Celebrating a Year of Feasts

Each year, Pete and I look at how we will disciple our girls.  What things are we keeping?  What have they grown out of?   What do we want to try to add?  This year we have decided to celebrate the major Old Testament feasts as a family.  Last year we celebrated Passover with a Seder on the Thursday before Easter.  It add so much to our holiday - making the weekend truly holy days - that we want to do it again and add in a few more.

We'd like to invite your family to join us.  I am sharing our calendar with you so you can start planning ahead as well.  Prior to each feast I will share  a post about the history of the feast and how we are planning on celebrating/observing it.  Afterwards I will share photos - because we all love some photos right.

Please understand that our desire is to remember the works of the Lord and to tell them to our children - a command repeated throughout the Old Testament.  It is not our intent to try to observe Old Testament feasts as any sort attempt to keep the Law, that through Jesus we are no longer under.  Our salvation and freedom come through the blood of Christ alone, not through the keeping of feasts, law, or ritual.

Two resources that I will be drawing from are;  Finding Your Place at the Table of Tradition by Derek Leman (a wonderful study I recommend to all), and Walk with Y'shua Through the Jewish Year by Janie-sue Wertheim and Kathy Shapiro ( a wonderful family resource provided through Jews for Jesus).

Here is the calendar.  Our family will attempt to celebrate as close to these dates as possible, but since we are not observing these feasts as Law, we are going to offer ourselves a lot of grace.

Passover:  April 3rd-11th.  We will have our family Seder on Maundy Thursday which is April 2.
Shavuot:  May 23-25
Rosh Hashanah:  Sept 13-15
Yom Kipper:  Sept 22-23
Sukkot: Sept 27- Oct 4th
Hanukkah:  Dec 6th -14th

Has your family ever celebrated any of these feasts?  I would love to hear your experiences.  Please comment below or email me at wendyandersonschulz@gmail.com

The Mid Life Joy Challenge #midlifeJOY

God recently had a little smack down talk with me.   In light of my impending 40th birthday, God had a question for me:

 "If you're not happy now, with all I have given you, when will you be happy?"  

I didn't have an answer.
You see, I live my life chasing happiness on the tail of one little word -  WHEN.  

I will be happy WHEN I am married - CHECK
I will be happy WHEN we have a child - CHECK, CHECK
I will be happy WHEN we move to that house - CHECK
I will be happy WHEN we make XX amount a year - CHECK
I will be happy WHEN I have a good career - CHECK

There's a never ending list of WHEN's you can chase.  I have more freedom, luxury, security, love, and pleasure than 99% of the world's population. I have been saved for eternity by the blood of my Savior.  Yet when people ask "How are you?" my most common answers are;  busy, tired, or fine.  If I'm honest, I have to admit that I'm not a very happy person.  You see there's still a list:

I will be happy WHEN I lose 50 lbs - 
I will be happy WHEN we are out of debt -
I will be happy WHEN ...

So, I had no answer for God.

Sitting in the silence of our conversation He whispered a new word to me:  JOY.  Joy?  That surprised me.  Not contentment, or even happiness?   He whispered JOY.   He whispered it into my ear like a reminder, an assignment, a challenge.  God wants me, His daughter, to be full of JOY now, not later, not WHEN, but now, because it's already been given to me.  You see JOY is very different than happiness.  

Happiness is a feeling human's seek, JOY is a gift God has given us. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Happiness is fleeting, JOY is eternal (John 14:1-3) 
Happiness is self-centered, JOY is God-centered.  (Psalm 1:23)
Happiness is fragile, JOY is strength.  (Nehemiah 8:10)

I've accepted the challenge to start living out a life of joy.  I'd like to invite you to join me.  
This year-long project will consist of monthly themes that will force us to take a look into areas of our lives that are stealing our Joy.  We'll look at what God says about these areas, memorize truth-giving scripture, and then walk out these truth with a challenge.  Each month I will post at the beginning of the month about the theme and challenge, at the end of the month I will post a personal recap of how I walked out the challenge.  

The challenge for January is to decide to join me in the Mid Life Joy Challenge.  If you are not subscribed to The Celebrated Family - you can do so on the right hand side of the website.  With the remaining days of January share a picture on Twitter, Instagram, of Facebook with the tag #midlifeJOY.  Let's keep our eyes open for JOY and share it with one another.  

Winner Announcement: Devotions for a Healthier You

I recruited some help to announce the winner of Devotions for a Healthier You by Katie Farrell.  Thank you for all the comments here, and on Facebook, sharing your one step toward health.  I pray blessings over the steps you desire to take this year in becoming a healthier you.  

Devotions for a Healthier You

Today kicks off our Family Faith Resources series.  We all have limited time and money to put into finding great resources for our family, so I aim to help you this year with reviews of great new books and movies ... and I'm giving them away!

Fellow mommas,  today's resource is just for you.  Katie Farrell's Devotions for a Healthier You is a treasure of a book.  It is lovely. It's the type of book that reassures me that the art form of book publishing is alive and well.

After seeing too many bad books out there that try to combine health, weight, and Jesus, I have to admit I am leery of the Christian health genre.  I'm just not interested in another "pray the weight away," product.   Devotions for a Healthier You could not be farther from that cliché.  Katie Farrell has crafted devotions to help woman dive into the Word of God to find their true beauty, strength, and health.  Devotions cover such topics as:  knowing who we are, finding contentment, people pleasing, and laying your burdens down.  The fact that Katie genuinely seeks to find her identity and beauty in Christ is evident throughout the book.  These are not hollow words she writes. You can hear her story here.

Each devotions is based on scripture and ends with prayer.  These short devotions would pair well with journaling, or would be a great mid-day break for busy mommas who just aren't going to get in a 45 minute Beth Moore study each day.  This book is going to be one of my go-to gifts this year.  I know it will bless my friends and fellow mommas.

Sprinkled throughout the devotions are recipes and "dashes of inspiration" which make the book a treat to thumb through over a cup of tea.  The book also includes prayers for health, and identity scriptures, which would both be great for memory work or written out on a sticky note on your mirror or desk.  The book concludes with a sample week meal plan.  (If this leaves you wanting more, you can find it on her website Dashing Dish)

We are a few weeks in to the New Year.  Do you have the goal of making 2015 a healthier year, be it physically, spiritually, or both?  Farrell writes, "Living a healthy lifestyle does not have to be hard work or a drastic change.  The best place to start is by making small changes in your everyday life."  (pg vii)

One of the changes I am making this year is making appointments to exercise on my calendar, and treating those appointments as valuable as work appointments. What one change are you planning on making?  Maybe it's to have a regular time to read the Word?  Maybe it's to start eating healthier?  I'd love to hear your changes in the comment section below.    On Friday Jan 16th, I will select one reader from the comments to receive a free copy of this beautiful book.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year friends,
I hope your holidays held their share of fun, family, and faith.  Here is a peak into what my family has been doing for the last three weeks....

Yep - pretty awesome.  We have been enjoying a lot of sun, family, friends and downtime in the Bahamas.  But now we are home and there are some exciting things happening that I have been bursting to tell you about!

2015 finds our family joining a new church family.  I will be serving as the Director of Family Ministries at The Point Church.  The Point Church is a multi-site church with locations in Raleigh, Cary, and Apex.  Their leadership has an incredible heart for pointing people to Jesus - our whole family is excited to join this growing, dynamic, and diverse faith family.

There are exciting plans for The Celebrated Family as well.  My mission is to encourage and equip parents to grow in and pass on their faith to the next generation.  This year there will be three year-long projects happening on the blog to help reach that mission.  I hope you will be as excited as I am!

1.  Encourage - Mid Life Joy Series #midlifeJOY.  In three three I turn 40!  That's right, I am solidly middle aged now, no getting around it.  Over the last few years I have struggled with being stressed and grumpy.  Anyone else?  The thought occured to me sitting on that beach pictured above, "If I am not happy now, when do I think I will be?"  Mid Life Joy will be a monthly series looking at the things that steal our joy and challenges to help us choose to live a life of abundant JOY!

2.  Equip - Family Faith Resources.  I have been invited to be part of a new blogger community reviewing new resources for Christian parents and families.  Wherever I speak parents are always looking for good resource suggestions.  This year I will have more than suggestions - thanks to the generosity of some great publishing houses I will be giving away new books and movies every month!

3.  Pass on your Faith - A Year of Biblical Feasts.  Pete and I are taking our family on a journey this year through the Jewish calendar - and we want you to come along.  We are going to celebrate the major Old Testament feasts with our girls this year.  I will be posting background info on each one before the feast so you can join in, and a post after each one so you can see how it went.

It all kicks off next week with a fun giveaway - see you then!