Heart Reflections Live

I always look forward to getting the book and media catalogues from our Christian Book Store, Koorong in the mail. I think it's great that there are so many avenues God uses to get His Word out there, indeed I long for the day when more of these products will be found in the mainstream stores and not just the Christian ones. Now, don't get me wrong here, I have nothing against Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber as such- the same goes for Max Lucado's Hermie and Friends. They provide clean, moral entertainment for Christian children, with a child level faith message from the Bible (Though I feel compelled to add that these entertainments should never be relied upon to teach the gospel or the Bible accurately, and they Should never take the place of plain, old-fashioned family devotions). But I believe that products such as The Veggietales Bible and The Hermie Bible go too far.
The Holy Bible is SACRED. It is to be esteemed above ALL OTHER BOOKS, and should never be filled with cartoon type characters to make it more relevant or appealing to children. It is timeless- it transcends age or time. It is as relevant to a child as it is to the elderly. If YOU love and read the Bible AND READ IT TO YOUR CHILDREN, then they will come to love it too. We only use the King James Version in our home and Church, and our children have no trouble with it. They get used to the language very quickly. We Do use Bible Story Books with reverent pictures in them, but explain the difference between Stories and The Bible itself.

I guess I hoped on my soapbox a bit, but I really think they've gone TOO far. What do you think?

Labels: Bible, commercialism

Nesting urges are in full swing at our home in the hills, and though physical strength is still lacking, I've started sorting and washing baby clothes, and my head is ticking away with ideas for the playroom/homeschool room.

While we've never intended to buy a lot of new stuff for blessings 3 and 4, mainly because we want our children to learn to share freely, my research on the dangers of certain plastics (PVC in toys being another one) has turned my mind to consider shopping for some wooden boys toys. (with no lead paint that is!)

I've always been very much a traditionalist when it comes to children's toys, preferring to stay away from the electronic and media-driven commercialism for children.(Eg. things to do with TV shows and movies etc). It's the same with their clothing, while we don't make much fuss over an occasional Pooh Bear or Thomas the Tank Engine motif, for the most part I prefer to stick with generic patterns or plain clothes.

We'll probably keep a few plastic items like our plain Duplo and construction toys, farm animals etc. Both our girls enjoy playing with these, and they are toys either gender can enjoy. I've already packed the really girly dress-up stuff into a special toybox just for the girls, making sure that anything left in our dress-up-hat -box is either boyish or gender neutral. I'm also sorting slowly through every toybox- like medical kits etc- removing any chokable size items until the little ones to come are older. This is something I've always strived to do before the babies come.

I can't wait till our playroom is all organised. The homeschool end is pretty much done and fuctional and very soon hubby and some of our friends will be carpeting the other end, with the blessing of free carpet and underlay we recently received.

So what do I envisige our little boys playing with...wooden trains, planes and cars, construction toys,spinning tops, boats, the bible character toys my hubby got off EBAY- NO Spiderman, Hulk or PS3's for our little men! I see them playing ball in the backyard, playing noble Princes with their Princess Sisters and gardening with Daddy in the backyard. Simple good clean fun coupled with learning to look after their Mama and Sisters, and learning the value of hard work.

And as we've done with our other children, reading Bible Stories and Beatrix Potter and Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories to them from birth, to foster hearts that love Jesus and produce life-long learners.

I can't wait to meet our little boys (Dec 2 is my C-section date), to be back in the land of lullabies and Teddy Bears- OK, yes AND sleepless nights- don't interrupt my reverie. We are indeed both looking forward to parenthood again...

Labels: commercialism, parenthood, sons, toys