Help Wanted!!

 

I need your help blog friends. Here at the Davis home we have come upon something that we are stumped in finding an answer to. Many of you know that when I was a little girl I was terrified to be alone. It was quite a debilitating problem. I would loose several hours of sleep a night because I was afraid to close my eyes. I was afraid that someone would come into my house and try to hurt my family. When everyone else had been sleeping for an hour or so I was the only one left awake, so I felt the responsibility to take care of my family in case someone broke in while they were sleeping. It was a miserable time in my life. Being afraid is a horrible feeling but thankfully God took my fears away 6 years ago. Since then, I go to sleep with no fear, Eric at my side or not. I say all that to let you know the pain I feel when my children are afraid. Most of the time when one does complain(which is odd), I will pray with them and we sing awhile and it is all over. But my sweet Mary-Grace is not getting over it. She is truly afraid to go to sleep without me or Eric with her. I have tried everything positive I can think of. Of course she is not in a room alone, Annalee is with her but that just will not do because Annalee falls asleep fast and leaves Mary-Grace to fight the criminals alone should they invade. She is not afraid of monsters or bad guys. She is afraid of some criminal breaking in and hurting us. I don't know specifically where she saw or heard this but she has developed these thoughts somewhere. Of course we try to keep our TV watching safe but even those "home security" commercials give me chills. We do watch some of the "super hero" movies which could have introduced the evil side of people too early for her little mind to understand. A month ago if she was tired she would go to bed all alone with no fear at all but something has happened and she CANNOT sleep alone. Blog Friends, help me! I do not want my baby to suffer as I did all those years. What can we do. We have read verses and prayed God to put a hedge around our home. We have locked and relocked doors and tried staying awake until she fell asleep. Nothing has worked. Should she be discipline for not trusting me? That seems harsh to me. I mean, I hope God doesn't discipline me every time I am afraid and untrusting. We have decided to let consequences happen. She will not be able to spend the night away from home until she can get a handle on this. I tell her that she is going to have to choose to not be afraid and trust in God's protection. Until then, no sleep overs. I want to test her to see just how much of her fear is real and how much is just "a chance to sleep with mama" but I don't want to punish her if she is truly afraid. Give me your ideas, please. And please pray that these evil thoughts would stay out of my baby's mind and that Eric and I will make better choices of what comes into our home through the TV. I look forward to hearing your ideas.

Thanksgiving

I love this season. It is so full of memories and traditions and new ones to make. This year we did a unit study about Thanksgiving that my mama ordered from Family Life. It was a dramatic audio reading of the Pilgrims voyage and the first few years that they were developing the Plymouth colony. William Bradford said of the people that there were far more graves than there were huts that first year. Before Native Americans intervened, the Pilgrims' daily ration of food was a meager 5 kernels of corn but the pilgrims, when given the opportunity set a day aside to give thanks and were so moved by the opportunity they couldn't wait to do it again. And what kind of president, after a feast that gave thanks to the one true God hundreds of years before, decides to make it a National holiday. Wow! Can you imagine.

"Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country..."
-Proclamation of Thanksgiving Day, President George Washington, October 3, 1789

"No human council hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people."
-Proclamation of Thanksgiving Day, President Abraham Lincoln, 1863

What is neat about Thanksgiving, it that it is a holiday that God himself has preserved so that we take time to give thanks. All other Christian holidays has been so perverted but Thanksgiving is truly American and Christian and is still observed with its original intent...to return thanks to the Most High God by the gathering of friends and family with a time of feasting.

Part of our study was to list thanksgivings. Here are a few...
My mama and daddy. - Mary-Grace
My best friend Mady. - Annalee
That God is changing my life and making this arrow sharper and pointier. - Bailey
For Judson's good eye and bad eye. - Elyona
Carly. - Jadon
Jesus, Family, Grace Fellowship, nursing babies, cold weather & coffee, silly
books like Twilight, fond memories, Honda's current work schedule, conformers
and prosthetics, A husband who loves to get up early get the kiddos ready and go shopping in the mad day after thanksgiving rush and... Alabama Football. - Mama

Acceptance

I read the other day something that I've heard many times but this time I was terribly convicted. Allow me to share. "Whatever controls us is really our God...The one who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people she wants to please".
Wow! It's still hard to think about, but that is me in a nutshell. Many of you know my famous statement, "I have seven children and I home school but I am NORMAL!".
That statement alone has convicted me just because I know that all I really want is to fit in with all kinds of people. I admit, when it comes to just about anything ,I will try to find a way to be accepted. As I was in another one of my mastitis bouts that kept me up half the night I started pondering all the things that I am absolutely convinced of that makes me abnormal from most people. The obvious are that I do home school and more than that is that I have 7 children that are all mine, that I birthed, and that I wanted. But the thing that separates me from most people is what I believe...my doctrine. So, let me try to explain it in common words.


I believe the scripture alone is the source of written divine revelation. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.
I believe that our salvation was accomplished by Christ alone.
I believe that in salvation we are rescued from God's wrath by his grace alone and that salvation is in no way a human work.
I believe that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone.
I believe that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God's glory that we must glorify him always.
I believe that we inherited Adam's sin nature and therefore we all are depraved from birth and in need of a savior.
I believe that before the foundation of the world God choose those who would be His based on no work that they would or could accomplish.
I believe that God had a plan before the world began to redeem those whom He called out to be his. Jesus Christ became the atonement for those people.
I believe that I was dead in my trespasses, incapable of doing anything to save myself, and unknowing that I needed to be saved. In my dead state God breathed life into me and in my decayed sinful state of being He said LIVE. My first breath as I came to life was faith and then God, by his grace alone raised me from spiritual death to spiritual life.
I believe that because salvation is a work of God's grace alone that I cannot do anything to fall from that grace. God will keep me to the end and I will then be eternally saved.

Some of these thoughts may be new and radical to you but I am backed by scripture, church history, Jonathan Edwards, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, the disciples and the apostle Paul to name a few.