For the past couple of years, Grace Community Church in Southern CA has hosted a conference called “Resolved.” This conference, primarily seeking to attract college-age believers, takes its title from Jonathan Edwards’ “Resolutions,” which he wrote as a young man (at age 19-20). These amazing resolutions give us great insight into the degree of serious commitment Edwards had toward God. For example, Resolution 7: “Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.” Or #6: “Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.”

Much like Edwards’ resolutions, the conference seeks to challenge believers at an early age to live fully committed to the glory of God in all things. This year’s conference featured a set of wonderfully gifted expositional preachers, and managed to sell out with over 3000 attendees! What an amazing thing that so many young people packed the house to hear God’s Word taught with passion!

We ourselves were not able to attend, but thankfully, they’ve made the audio for free download! Having listened to a couple of the messages, I can testify that they are very strong and faithful exhortations of the gospel and its application in the life of committed believers. I’d encourage you to make some time to fill your soul with God-centered Christ-exalting life-challenging preaching. Here are direct links to the MP3 downloads:

Sinners in the Pierced Hands of an Angry God Rick Holland

The Unrivaled Supremacy of Jesus Christ Steve Lawson

Preaching the Gospel Message John MacArthur

Atonement & Justification (The Publican & the Tax Collector) John MacArthur

Panel Discussion

The Suffering Servant CJ Mahaney

It Will Cost You Everything! Steve Lawson

God is the Gospel John Piper

Deflating the Puffed Up Church CJ Mahaney

A Passion for God’s Supremacy and Compassion for Man’s Soul John Piper

For summaries of each talk and reflections from Tim Challies’ live-blogging of the conference, go here.

I think I can safely assume that a lot of people have the same problem and frustration with food storage containers (a.k.a. “Tupperware”) as I do. For the longest time I didn’t know the best way to organize my food storage containers. In spite of having two dedicated drawers (originally one) in the kitchen for these, whenever I have needed a particular container, I couldn’t find the lid or vice versa. We have many different sizes with different counterparts. I find myself wasting time and energy trying to find a matching set. Somehow the lids just magically disappeared and soon there were few to be found.

I am happy to say that we have finally solved this problem.

We put away all the mismatched storage containers and went with low-cost Rubbermaid Take Alongs containers. Much like their counterpart by Ziploc, these are essentially low-end storage containers with a significant bonus: they stack neatly! Whereas my storage drawers were a mess of varying sizes and shapes of containers, I’ve now consolidated to just one deep drawer. Check this out:

That’s 40+ containers where I used to only be able to clumsily and messily cram maybe a dozen and a half! An added bonus is that the two square sizes I bought (standard and “deep”) share the same size top lid!  Woohoo!

The ones in the back are more robust Rubbermaid collapsible containers, which are mixed bag. More robust, but sometimes difficult to collapse and/or expand. Happiness is a nice and orderly container drawer. Maybe not eternal happiness, but sometimes this’ll do.

After waking up from his nap, our nearly 3 year old son came and asked me in a sweet and sheepish voice, “Mommy, may I please have some goldfish?” He meant goldfish crackers, not the real goldfish. I was shocked! This little boy of ours is our less talkative one, a slow talker as well. He simply didn’t talk much until recently. Furthermore, 90% of his vocabulary has been in Mandarin Chinese.  But thanks to frequent exposure to his older brother, who speaks English more, he has now started off with sentences. What a kid.

The reason I was shocked was because I’ve never taught him how to properly ask for things. I didn’t teach him to speak in complete sentences either.  If he had merely said, “Goldfish?” that would have aligned more with my expectations.  Or perhaps, “Mommy, goldfish?”  But, no, he comes out and shocks me with the more formal, “Mommy, may I please have some goldfish?”  I’ve certainly never taught him this form of request!  However, I have taught his older brother manners and how to ask for things in a proper and respectable way!  Voila!  Mystery solved!

One of the benefits of teaching older children manners (and other guidelines for behavior) is that the younger ones follow along. Even though they may not understand or talk at the moment, they are watching and learning. Even though training our children is difficult and extremely time consuming at times, it does get easier, and as more children are added to our family, they follow their older siblings’ examples.  This gives us both hope for the future (that child training will become a bit easier) and a good reminder that persevering with older children has payoff of the “trickle-down” sort to younger ones.

During the parenting years, it is very easy to bemoan the fact that you have lost the type of freedom you once had during those carefree days without children. Nothing is as jarring as having a baby who changes your whole world or turns it upside down. It is very natural to mourn the loss of your long lost freedom when continuous sleep is much coveted by fatigued parents of newborns. How about the fact that you can no longer have a continuous adult conversation without a child interrupting? How about going on a date with your husband . . . . ALONE!? How about spending some time all by yourself in SILENCE? Or just hanging out with a friend? Or doing something as simple as taking a shower without having to worry about the kids? Or perhaps you’re tired of disciplining your children, especially when it seems like nothing is getting through their heads. Maybe you’re just plain exhausted in picking up toys everywhere, cooking and cleaning. Life with little ones seems like the same monotonous cycle replayed over and over again.

You may feel like what I’ve described — I certainly have — but one thing we need to be reminded of is that we need to keep a proper perspective. Gary Thomas, in his book Sacred Parenting, writes:

Elton Trueblood has helped many Christians face this tension between family life, service, and devotion by pointing out that we live our lives in chapters. No one chapter defines a complete story. There is the chapter of your singleness, the chapter of your first years as a married couple, the chapter of your years raising toddlers, the chapter of your years raising teens, the chapter of your years as empty nesters, and the chapter of your years as a grandparent. God won’t judge our lives by one chapter in isolation but by the story these chapters, woven together, create. During some of these chapters certain things slide, including extended hours in personal prayer. But the the heart of the matter is your overall attitude toward serving the Lord and those he loves. Over the course of your whole life, does your story reveal devotion and adoration?

Next time you feel frustrated with the little people, just remember that this is just a chapter of your life, and it will not last forever. And persevere, mindful that the theme of your entire life book is the true test of your devotion for the Lord as you serve your family.  As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:58:

Therefore, my beloved brothers [and sisters], be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

All our children suck their thumbs. I personally believe this is a blessing because they can self soothe when they are sick or just wanting some comfort. Having said this, this blissful thumb sucking habit can’t last forever. About a week ago we made a deal with out oldest, who is almost five, that if he would quit sucking his thumb in a week, we’d get him a toy. To my surprise and joy, he went cold turkey on his thumb. For the first two days he forgot and put his thumb in his mouth for one second but immediately took it out. He promised that he wouldn’t suck his thumb again thereafter. Sure enough, he kept his promise. Exactly one week later, we went to the toy store and happily gave him his reward as promised. Whew! I really thought he would suck his thumb for the rest of his life considering how addicted he was to his thumb.

A few nights ago I took my oldest to my grandparents’ in order to drop off some muffins. It was later in the evening, so I took my 4.5yo son with me as the rest of the kids were already in bed.

On the way there I told my son that after our short visit we could go to the store to pick up several items that I needed. As it turned out, our visit was unexpectedly but nicely prolonged so that by the time we left my grandparents’ house, it was almost my son’s bedtime. Naturally, he was somewhat disappointed that we couldn’t go to the store since he had already requested to spend some time with Daddy. I told him that we only have time for one thing: either go to the store (which he likes) or spend time with Daddy (which he gets every evening anyway).  Their time together is very simple: they either read books together or do an activity together.  Without any hesitation he said he wanted to spend time with Daddy. It was very heart warming to see his desire to spend time with his father.

Books. . . books. . . books. . . we love reading books around here, but sometimes finding a good book to read is not easy. Below are some of the resources I use to locate good books for my children. I hope you’ll find them helpful as you venture into reading with your children. Please suggest other book lists you find helpful as well.

• The Children’s Hour is a blog maintained by Ray Van Neste where he reviews many children’s books. I appreciate his insights and comments.
• Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt. This is a book that can be borrowed at your local library or purchased online as well. This book is categorized by age group so it is helpful in finding books that are suitable for your children’s age or comprehension level.
• I recently discovered Ambleside Online, which provides a free curriculum based on the principles taught by Charlotte Mason, who was a British educator. The book lists are categorized by school year.
• The Well-Trained Mind is a book by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise on homeschooling in the classical tradition. It also contains many good book lists according to reading level and subjects.
• Veritas Press is a classical education curriculum catalog. It also has many good book lists sorted by grade level.

Happy reading!