Biblical Verse of the Day: John and his message were authorized by Isaiah's prophecy:

Thunder in the desert! Prepare for God's arrival! Make the road smooth and straight! Matthew 3:3 (The Message). When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: "Brood of snakes! What do you think you're doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It's your life that must change, not your skin!" Matthew 3:7-9 (The Message)


Finding Purpose: If there is anyone who has read this section of the blog, has gone through the steps and would still like clarification or someone to work with to help better "declutter" your life and help to bring about peace and balance or even help to seek out your purpose, I would love to take the time to help if you are willing to do a little work to get there. I am not someone who is a problem fixer but someone who will listen objectively and ask you questions to bring out your own hidden answers to what it is you really want in your life or what you feel God is calling you to do. There is no charge for my time, I offer this as a way for me to stay "On Purpose" and as a way to help someone else better succeed in their own lives. If you are interested, I would love to hear from you! I can be reached at ammasson@comcast.net .


Homeschool Discoveries: I think today's bible message says it all. We are preparing to smooth the road ahead with how we are raising and teaching our children. When you first start this journey, you don't always realize what a life change you are in for, you just know that you want something different for your children for whatever reason. In time, you will see that homeschooling is not only something you do but how you decide to live. If you have decided in your heart that this if the right path and fit for your family, and you have a real purpose for taking this path (your written purpose or things you want for you kids in the end of education) than you will be better equipped to weather the storms of life that will come at you and question your decision. Mary Pride writes a great book called "The complete guide of how to get started with homeschooling". It is a great book to read for reasons one decides to homeschool. It will be easy for you to see if those reasons are ones you agree with or not.


Personal Discoveries: What would you do differently if you knew Jesus was coming today? Would you worry about tomorrow? Would you be disappointed about something in your day not working out the way you had wished? Would you let fear and doubt stop you from accomplishing something you have always wanted to try? If Jesus were coming today, what would you have to loose? Nothing! Because he is always with you anyway. We just have to open our eyes to realize that and choose to walk with Him instead of choosing to walk with fear! Change is from the inside, not what is only on the skin.

Biblical Verse of the Day: In the same way I was with Moses, I'll be with you. I won't give up on you; I won't leave you. Strength! Courage! You are going to lead this people to inherit the land that I promised to give their ancestors. Give it everything you have, heart and soul......don't get off track, either left or right, so as to make sure you get to where you're going.......Don't be timid; don't be discouraged. God, your God is with you every step you take. Joshua 1:1-9 (The Message)

Finding Purpose: *Step 5* You now have your Ideal schedule in place to give you direction on how you want to spend your time. Next and last thing to think about is how you will give back to your community. Part of living is giving. This could be on your own or with your family. Just like tithing, giving should encompass 10% of your time or resources. Giving can be donating your time, your skills or money that goes to help others make a difference in the lives of others. Use your purpose to find a place to make a difference. Into your Ideal day, find some time to add your daily giving. This could be time given to your kids spent playing games or reading to them when you may have not done this before, it could be helping an elderly neighbor with a project, lawn care or grocery shopping. It could be donating your time to a local charity, churhc event or ministry, teaching classes, mentoring a child or teen, community clean up, the list goes on and on. Remember to find something that matches up with your purpose. When you are fully engaged, it will be a win win situation not only for the person or persons you are helping but for yourself as well. BE ON PURPOSE.

Homeschool Discoveries: Homeschooling is a calling I feel God leads us to. Think of how God is using you to lead your children into their futures. Sometimes it may feel that the path of homeschooling is rough and that you are on this path alone. What can you do in those times? Do you have a homeschool buddy who you can talk with about situations that come up? Are you involved in a good support group? Have you ever considered a homeschooling coach to help you with achieving what it is you really want within your homeschool and/or life and to keep you accountable to your chosen path? Remember that God is always with you with every step you take. Learn to rely on him, pray about what change you need to make, and ask him for guidence when times get rough. Have the courage to follow him in this journey and to stay on the path that he has led you to.

Personal Discoveries: What is God leading you to do in your life? What is the fear that has become your road block? Rely on God and he will give you the courage and strength you need to clear the road before you. Plan your trip, map it out. This will help you stay the course.

Biblical verse of the day: As he preached he said, "The real action comes next: The star in this drama, to whom I'm a mere stagehand, will change your life. I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. His baptism-a holy baptism by the Holy Spirit-will change you from the inside out." Mark 1:7-8 (The Message)

Finding Purpose: *Step 4* Now that you have your one ultimate want in clear view, we today, are going to work on making an "Ideal Day" schedule. We will take our main want along with our other top wants from your other life categories and decide how much time in your day do you want to devote to each. Let's say you have an average of 15 hours or so of wake time each day. How much of that time do you want to devote to your #1 want, how much time for each of your other top wants. Here is an example below of what I mean.

Family want= 7hrs
Health/recreation want=1 1/2 hrs
Spiritual want=1hr
Social/community want=1hr

and so on. Make a list of each of your categories and then decide how much time you will spend on each per day. Once you have done that you are ready to make a Ideal Day schedule based on 1/2 hr increments of time from the time you get up until the time you go to bed. Fit all of your categories into whichever times of day they work best for you. While you are at it, beside the live category, list the top want that you will be working on at that time. Example:

730am-830am Spiritual want- read and understand the Bible/pray and reflect on verses
830-3pm Family want- eat breakfast together then have a rocken/lively and enjoyable
homeschool experience together.

Continue for your whole day.

Remember that this is an "IDEAL" day. This is something to keep in the foregrounds when you are tempted by other activities that may come up that do not relate to those things you have chosen as your top wants. It is a way to clear out the clutter and keep you focused on what really matters to you instead of just flowing with the wind from day to day with no direction.

Homeschool Discoveries: In what direction is God calling you in your homeschool experience? Is there something that he has been calling you to do or change that you need to commit to being obedient to? Take the time to make a plan for that calling or change and know that you are not going it alone. If you feel strongly enough for it in your heart, maybe the Holy Spirit is trying to work within you to move you in that direction. What has been stopping you? Fear? Not sure where to start? Pray about it and know that with God, all things are possible.

Personal Discoveries: If it is peace you are after; simplify your life. If it is love you are after; give it away to someone, take the time to really listen to others needs. If it freedom you want; let go of your control. If it is support or encouragement you want; give it to someone else. You have to be willing to let go in order to receive.

Biblical Verse of the Day: "Whoever is a slave must make the best of it, giving respect to his master so that outsiders don't blame God and our teaching for his behavior. Slaves with Christian masters all the more so-their masters are really their beloved brothers!"
1Timothy 6:1-2 (the Message)

Finding Purpose: *Step 3* Now that you have come down to one major want in each category of your life, it is time to make things even more clear. Now you will run a tournament with those top choices from each life area until there is just one ultimate want that stands out for you. This process might take a little more time and thought. You may have to give some things up for now to make room for that ONE all important thing, but I promise you that this process will allow you to see clearly what is the most important want for you at this time in your life and will allow you to use it as a guide for all the daily decisions you make and for all the activities you come in contact with. Do they match up with your major want or are they just fluff in your schedule. Obviously life happens and you do not have 100% of your time to focus on only that one want. We will get to that tomorrow. At this point is should be pretty exciting to have chosen and or discovered that ultimate want. Please share with me what you have discovered, I would love to hear from you. You can leave me a comment or email me at ammasson@comcast.net

Homeschool Discoveries: Which ever curriculum you choose, remember not to become a slave to it! Sometimes is is easy to get caught up in the "we must follow each lesson to a tee" mentality when sometimes all that leads to is frustration and struggle. Let yourself be free to being flexible and to following the lead of the Holy Spirit, not the curriculum. Your curriculum is a tool to help guide you along your homeschooling journey but it is not the ultimate guide; look to God for that.

Personal Discoveries: Everyone is a slave to something in this world. Who or what is your master? Money? Success? Your Possessions? Yourself? Food? The list goes on. Ultimately, I believe we are to be a slave to Love; Love for others by serving them and Love to God: Creator of everything that ever was, is and will be. What can you do today to show love and be a blessing to someone around you?

Biblical Verse of the day: "There is an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth: A right time for birth and another for death........A right time to plant and another to reap.........A right time to cry and another to laugh..........A time to embrace and another to part........A right time to hold on and another to let go......." Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (The Message)

Finding Purpose: *Step 2* When you feel you have completed all of your want lists and can think of nothing else for the time being, we are going to run a tournament on each area of your life. What is a tournament? It is the process we will use to narrow down each want list to your ONE most important want at this time of your life in each of your areas. How we will do this is by taking one of your life area want lists, and going through those wants, two at a time to slowly whittle it down to the "one man left standing". Example; Say I start with my family want list. I take the first two wants listed and choose between the two. If you could only pick one of them, which is the most important to you at this time? What season you are in in your life may determine which one is highest on your list for now. That is not to say that you can never have or accomplish the other want but for now, one should rule over the other. Once you have picked your choice from #1 want and #2 want, then you will do the same thing between #3 and #4 wants (pick the most important of those to you). Do that all the way down your list using the diagram shown below until you ultimately come to one superior want for that life area, then move on to the next life area and do the same until you have one major want for each life area.
Example tournament diagram process:

Want 1____
=____(either 1 or 2)
Want 2____
=________
Want 3____
=____(either 3 or 4)
Want 4____
=_________(your most important)
Want 5____
=____(either 5 or 6)
Want 6____
=_________
Want 7____
=____(either 7 or 8)
Want 8____

and so on

Please feel free to ask questions if you need help.

Homeschool Discoveries: Once you have your purpose for homeschooling determined and your purpose written down, now it is time to decide which materials or approach to try on. There is a wonderful website I have run upon which is really good for having you create your own curriculum design for your family(be it using a certain curriculum or really designing your own style and materials). It is
www.design-your-homeschool.com It is a very helpful interactive site for helping you to find a good fit.

Personal Discoveries: Many times, we come to some hard decision times in our lives; so many things to do, so many things we want to do, so many choices of things to participate in that it can get pretty confusing on what is really important at the end of the day. Because of your wants and desires and perhaps not wanting to turn anything down or have to say no, we get caught up into a whirlwind of activities that fill our schedules and have us run from one point to another with out really being fulfilled by any of it. In the Bible, God says that there is a time and place or season(today's verse) for each of these things. This is why I have included the activities under Finding Purpose. To help us to see what we really want in our lives right now and to clear out the clutter which can tend to make our days a blur. Live your live on purpose not at the will of a cluttered schedule.

Biblical Verse of the day: Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them- living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Romans 8:5-7 (The Message)

Finding Purpose: *Step One* Take 8 pieces of blank writing paper and a pencil or pen with you to a nice, quiet sitting area. Pick a spot in which is comfortable to you and that may inspire you as you reflect on your task. Label each of the pieces of paper with a title which represents an area of your life and add the word want list after it. Here are 8 examples of ares you may want to incorporate for your titles; Family wantlist, Health/Recreation or Activities wantlist, Financial or Material wantlist, Vocation/Career wantlist, Social/Community wantlist, Spiritual wantlist, Mental/Intellectual wantlist, or any other title that may apply to a different aspect of your life. You should have no more than 8 categories. If you do, narrow down or combine them if you can.
Now, start writing. Write anything that comes to your mind, no matter how far fetched it may sound to you, just keep your ideas flowing of what you want for your life in each of those categories. Really spend some time with this and write down as many things as your mind will allow. It does not matter how big, small the want is or if you think you have time for it right now or if it is a want for a future time in your life, write it down! If you need to, walk away from your want lists for a while and come back to them again a little later. The point is to have fun with this and really allow yourself to dream and visualize what you want for your life.

Homeschool Discoveries: Bottom line; you have to be comfortable with the curriculum you are using and the method you choose to use. It is your journey, not anyone elses. This is not school where one curriculum is fitted to every child or every teacher has to have the same style of teaching. A good staple to start with is having a purpose for your homeschool. Why are you on this journey? What do you want out of it for your children? Imagine you are at the finish line of homeschooling, your children are about to go out into the world on their own, what would you have wanted them to learn during your time with you? Is it only academics? What else would be of value to them to being independent in such a dependant world? Write these things down and they will serve to help you create a purpose and direction and give meaning to your homeschool

Personal Discoveries: You are who you are. Don't settle for less. Go out and BE yourself. Don't stop believing in your abilities.

Biblical verse of the day: Do what your king (God) commands; you gave a sacred oath of obedience. Don't worryingly second guess your orders or try to back out when the task is unpleasant. You're serving his pleasure, not yours. Ecclesiastes 8:2-4 (The Message).

Finding your Purpose: Are you ready to set out on a journey that will give you the peace, balance and clarity that you have been looking for? Are you not sure if you are on the right path or do you feel like you are just running on a hamster wheel leading to no where? Come with me on a journey to put the peace and joy back into your life. I will guide you through the steps from "the on purpose person" book that will help you do just that.......lead you to being on purpose.

Homeschool Discoveries: There are many paths up the same mountain. Your homeschooling journey will no doubt be different from the next. Learn, discover and teach the way that God leads you for your family. He has a different purpose for each of us in this endevor.

Personal Discoveries: It does not matter how many times you change your hairstyle, change your curriculum, change hobbies, never finish a book you start or come up with new ideas that never make it to fruitation, that may just be how you are. It is o.k. to be an explorer and a dreamer; the world always needs people to keep the rest of us on our toes and always guessing.

Getting started

Well, I have finally entered the world of blogging.
On this site, I hope you will find inspiration for your own life through my postings on finding your purpose, homeschool discoveries, my favorite biblical verses, and finding the positives within your day. Please feel free to leave comments or questions.