The Word Worker

Tag: Challenges

  • If You Know How to Look

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    wordworkerrussell
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    Today my husband and I spent the day outdoors. It’s the height of autumn here in the south, and this year has brought us a particularly fine one. The normally green beauty of the woods has flamed with color, and the lake bottom is rusty with orange and purple. I revel in the crisper air…

  • Work and Purpose

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    wordworkerrussell
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    When people talk about parenting challenges, they usually talk about toddlers or teenagers. No one really addresses the middle years, the years of learning, discovery, and character shaping. My ten year old son is right smack in the middle of those years. For several months now his behavior has been, well, challenging. We’ve been unable…

  • Tuned

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    wordworkerrussell
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    An old hymn from 1758 begins with the words: “O thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy praise.” These days we have all sorts of electronic gadgets and apps for instrument tuning, which takes some of the meaning out of the phrase. When I began taking music lessons, a few decades…

  • The “Whatever It Is” Life

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    wordworkerrussell
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    Yesterday my kids held their annual pumpkin carving session. Because buying a pumpkin for every family member in a household of seven puts something of a strain on the already holiday stretched budget, they team up. Boys get one pumpkin, girls get the other. As you can imagine, this is not a situation that leads…

  • “We Need a King”

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    wordworkerrussell
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    How many times have you heard people complain about something wrong or unpleasant then demand that someone do something to fix that problem? Throughout history this has been a common human reaction. If we are honest as individuals, we have probably all done it at some point. The prophet Samuel accomplished a great deal with…

  • Book Review: The Tattooist of Auschwitz

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    wordworkerrussell
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    When Lale walked beneath the lie that dressed the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau, he intended to keep his head down and do whatever he was told, whatever he had to do to avoid being killed. He hadn’t counted on two impossible events: being chosen as the tattooist’s assistant, and falling in love in the death camps.…

  • Mr. Meanie

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    wordworkerrussell
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    “I was yelling at Mr. Meanie! He just WON’T! LEAVE! ME! ALONE! I can’t do anything right anymore!” The above came from my tearful, sobbing seven year old son. He had thrown his playthings and rushed to his room growling like a cornered tiger. To an outsider it might have looked like a temper tantrum,…

  • Inside

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    wordworkerrussell
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    “What is this place?” Dax blinked in the shaft of light streaming through the scrollwork of the single window high overhead. His head hurt; for some reason he couldn’t remember how he got here. Wherever here was. In the narrow fringes of light he could see walls covered with ornately designed panels, gold-leaf scrollwork glinting…

  • Learning Outside the Box

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    wordworkerrussell
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    I’ve always found it hard to explain to questioners what we do as homeschoolers. Not because I don’t know what we do, but because most questioners have preconceived ideas of what constitutes education. They want to know what grade a child is in, what their letter or number grades are, what subjects they are taking,…

  • Peace, Be Still

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    wordworkerrussell
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    When God called Moses from the burning bush, Moses already knew God. He had already felt a calling to help his people, a purpose greater than himself. Because his early efforts had failed, what he did not feel was equipped. He pleaded to be excused from the task because he did not think he had…