The time has come….

Thanks to Yahoo having a price increase on hosting fees that are way too much for me to afford anymore, I’m switching Heaven In Our Homes to a new host. Effective Tuesday, September 30th.

The new hosting site will also bring a new template design, special thanks to Christina from http://retro-designz.com. This site will also host the new blog.

We will be moving archives from here to that blog eventually, and will leave this one up for a short while for any of you that might check in later and would’ve missed the move and new address.

So…. if you visit the HIOH website on Tuesday, it’s quite possible that it’ll be shut down - but only for an hour or two tops (we hope). Once re-opened, at least for the time being, you’ll only have access to info on the blog.

As time allows I’ll fill in all the pages. Keep in mind I’m mommy to a 4, 2, and 1 year old and 12.5 weeks pregnant, and we’re sick - so it might take a little while.

Some of you might already subscribe to the Above Rubies emails, but for those that don’t, occassionally I’ll share on that really touched my life. Below is yet another one of these:

Psalm 27:4, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”

David longed for the “House of the Lord.” It was his favorite place to be. But David could not be in the house of the Lord continually, as much as he longed to. He was king of a nation. He had battles to fight; administration to attend to. But dear mother, we have the opportunity to live David’s longing. Let me explain.

The house of the Lord is no longer one temple as it was in David’s day. It is not even a church building where we attend on Sundays or Saturdays today. The house of the Lord speaks of His presence.

God wants your home to be His house where His presence dwells; a place where you abide in Him and He abides in you. The house of the Lord is abiding fellowship with Christ.

The house of the Lord is your kitchen where you prepare the meals; the house of the Lord is your dining table where you feed your family and make every meal a love affair; the house of the Lord is any room in the home where you are working or interacting with your children.

In your home you can behold the beauty of the Lord. As you abide in Him and look to Him, He will impart His grace to you in your time of need. He will show you that He is the God who is Enough for every challenge and every situation.

He is with you, in your home, and will never leave you or forsake you. No, not even when everything seems overwhelming and you feel like tearing your hair out!

You are still in the house of the Lord at this moment. Instead of despairing about the situation, stop for a moment and realize that God is with you. He has promised that He will not fail you.

Thank Him that He is with you. Thank Him that He cannot fail you.

In your home you can inquire in His temple. David had to go God’s temple to inquire of the Lord. He faced battles, enemies and challenges; He needed God’s discernment, wisdom and strength.

You also long for God’s wisdom. You are desperate to know what to do. You cannot go on without His strength. Praise the Lord, you don’t have to get into your car and rush off to a church building.

You are in the house of the Lord right now. You can inquire in His temple right now. He will give you His wisdom. He has promised, remember.

All you have to do is abide–that literally means to live in His presence. It means to acknowledge that Christ is living within you and that you are in Him. You are inseparable. You are one. He is your life source. You can’t live without Him (well, I can’t anyway!).

Your own strength wains; you need His. Your wisdom is human; you need His divine wisdom. Your love runs out the door; you need His agape love. You are depressed and down in the dumps; His joy does not depend on how you feel. You feel your life is worthless; you can only bear fruit to bless your family and touch other lives as you abide.

John 15:4-5 says, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me can do nothing.”

There it is. The secret to living in the house of the Lord all the days of your life.

How I love those words… “all the days of my life.” It doesn’t matter what my day is like, God is with me. It doesn’t matter whether I think God has left me; He is bigger than my thoughts. My thoughts deceive but God doesn’t change.

See your home in a new light. It is the house of the Lord. You can live in it all the days of your life.

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

“Thank you, Lord, for showing me that my home is the house of the Lord. Help me to enjoy my home in a new way. Thank you that I don’t have to visit the house of the Lord. I live in it! Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I am not a visitor but a dweller in the house of the Lord.

SCRIPTURES REFERRED TO IN THIS DEVOTION:
Look up Isaiah 41: 10, 13; Hebrews 13:5-6; James 1:5-8.

*Note from Candace - Nancy’s writings always encourage me, in just the areas I need them. I need encouragement - that I’m not ‘just a mom’, as many women in today’s world view it - but that this is a Spiritual battle.

Being a Christian stay at home mother has opportunities for me to serve the Lord like no other mother on Earth!

Not only that, but it places my children in one of the most special places they could ever be in their childhood - in a home where God’s presence should be such a powerful thing in everything we do.

And before I close, I’d like to ask for a special prayer for our family today. We’ve had 3 different viruses over the past week and a half - and I’m on Day 4 of chills, sore throat, ear pressure/ hearing loss from that, etc… , with no relief since I’m pregnant and can’t take anything.

We finally discovered the baby will sleep if he’s upright in his toddler rocker, but as he was a little better Sunday, Sunday PM he got triple exposure to germs from sticking our cups/ toothbrushes in his mouth.

This mommy is tired, and will need to read the above passage again and again. DH just started getting sick two days ago - so we’re all pretty rough. We’d appreciate any prayers for immediate healing, and prevention of this going around again.

Any ideas for pregnant ladies besides lemon juice, honey, saline spray?? I’d love to hear them!

Well, I hope you’ve been able to incorporate a few safety measures for your children/ grandchildren this month!!

Overall, I don’t have a favorite safety item, and there’s still plenty more that I’d love to have one day.

An overview of what I do have, use, and am ever so glad I’ve bought:

• Cabinet latches for kitchen cabinets.
• Pressure mounted baby gates for room to room safety (and keeping the baby out of the bathroom.
• Hardware mounted baby gate - This was such a comfort when we had a two story house. Knowing the gate was firmly screwed into the wall, and the fact we had bought an extra tall one - I never had to worry about my little ones falling down the stairs!
• Furniture mounting brackets. Attaching dressers and bookshelves to the wall - no worries about my climbers pulling something over on them.
• Door knob covers. Since my children have figured out the deadbolts and other locks, this is my only safety net. I’m careful to not let them watch me too carefully - to learn how to squeeze and turn themselves. Can you believe their even smart enough to pull chairs or boxes over to climb on to open what they set their mind too!
• Child Safety ID. From bracelets with their info inside, to car seat labels, to inside of shoe ID labels - children don’t have to go ‘un-identifiable’ anymore! You don’t ever intend to lose one of them, but they wander off at times. Be prepared by teaching them both parents first and last names, address, phone number - along with having wearable ID on them - so show emergency workers who they are!
• Outlet covers. I panic when we’re at places that don’t have these - being so used to them at our home. My children have radar - especially the baby - going straight for plugs. Read my past post here about these.

I carry all of these and more, I just don’t have them all listed on the site yet - just shoot over an email to orders@heaveninourhomes.com for more information and pricing. Being the last week of Child Safety Month, I’m offering a 15% discount to orders placed before October 1, 2008.

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Side note - I will be transferring HIOH in a few weeks hopefully from Blogger and Yahoo hosting to combine the site and blog at one location. Email addresses will be changing as well. The location for BOTH should still remain www.heaveninourhomes.com, but I’ll alert anyone if it should happen to be different.

Special thanks to all that have been with me since Day 1 - the website has come a long way in it’s appearance, but I still had a few things that I thought needed tweaking.

After posting an ad, I came across someone that is not only rebuilding a template for HIOH/ blog - which, by the way, has a really neat new look….- but she’s also in the process of designing my Nine Months or Less site/ blog.

It’s been really neat having a way to document this pregnancy, since this is the only way it’ll get done! Please stop by there sometime and say hi! I’ll be sharing not only about my pregnancy, but information on things relating to pregnancy, birth, and newborn stages.

Since our family has experienced the pain of miscarriage, I plan on having that topic covered as well at some point in the future. You never know how much pain it causes, until you’ve been there yourself - whether it’s early, middle, late pregnancy, or even after birth. But you should realize that you’re not alone, and the Lord can grant you more peace than you could ever imagine!

Blessings to you all!!

Proverbs 24 – Failure By Theresa Gould

Failure is a part of life. According to my old Webster’s Dictionary, one without a cover, failure means “lack of success, to be lacking”.

Proverbs 24:16 says, “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.”

This one verse stood out to me for the very reason that all of us fail at some point or another and I think that stay-at-home moms are more prone to feeling their failure than many others.

Probably because we are home 24/7, on call 24/7, with our children 24/7 and there is nothing like a little child bringing us to the end of ourselves, is there? When our strength is spent, and we get impatient again, or we utter yet another unkind word, we can be tempted to feel like failures.

However, this verse says that although the just man may fall, he riseth up again. Yes, we fail and yes, we fall, but with Christ we get back up again and move on. There is no reason to stay down. Just like a child learning to walk or ride a bike. They may fall, but they get back up or on again.

I would also like to include this verse:

Ecclesiastes 7:20—“For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”

We all sin.

As well as:

Lamentations 3:18-26—“And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from and my hope is perished from the Lord:

Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.”

I had to include that whole passage because there are many who struggle with falling and struggle to get back up again. We need to get back up. The very nature of God commands that we rise up. We have been called by Him to walk this life with Him by our side.

So when we fail, we need not fear because He is always near. He is our very Hope to succeed through our failures. It is because of His success on the cross that we can be successful in life.

Success means favorable accomplishment; prosperity; one who has achieved success.

Christ is the one that makes us successful by His power, grace and strength.

Mrs. Theresa Gould is Robert’s wife of 14 years. She is the homeschooling mother of seven children. She resides in a Northwest suburb of Chicago with her family. She and her family enjoy reading, walks and working together on their home businesses – Faith and Family Books, as well as RobnT Business Solutions. In her free time, Mrs. Gould can be found reading, writing, or talking with her children.

Ladies, today (Sunday) has been a rough day for me. My oldest has been sick since Friday, my baby was extra fussy today, I’ve had a terrible bout of morning sickness with a throbbing headache all day long, and to top it off - “Daddy” wasn’t in the best mood with everyone being tired and whiny.

I know men aren’t built like us, but it’s so stressful on me as a Mom to see my children not being ‘tenderly’ cared for, especially when they aren’t feeling well. (Dad’s don’t always pick up on when they really aren’t feeling well vs. just wanting attention sometimes either…)

Well, come 5 PM, I was at my breaking point. I slipped away and got in the shower, and cried my heart out as I talked with the Lord. Isn’t it great when we can hear Him speaking back to our hearts???!!!

Here’s kinda how it went:

Me - I can’t do it anymore, I’m just too tired, it’s too hard.

The Lord - It is hard, it was hard for me when I performed my task on Earth. It is tiring, but it has a purpose. This is what I called you to do, raise up my children.

Me - Everything is always a mess, I’m always cleaning up. They can’t keep anything straight.

The Lord - I always cleaned up others messes. My children couldn’t keep their lives straight.

Me - If they would just leave things the way I set them up, neat and orderly - life would be so much easier and cleaner.

The Lord - I have a plan too, and if people would follow things the way I set them up, their lives would be easier. Isn’t it frustrating when you see your children taking the hard road?

Me- But no one cares what I do, they don’t even have a clue how much I do for them…. I’m not appreciated at all.

The Lord - Yes, same here. And even after My faithfulness after thousands of years, most still don’t hardly acknowledge what ALL I do for them, much less do they appreciate it and show their gratefulness.

Me - It’s just too heavy of a burden to bear, I can’t do it.

The Lord - My burden (the Cross) was heavy to bear. I bore it. I’ll never give you more than you can bear.

Me - But there’s no one else that can help me and do things the way I need them to be. I’m all alone, I just need help, just need someone.

The Lord - …… this got me, and I’m getting chills all over again….

YOU’RE NOT ALONE!

Thank you Lord, I love you Lord, I cried over and over - so thankful that although it’s easy to think I’m alone humanly speaking, I’m never alone - He’s always right there!

Toddlers (and even bigger children) have something built into them that says “Touch Me, Stick Something In Me!!!” - don’t they!!

There are many ways to protect your children from electrocuting themselves, some better than others. One of my favorites would have to be these outlet covers below:

We’ve used the ones that you buy in large packs - you know, the clear plugs that stick into the outlet holes. I’m not sure if it’s newer plug covers or what, but in our last two residencies, these are tight to get in (which is good), and nearly impossible to EVER get out (which is good for children, BAD for parents!).

We’ve had to resort to using many (dangerous) items to pull out stuck covers when we’ve needed outlets. Yeah, don’t think it’d feel too good if I got stabbed by some of them if it came loose when I wasn’t expecting it….

I really like these sliding covers, they are easy for adults to use while still protecting little ones! To insert a plug, you have to slide the cover from the side to the middle to match up the holes - and then insert your plug.

There’s nothing on this cover to lose, it screws in place just like a regular outlet cover. The cover automatically slides back to the side when not in use. Product Dimension: 3.88″ x 8″

To order yours- reply to orders@heaveninourhomes.com, subject Outlet Covers. Cost is $4.99 plus $1.95 S/H.

Proverbs 17 - Strife, By Theresa Gould

I have heard some families claim that they do not have to deal with strife, meaning fighting among their children. I find it very hard to believe. However, it seems that they are very few and far between.

The Boyer family who has 14 children have spoken at homeschooling conferences and we have some of their tapes (yes, it was a few years ago when they were still doing tapes!) Mr. Boyer has a couple of talks where he addresses this very subject.

In our family with seven children, it seems as if strife abounds. It grieves our hearts actually because we do pray for our children to love one another and chose to be peacemakers.

Nancy Campbell of Above Rubies is doing a series of email devotionals on Sowing Seeds of Peace, and she gives some practical insights on how we as mothers/parents can be a part of creating a peaceful home.

The Young Peacemaker’s series by Colette Sande is a great resource, as well as her husband’s book “The Peacemaker”. The Sande’s are part of Peacemaker Ministries.

Proverbs 17:1 says, “Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife.”

That says a lot, doesn’t it? We have been known to give a dry morsel of bread for a snack for causing strife. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t and it really all depends on the offense.

This chapter of Proverbs actually says a lot about strife.

Verse 14—”The beginning of strife is as one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before it meddled with.”

Verse 17—”A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Verse 19—”He loveth transgression that loveth strife: and he that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction.”

The following verses seem to fit in well with strife too:

Verse 21—”He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow: and the father of a fool hath no joy.”

Verse 25—”A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him.”

If we want our children to be wise, then we must persevere through their younger years of learning to get along, teaching them what God has to say about fighting and resolving conflict because we want them to learn how to resolve conflicts God’s way; so they will eventually be able to get along with people of all walks of life when they are grown.

We are not there yet, but by the grace of God, we are working on it.

Mrs. Theresa Gould is Robert’s wife of 14 years. She is the homeschooling mother of seven children. She resides in a Northwest suburb of Chicago with her family. She and her family enjoy reading, walks and working together on their home businesses – Faith and Family Books, as well as RobnT Business Solutions. In her free time, Mrs. Gould can be found reading, writing, or talking with her children.

I’m bad, or sad…. not sure which one….

I’ve reached week 10 of my pregnancy, but still feeling the effects of it quite a bit. So, I’d like to send you over to a blog post I did on Sonbeams last Friday entitled “Less Mess, Less Stress”.

Besides three young children and the pregnancy stresses, I’ve come to the conclusion that my house is stressful!

It’s not good that I dread Monday’s. My dh even said it was sad that I dreaded each day - it is! I don’t want to be depressed, when I am so blessed and should be relaxed and enjoying every minute of these blessings I have here!

So, putting aside feelings of attachment to things family members have given me and/ or my children - we’ve begun purging! And purging, and purging!!

I’ve been on this mission for about 2 weeks now, and am starting to see a small difference in the house, though we still have quite a ways to go. I can already see my living room and children’s rooms are easier to clean and keep clean.

Next, I’ll be moving on to our school/ play room, kitchen, then master bedroom and closet. My goal is to take out at least 1 or 2 things each day. I must say our laundry room is getting pretty full (that’s where I’m sticking stuff quickly so the little ones don’t see what’s being ‘outted’).

You can continue reading here. Sorry for the break on character, but sometimes we just have to refresh our memory on keeping a clean, clutter free house - if not for our husbands, but also for our own sanity and calmness!

FYI - As you clean out, do NOT bring in anything else that will add to the clutter you’re cleaning out!! As Christmas time will be here before we know it (and 3 little ones can be so tempting to buy for), we already know that we just don’t have the room or the time to keep up with more stuff.

Consider what we’re planning on doing - buy one large item for all the children to share either indoors or outdoors, then maybe one or two individual gifts. But these need to be things that they will actually use a lot, you have room for, that’s disposable after it’s used, or/ and that’s easy to clean up!

We even hope to get our family in on this too! We’re designating one large ‘collection’ if you will for each child/ or gender - and that’s the one thing they can keep getting more of.

Not that they wouldn’t love more, or it wouldn’t be great to have lots of things - but what’s the exchange? We never can do anything fun because we’re always cleaning up toys!

Well, this week I must share on a product we have that I was ‘oh-so-grateful’ for just this week.

I glanced in our school room the other day, and noticed my 4 and 2 1/2 year old standing near the 5 ft. LOADED bookcase. What caught my attention was the toy golf club that had hanging off of the top of it.

I didn’t think anything about it, since I’ve noticed this club even hanging in the tree in our living room before - kinda caught me off guard. Anyway, I thought they were just seeing if it would stay up there or not.

Well, I was wrong. They were up to something. See, on the very top is where I keep stuff that I don’t want them getting into.

They’ve long since figured out how to pull chairs up to the bookcase and reach things on the shelves, but the tip top is still too high.

That’s where the golf club came in. They were trying to knock the handbells off of the top shelf with it. They didn’t succeed in that, but they did manage to knock down a lot of other stuff - from the top and other shelves.

Boy was I thankful that I had found these furniture brackets, and dh installed them a couple of months ago. I can only imagine that if they hadn’t been holding that bookshelf up, my older two would’ve had it down - on them, and the baby.

That many books alone would’ve really hurt them - without the bookshelf!

We have climbers in our youngest two - and these are something that have been great for us. It gives me a little more peace of mind that they won’t be seriously injured by pulling over a piece of furniture on themselves.

You simply screw the brackets to the wall and back of the furniture, then loop the clip through and you’re set!

I’ve said before, I don’t want to start debating politics here. I already know how I believe the Lord would have me vote, but am continuing to seek His direction.

While I don’t agree with many things about McCain, or a female being VP - I’m not voting for her anyway. It’s the President I’m voting for, not the VP. It’s voting for someone that will choose 3 new judges during his term - judges that will be in place for decades.

Voting for someone that will keep terrorists out, not avoid talking about them - in fear of offending them.

I received this forward today, and especially in light of 9/11, it strikes a deep chord. At least it should in the heart of Americans.

Watch it. Listen to it. Think about your life in the future if Obama is our next President.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4fe9GlWS8

In honor of September 11th, Today, Fly your Flags and be Proud to be American!