something that he can do for INSTANT feedback. Maybe journaling exercises? Maybe the whole family can journal together.

I got this idea after seeing a blog post about a book called "Un-Journaling". I checked it out on amazon.com and it looks neat. I also looked at some other journaling workbooks.

I just don't want it to feel like homework! I need it to be FUN! (big sigh) I need some inspiration. Hmm, I wonder how he would respond to the idea of scrapbooking? My scrapbooks always involve lots of journaling. Well, we'll see.