starting the day right

for some time i have been very convicted about starting a morning devotional with the girls.  i hate to admit that up until this point i have not been doing an early morning bible reading with them.  i justified it by telling myself that we talk about the Lord all throughout the day, listen only to music that talks about the Lord, and at night {most} nights we do some type of devotional/bible story/prayer time before we go to bed.  but recently God has just been laying on my heart that that's not enough.

so a couple of weeks ago i bought this bible:

can i just say we have LOVED this bible so far?  now, it's not the actual bible passages - it shows the passage that you read, and then the book is the story that goes with the corresponding passage.  we try every day to read the passage and the story.  i want to teach the girls early on that nothing can substitute for the actual word.

one of the reasons i love this book is because it's a little deeper than most childrens' bibles, but still entirely age appropriate for the k's (i think the recommended age group is 5-8, but i think even younger kids could handle it).  it totally keeps kylie's attention without losing kenzie's (which can be a challenge!).  it is not your typical, "johnny loves God by being nice to his friends...etc., etc., etc.", you know, the typical kids bible that is so fluffy.  instead, it's straightforward bible stories.  we've only had our bible for about two weeks, but we've already read about isaiah, jeremiah, hezekiah, daniel, and jonah...and one or two were stories i didn't even remember!  it also has three sections at the bottom that i really like:  remember (we do a challenge, can you remember the facts of the story), discover (this is how the lesson relates to you today), and apply (this is how we act out what we learned today).

all in all, this is a great book that i would recommend to anyone wanting to start your day right by taking your kids a little deeper into God's word!