Musings

Pointless arguments by Christians

/ Holly Stoner / Leave a comment

Today I want to write about some things that divide followers of Christ that really shouldn’t. I want to write about things I have been hearing, or heard, in my life as a believer in Christ. Maybe some of these things will be familiar to you. This is not going to be a Bible study today. My life has been pretty chaotic lately taking care of my elderly chronically ill cat among my other duties. That doesn’t mean I am not continuing to study, but it does mean I haven’t had the time I would like to get my thoughts assembled and written into my next blog post. It will come.

First of all I want to make anyone reading this to be aware that whatever I say here will be my observations and my opinions and my criticism, if needed. I am not asking anyone to agree with me. My blog is not a place for arguments or judgement. My blog is a place for my thoughts, my opinions, and hopefully encouragement to others to be in a close relationship with Christ, every day of every week. I do short Bible studies here on things that have interested me that I want to share with others so that you may dig deeper yourself. If you find something different than I did, okay, that’s fine. My goal is for you to read the scripture, in it’s context to get the true meaning of what it is conveying.

There are some really tough deep dives that I would love to write about here, but I’m just not ready yet. As it is, things I might say in this post may not be easy for me to write about. However, I think it could be beneficial, maybe an encouragement or something that you’ve heard and didn’t feel like anyone else was on your same page. Maybe it’s something you need to hear because you’ve been guilty of getting into these types of arguments with fellow believers.

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Book Review: No More Boring Bible Study

/ Holly Stoner / Leave a comment

Today’s post is linking to you to my review of a book I recently read. Below you’ll see a screen shot of said blog post. The Write Planet is my first blog and where I choose to keep my review posts. I’ve recently revived the blog and attempted to keep it more focused than it used to be. I hope you will go check it out.

Link below.

https://thewriteplanet.blogspot.com/2026/04/coming-soon-book-review.html

A time of thanksgiving…

/ Holly Stoner / Leave a comment

” Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ” – James 1:17

It’s one week until Thanksgiving and I thought I’d try writing another post. This time of year always seems to be so hectic, so full of busyness. The big gathering of family and friends around piles of food has been a tradition in my home since I was a child. Each year my Mom’s family would come to our house and we’d set up long tables that stretched through our living and dining rooms. There was always so much food and so many desserts but the best part was seeing people you didn’t get to see very often. When my parents split up, these gatherings ceased. I remember there were attempts to continue in other family members homes. We all grew older, and moved on and got busy or had our own families after that.

I’m not sure how many years I’ve been hosting my family in my home, but for at least as long I have lived there, so about 18 years. Typing that just now was like, wow, 18 years! My table wasn’t as full as the tables back when I was a child. It would be my parents, my grandmother, my siblings, our partners and later our children. I never take these moments with my family for granted. These are precious memories being made. Over the years things tend to change. People move away, or they swap holidays between 2 families or even pass away and your guest list gets smaller. This year my table will be full of familiar faces and I know good times will be had and bellies will be full.

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Not a new resolution….

/ Holly Stoner / Leave a comment

2019 Happy New Year background. Seasonal greeting card template.

An entire month went by and I didn’t post a thing on this blog. Whoops! So much for me trying to post at the very least, weekly. Life can be quite hectic sometimes. Trying to fit in outside hobbies and obligations while you’re solely responsible for educating your children can be an enormous undertaking. I wouldn’t change it though. God called me to this task so I know it’s what I am meant to be doing even though some weeks, or even an entire month, can feel so very daunting. There are so many things I like to do. There are so many things I have to do. There are so many things I need to do. Many of these things have nothing to do with homeschool. If you’re a homeschooling parent, you likely know what it’s like. For example, my son began phase two of orthodontic treatment and so that means many visits to the orthodontist. This will be part of our life now. The visits will be at least monthly, in the daytime, during school time hours. It’s much easier now though than when he was in phase one and in public school. The month of December is always hectic with preparations for the Christmas holiday. There are usually many events happening during the month. We also experienced some sickness and we are actually again cycling through another virus. It seems everyone around us right now is sick with a cold so no matter how much we try to prevent it, sometimes its unavoidable.
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To Halloween or not to Halloween

/ Holly Stoner / 2 Comments

Today’s post is going to possibly hit a nerve with some of the people who read it, but I felt like sharing why I no longer participate in Halloween. This post isn’t to judge anyone. I think for some of my family members and friends who’ve attended my Halloween parties in the past, they could be wondering, why the change? My children didn’t understand either until I explained it. Of course they still didn’t like the idea because to them Halloween meant CANDY! They realize now that we don’t need to participate in Halloween to eat candy.

Let me give you a background before I discuss why I no longer participate in the day.

When I was entering 2nd grade my parents began attending church regularly, of course with my siblings and myself as well. We did not participate in Halloween. We didn’t trick-or-treat and we didn’t have parties and we didn’t buy or wear costumes. I remember in public school, which I attended in kindergarten and first grade, I did wear a costume and participate in a during school Halloween parade. But for most of my young life, I didn’t. I guess it wasn’t until maybe I was about 10 or 11 that my sister and I began to ask why we couldn’t trick-or-treat when most of our friends were. My parents decided that we would be allowed, but with rules. We were not allowed to dress up as witches, zombies, or anything scary. Our costumes were created by things we found around the house. We dressed up as hippies one year, for example. Mostly we just liked the dressing up part which we did even to just hand out candy. Our trick-or-treating years were short because once you reach a certain age you pretty much stop going.

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