Finding the new in the old and liking it

Finding the new in the midst of the old is often difficult.  At least I thought it was. 

As the mother of eight kids, I found out quickly that when it came to menus, I needed to find things that everyone, or almost everyone, would eat.  Get 10 people in a room and I’m betting they won’t all like the same things for any given meal, and this was the case of my family.  We have used the same staple dinners for more than 15 years now, but I was the one wanting something different!  I tried a recipe that called for, of all things, Beefaroni as an ingredient in the meal.  Tonight, we had chili-roni and it was great!  Just one missing item, that I didn’t even realize could be an ingredient, made our same old meal that much better.  I scored some points with my kids for dinner and my husband, who rarely eats anything like macaroni and cheese, actually liked what I made!!

Last Thursday, we ventured to the beach to celebrate my oldest niece’s birthday.  It was a wonderful day and adding some schooling when the kids didn’t even notice made it educational as well.  We played in the tide pools where we found little puffer-like fish, then we found some clams/mussels nearby.  Next, we happened on a crab claw and a purple starfish.  We splashed and played and laughed and soon our day was ending.  As we walked down the beach back to the car, we were blessed to find a small hammerhead shark that was lying on the beach.  It seems it was caught by a fisherman and left to dry out in the sun.  These small editions enhanced my children’s learning more than they could have ever received if we had merely looked at the pictures on the Internet.  They actually liked what we did for school that day!

I began thinking about my life as a Christian.  What would it be like if I added one ingredient like reading an inspiring book (“Mere Christianity” was my choice!) to my daily devotions and prayer time?  Today, I began to read Book One of C.S. Lewis’ famed inspirational work. The rules of what is right and what is wrong and our expectations of others with regard to our idea of right and wrong are quite interesting to me.  And I actually like what he has to say about the Law of Human Nature.

What I am finding is adding one simple thing to a meal, to my homeschooling day, to my Christian walk just makes it much better than each area was before.