Last weekend (before Abigail's big college move in day) we had our Back to School Blessing dinner.
This is now a long standing tradition in our family. It helps us to end the summer, reflect on our lives, look at the direction we want to strive toward, and build each other up for what is to come.
It takes me all summer to come up with our theme, color scheme, the menu, and the gifts. Most of my ideas come to me during my quiet time: early mornings in the summer when I can pray, journal my prayers, read the Bible and devotionals I love. I always journal what I am learning and what the Holy Spirit reveals to my heart. So after some time our "back to school theme" just kind of reveals itself. I love how it come out of my 'God times'.
This year as usual there were beautiful back to school engraved stained glass stars. I order those early in the summer and have them engraved with the girls school, year, and name. They both have quite a collection now and I hope they hang them in their homes someday as a reminder of their education journey.
I decorated the table on our screened in porch simply but I just love the way it turned out. These are old dishes, new to me, and I think they are so pretty. I even have the teapot which is my favorite teapot now. The twinkle lights were hanging and the sun was just getting a little lower in the sky when we got started.
After stars, our feast was next. I let the girls pick the menu this year but only if they picked out of my fall cookbooks. We loved this meal.
And then of course we had dessert.
I shared our theme for our school year: A Breed Apart: What does it mean to be set apart?
Although when we talk last into the evening about our theme and I present our message it's more of a conversation. That makes it difficult to put into words here on this blog. It just doesn't seem to come out right because after I explain it all we talk talk talk it all out until it really evolves into what makes sense to all of us. It's what our family does and we love it. But I will put a few points here so my girls can look back some day:
~ God wants us to walk in holiness
~ That means seeing our lives with eternity in mind
~ We must put away any root idols in our lives and anything that we look fora as our primary source of valus, joy, popularity that is not of God
~ Holiness means we must spend time in His Word
~ A holy person is committed to growing in love because this is what pleases God
~ Loving means putting away anger and harshness and seeing the other person through the eyes of serving and encouraging them
~ Holiness believes in God's presence in every moment of the day
We spent a lot of time talking about how to seek God and find him our lives on a daily basis with the new directions we are going in this year (my girls) Here are a few ideas I told my girls:
~ go through the psalms and circle or underline every promis or character quality of God (example: Psalm 23)
~ read one chapter of John or Matthew each day and write down one lesson you learned
~ read through Philippians and notice all the ways Paul tells you to follow Jesus
~ read the book of Hebrews to learn the lessons of what pleases God, the attributes of Jesus and his will for us to hold fast
~ read a chapter of Proverbs each day and keep a list of what this book teachers you about folly vs. wisdom
~ there are also so many ways to be with Jesus that are close to you: go to adoration, daily Mass, stop at church on the way home from school and sit and pray in his presence for a while.
~ we talked about the times in our lives when we put Jesus first and what happened when we did.
It was a beautiful, powerful night. I am so grateful for our little family and walking by faith.
Past years:
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