"Having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave..."

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Packing heat

In the heat of the moment

In a dead heat

It's not the heat, it's the humidity!

Taking the heat for someone else

Turn the heat up....

There's a lot of heat to be found in idioms, those expressions whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of their individual elements, as kick the bucket or hang one's head.

Then there is the heat of the refining fire... and there is a refining fire when one homeschools, I think. At first, one is challenged to view the world in a different way--to research education choices, being willing to change one's preconceptions. Those preconceptions may be based on our own educational experiences, and may involve some rose-colored glasses, looking back with a warm and happy nostalgia (or the complete opposite!). Once the decision to homeschool is made, the fire consists of learning how to be parent and teacher, even though a parent has always been a teacher and no transformation is really needed. Then in the process of homeschooling, the parent is refined in how to "do it all"----teaching, housework, day-to-day errands, meal planning & implementing. The fire can get hot and things can be dropped on the wayside until the parent gains their "homeschooling sea legs."

Not only is the fire refining the "nuts and bolts" of one's days, but one's spiritual life as well. Christian homeschooling parents are challenged to make sure that they are raising their children in the nurture of the Lord, guiding, training, and showing them the way they should go. That comes on top of being concerned that they are teaching them what the children need to live in this world. 

A new homeschooler tends to be very nervous at the beginning of their journey but as the time goes by, a few years pass, they are truly refined by the process. As homeschoolers we have to embrace the refining to our own betterment. It's not an easy process but our children and ourselves will gain by it.

Remember that refining is a process of purifying and the things that are removed in the purification process are not necessarily evil, nasty, horrible things. Sometimes they are good things that simply distract us from being our best. Homeschooling is a lifestyle and when that lifestyle is refined/purified, it will have a much more successful outcome. (Granted all of our best intentions and actions ultimately carry no guarantees, but being willingly refined greatly increases the odds in our favor.)

Donna Conner lives in Fort Worth, TX with her husband, Glenn, their son, Mike, Donna's mother, Charlotte, and their dog, Lucia. Donna and Glenn have been homeschooling their son since the beginning of his education. Mike completed his homeschooling in the fall of 2008. Donna is an artist and has always enjoyed writing. She wrote Homeschooling Only One in 2003, after discovering that there were many other families homeschooling only one child. Her website is devoted to those with only one student in their homeschool, with listings of online resources. You can find these free resources, including a message board for those who HOO, on her website at  http://donnac.com and read her blog at: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/DonnaC

copyright © 2009 Donna Conner ~~ All rights reserved. Content may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of author, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles where the title and author are listed.

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