I woke up this morning and realized I hadn’t done my usual task of preparing this email last evening. So I’m pulling it together this morning, staving off the cat begging for breakfast, and discovering that creating an email first thing in the morning is nowhere nearly as wearying as doing it after a full day’s work. Maybe I should re-think my pattern here!
Around the Web
Goodness: Becoming a Good Mother
Hannah Anderson reminds us of what the measure of goodness is.
- “Good job! You did such a good job!” Before I became a mother, I had no idea how many times I’d say these words.
“Good job!” I exclaimed when my daughter rolled from back to tummy.
“Good job!” I cheered when my son took his first steps.
“Good job!” I sighed with relief when my youngest finally learned to run to the potty.
“Good job!” I quietly affirmed as they struggled to put sounds to letters and letters together to words.
Before I became a mother, I had no idea how many times I would say the words “Good job.” I also had no idea how much I would long to hear them for myself.
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A Booklist for Mama
Sarah Mackenzie of Read Aloud Revival has a new booklist–this time for the reader!
- Here at Read-Aloud Revival, we focus on helping our kids fall in love with reading… but what about our own reading life?
Too often, we let ourselves slide into a habit of not reading.
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Prayers for Our Children
Kathleen Neilson points us to prayer.
- Praying for the children of the church is a church-wide job. Congregations often stand up and promise to help parents nurture a child in the fear and admonition of the Lord—and that includes praying for that child. I look back through years of parenting and see the church continually and prayerfully flanking our family, and I thank God for his people all along the way.
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A Meditation from Dane Ortlund on Psalm 42
The author of Gentle and Lowly has a new book of meditations on the psalms.
- Sinclair Ferguson writes of Dane Ortlund’s In the Lord I Take Refuge: 150 Daily Devotions through the Psalms: “The author whose Gentle and Lowly has helped so many to see Christ more clearly takes us gently by the hand to Jesus’s own devotional manual, the prayer book he loved, and the blueprint for his own life and ministry, and leads us to him all over again, day after day.”
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Around the Warren
Extravagance
Caitlin Clase looks at the wonderful world and worships.
- I stepped out my door yesterday evening to find a sky of the gentlest, most kindly gray imaginable, every edge and angle softened by a pale, pearled light. Come sunset though, that mild sky had leapt up into a wildly riotous shout of color, the sharp black outlines of the pines at the end of our street standing in lightning strike contrast to the fiery orange and white hot pink burning behind them.
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Pandemic Picture Books
Laura Peterson points us to some books that help make sense of the pandemic.
- As new books for summer begin to roll into my library, I’m starting to see more and more picture books that specifically address the COVID-19 pandemic, and I wanted to highlight a few for Story Warren readers. An article I read in graduate school about the importance of children’s books really stuck with me—it emphasized the importance of content for children that deals with their own lived experiences. If kids are living through it or seeing it, there should be a book about it. I think that’s an idea with some merit, especially when it comes to big life events that children might find difficult to process….like a global pandemic, for instance.
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Something to Do with Your Kids
I grew up using homemade playdough, and I still can smell the scent of it. Want to try your hand at making your own? Here’s a great recipe! (it sounds a lot like what my mom used to make—I was an adult before I discovered more uses for cream of tartar.)
Something to Watch
I grew up in the home of a photographer, so film was part of my childhood. I found this explanation of how film actually works fascinating.
Thanks for reading. We’re on your side.
–The Story Warren Team
You can find her at carolyncgivens.com or on Facebook or Instagram at @carolyncgivens.
- The Warren & the World Vol. 9, Issue 28 - July 24, 2021
- The Warren & the World Vol 9, Issue 27 - July 17, 2021
- The Warren & The World Vol 9, Issue 26 - July 3, 2021
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