(This giveaway is now closed) Hi! Welcome to our very first giveaway post! This year we had the pleasure of meeting Melanie Ellison, author of "Chucking College", at Family Week. We bought an author signed copy of "Chucking College" with the intention of using it in a giveaway for our readers, and Melanie agreed to share a guest post with us. Here is how you can enter to win. 1. Leave a comment telling us one way you strive to live everyday set-apart 2. Share the giveaway on Facebook, or your blog and then comment telling us you did. 3. Tell someone in person about the giveaway, and ask them to comment that you referred them. So there are three possible entries per person. The giveaway will end Tuesday, June 18th, at 12pm and we will be announcing the winner that afternoon. If you would like to purchase your own copy of "Chucking College" it is available at: http://chuckingcollege.com/Home.html We hope you enjoy the following guest post by Melanie Ellison. Blessings, Naomi What will it profit a girl if she gains the whole world but loses her soul, her lifetime financial freedom, her purity, her love of reading, her unique individuality, her entrepreneurial momentum, and four peak years of her life? A college degree may no longer be worth the world to us when we see what we have to surrender for it. The costs for that piece of paper—financial, emotional, spiritual, and temporal—rise higher with every graduation. When we really think it over, a degree may not be necessary to equip us for each of our life purposes as Christian women. Having to spend all one’s time jumping through an institution’s contemporarily-hip course hoops makes it very difficult to find the time to master domestic skills we will need in our future homes. If a young woman spends four to eight years debating worldly philosophy and studying for a career, she is simply not going to possess as much competence in running a home and living a life of self-sacrifice for her man and her babies as the young woman who has been practicing those skills daily. College saps valuable time from preparing for the life many of us hope to live someday—that of a wife and mother. Admittedly, college does have attractive benefits, but not without costs that most often far outweigh them. When family and friends say, “You’re strong enough to keep your faith through college! You won’t become one of the 50-80% who lose their faith at college!” how do you know? Satan fell from heaven and Eve fell from the Garden of Eden! Our hearts are deceitful, and they seek excuses to sin. “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall,” warns 1 Corinthians 10:12. Proverbs 16:17 declares, “The highway of the upright is to depart from evil; he who keeps his way preserves his soul.” Therefore, according to Scripture, the descriptive characteristic of the righteous is that they are set-apart and holy—not loitering and trying to survive in the midst of those who habitually practice sin. If we truly believe that college is often a type of Sodom, then longing for it could be as deadly for us as it was for Lot’s wife, when she looked back. Sodom, her home, was similar to college with all its attractions, stimulations, and ventures into the thrills of the world. She must have despised what was ahead of her by comparison—life in a cave. It was when she doubted the value of her forthcoming life of hardship that she longed for the familiarity she had with the worldliness of Sodom—"the treasures of Egypt,” so to speak. She looked back when she stopped looking ahead to her reward. The enemy desperately wants to get us young ladies out from the protection of our fathers’ homes. That is why we sometimes feel the draw to think that anywhere else would be more productive than being at home. He wants to destroy us, and cannot access us as easily while we remain under authority. Realizing this can help us feel validated at home, and help us move on to be productive (have entrepreneurial businesses and ministries, and exercise hospitality) from the hub of our home. Skipping college does not imply that we are to also give up on advanced education or perfecting our talents. Skills are vitally important to bring glory to the Name of God. Excellence is a work’s glory. So we must look for unique ways to develop skills without necessarily conforming to the college cookie-cutter pattern. *** Melanie Ellison (22) is the author of Chucking College: Achieving Success Without Corruption. Her book reveals the way to obtain an advanced education without having to endure dorm immorality, exorbitant tuition costs, and spiritual assault. Go to www.chuckingcollege.com to discover how skipping college may be the best educational decision you ever make. Or purchase through Amazon.com |
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Hello readers! Fun news- Last year Naomi told me about a Torah Observant ministry called “Shining Stars Magazine”.SSM was started by a Torah Observant young lady who wanted to encourage other young ladies.
You can read more about Shining Stars’ mission on their website http://shiningstarsmagazine.com/about/ As I looked at their website I noticed the “Wanted- Interviews!” on their side bar. They were looking for Stay-at-home daughters, wives and mothers who would be willing to answer some questions and share their testimony. I e-mailed Hannah to let her know that I would be interested in taking the interview. Are you a Stay-at-home daughter? Maybe you could take the interview too! I’d love to see your answers. Hopefully you don’t take as long to complete it as I did. I won’t tell you how long it took me… but maybe I started it at the beginning of January. Since then Hannah has posted my interview on the site and I wanted to share it with anyone who is interested. There are also interviews from others that you can read if you like- HERE Here's a link for my interview- My INTERVIEW Link ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...make lemonade!!! and that is exactly what we did. This is one of my favorite drinks. Here is the recipe (makes 1 gallon) 2 cups lemon juice 1 1/2 cups sugar boiling water ice water Be sure to rinse the lemons before cutting. Juice lemons with hand juicer until you have 2 cups. Pour lemon juice through a strainer to make sure you do not get any pulp or seeds At this point you might be thinking 2 cups!!!! (finally) Now start some water boiling. Pour lemon juice into pitcher. Pour sugar into pitcher. Pour in the boiling water (enough to dissolve the sugar). Stir the sugar until it is all dissolved. Add ice and water to fill it to one gallon. Time to taste it. View point from a brother that has FOUR sisters- My name is Sherman Potts, I am going to tell you the pros and cons of having FOUR (yep I said 4) sisters!!! CONS: 1) There is hair everywhere! (you don’t want to know how hard it is to get that much hair out of the vacuum!) 2) They can “punch” you, but you can’t punch back… At least that wouldn’t be gentlemanly. 3) There is ALWAYS girl talk going on somewhere in the house! 4) On preparation day (Friday) I end up with something that looks like this: Naomi-“Sherman, would you please load the dishwasher?” Bethany-“Sherman, can you put all the shoes away?” Emily-“Sherman, would you please bring down the vacuum?” Lydia-“Sherman, could you pick up everything in the library?” This results because none of them realize that everyone else asked me to do something too. PROS: 1)They give the best hugs. 2) Make the best meals. 3) Teach you how to mow the lawn, vacuum, and clean the hair out of the shower :) 4) We never lack for a good dessert. 5) When you don’t feel well you have FIVE “mothers”! 6)There is always someone to read with. 7) I am rarely “in charge” of the kitchen. 8) I don’t need to bother Mom to cut my hair (as long as I don’t mind a mess up here and there…I don’t) After looking at the pros and cons, I realize it's pretty special to have FOUR (4) sisters! Sherman is our 12 year old brother, he loves to play the shofar for our family and he is always ready to learn more about how things work. Sherman enjoys learning about biblical science. His favorite science teachers are Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Dr. Jay L. Wile, and Brad Scott. |
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