Category: Transforming Moments

1 Peter 2:9-10 "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him  who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy."

"A Chosen Generation...Called Out of Darkness"

I've spent the last week seeking the Lord's guidance for our home and schooling.  Feeling a bit overwhelmed, I knew something needed to change.  If there is anything I've learned during our homeschooling adventure, it is that this should not be a journey of chains or bondage.  When I begin to feel strapped down, I know that I have enslaved myself to something.  When preparing to teach Sunday School this week, the Lord used this passage of scripture to open my eyes to what He's doing in my family and why I'm feeling tied down.

Anytime I begin to feel overwhelmed with schooling, I know it's time to pull out my favorite collection of homeschooling books...Teaching the Trivium by the Bluedorns, Charlotte Mason books, Ruth Beechick books, Cindy Rushton books & audios, etc. to find inspiration and motivation.  So I did that this last week.  But this time I also pulled out some new resources that had been sitting on the shelf.  I read "A Thomas Jefferson Education" earlier in this school year.  Although it really resonated with me, I knew it would require some changes in our schooling.  Some of these changes would cut to the heart of our homeschooling and would take some time for me to wrap my brain around.  So I went ahead and ordered more materials on TJEd with the intent to read through them at my leisure and perhaps rework our schooling during the summer months.  Well this turned out to be the week to read them.

I'm not the best person to give you a synopsis of TJEd, but I'll tell you which parts have really drawn me to this methodology.  In TJEd, you become a mentor to your children.  Instead of being the dictator of their education, you inspire them to learn and to seek knowledge on their own.  You do this by seeking to educate yourself first.  You may not consider yourself a dictator, you may feel like your children already seek knowledge on their own, you may have a college degree and feel like you're fairly well educated ... I did too.  But what I found in myself this week, is that I try too hard to make my children love to learn.  Having a background of public education and being a public educator for a time, that system is so deeply ingrained into my being, that I'm often times blind to the way that it affects me, my behaviors, and the way I think.  Even though we do not do "school at home" and we implement a number of Classical, Charlotte Mason, & Ruth Beechick ideas, my "big picture" is still boxed up within my old ways of thinking.   I realized that this week.  My children do sincerely love to learn, but I think a large part of their love for learning may come from a desire to impress me or to gain approval from me.  There is some value in that, but overall is this what I want driving their love of learning?  No. 

I'm reminded of the times my children have come to know the Lord.  Did I want them to come to know Him because I had somehow pressured them to want to know Him?  No.  Did I want them to do it because they sought my approval?  NO!  I wanted them to come to know Him because they felt His calling.  I wanted them to come to Him because they knew they needed Him.  In a similar way, I want my children to want to learn because they feel that drive within themselves.  God will plant this desire within them.  Isn't it God that should give us the desires of our hearts?  I do not want to plant my desires into the hearts of my children, they will only fail and be temporary.  I want them to crave what the Lord desires for them. 

What happens though is that we feel, especially as homeschooling mommies, that we need to "do" something to bring about all of the good characteristics and qualities that we want our children to have, including this "love of learning".  While it is true that we should provide an environment that provides for the ingredients to nourish this, it is God that will truly produce these characteristics and qualities within our children.  I know, I know, I know we must train them and we must lead them and we must discipline them.  I'm not saying that we let them completely loose.  I'm saying that God has equipped them with the ability to grow into the man or woman He has called them to be, and we need to make sure as parents that we are not hindering His natural ways of producing this in them. 

I'm not going to even try to lay out all of the ways that I see God calling me to do this in my own home.  First of all, I do not have this all figured out yet!  Second of all, I wouldn't want you to think that the way He calls me to do it, will be the way He calls you to do it.  That's what has been so refreshing to me.  Each of our children has been so uniquely created that only God could know what makes the child truly tick!  I have 7 dc, 4 of which are adopted, and I can tell you that part of my journey has been about learning how different God makes each of His children.  I feel freed especially when I look back over the years of our homeschooling to see how God has been chipping away at me leading me to a closer relationship with Him while also leading me to a greater understanding of who He wants me to be, specifically in this case, to my children.  I don't look back over the past however many years with regrets for doing some things the wrong way or for not learning about better methods sooner.  Each experience has taught me much and likewise it has taught my children.  This is what is refreshing - God knows us from beginning to end.  We do not have to figure out every detail of the plan, He already knows it.  We just have to seek where He is working and join Him. 

Right now my focus is on learning more about the phases of my children's development and letting them alone to see what they are naturally drawn to.  God has called them.  They are a "chosen generation" with a purpose.  Only God knows what that purpose is.  I think part of my job as a parent is to help my children find that purpose, that mission.  It's not all about math or science.  I think the math and the science will be helpful to them in finding their mission, but these subjects themselves are not the mission.  What about my mission?  Well before this week, I thought I had this pretty well thought out.  But now, I too am feeling challenged.  I'm challenged to educate myself so that I can be the mentor my children will need.  I'm also challenged to find what mission God has for me to those who are still in the dark.  I know my greatest mission right now is to my children, but I'm also feeling the call (& this is why I know I've been struggling lately) to be a light to those around me who are in the dark, to those families who are still in the darkness.

Whatever method, whatever philosophy, whatever curriculum (or lack thereof) that you are following, ask yourself if the learning process is being taught TO your children or if you are allowing it to be BORN in your children.  Are they learning to seek (knowledge, love, the Lord,...) because of a desire to seek and find what they need or do they do it because it's what is expected?  If you back up to the early part of this chapter in 1 Peter 2, you will find this: "as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious". 

Peter is not talking to just new Christians here, but instead is saying that we should all have a heartfelt desire and need for God's word and that we need His word in order to grow.  If we have tasted His goodness, then we will crave this growth.  Let your children become as babes, let them taste what the Lord has to offer, let them crave growth, ... let the Lord do amazing things through you as you mentor your children.  Let them begin to work on their mission while they are young.  Help them to find this within themselves.  It may require a renewing of your mind.  I know it is for me.   

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Category: Transforming Moments

These last few weeks have been quite busy around here!  Most days, or nights I should say, I fall into bed wondering, "Where did all of the time go?  How will I possibly finish everything that I didn't finish today & everything else that tomorrow brings?"  You know the feeling!  ;)  

We've added some new things to our plate this last year both at individual levels and as a family.  Lately, these commitments are requiring more and more of our time and it's getting to the point where Mom is about to lose her mind! (Well, whatever bit is left, you know!)  So I've been praying & thinking about all the different ways we could reorganize, reschedule, re-blah, blah, blah everything to make it all work.  We need to find some balance.  Well, then the Lord showed me a picture one day.  (By the way, I am still sitting at His feet wondering what He wants me to do at this point.)

Have ever tried to juggle?  I have.  It's a tough skill to learn.  I'm an *okay* juggler as long as I'm using a particular type of ball, of a certain size, & I'm sitting or standing a certain way...without any distractions!  Okay, so I'm not so good! ;)  When I was learning to juggle though, I didn't start with a lot of balls.  I started with 2, one for each hand.  After I got the feel of what I was doing with 2 balls, I moved to 3, then 4. 

God made me realize something about our current choatic family situation that I should have learned from my juggling experiences.  Instead of adding activities gradually with some of our new commitments, we've just kind of piled them all on.  Now it's not like we're running multiple children to a variety of practices every night or ball games two-three time a week either.  (We learned our lesson about that kind of "busy-ness" a few years ago.)  Our commitments are to our family businesses, to AWANAs, to teaching a Sunday School class, to youth activities, etc.  These are all good things that I don't feel we should necessarily give up.  The problem is that we allowed ourselves to take on each of these new activities without trying to find some balance for our family in between.  So what it feels like is trying to juggle 10 balls when you've only got the skills to juggle 3.  So what happens it that the 3 balls you were juggling well are now lost with the rest of the others that you're constantly dropping.  And balance?  Balance isn't even part of the equation when you do that to yourself.

So now, instead of praying for God to bring me a miraculous balance to our lives that would be fixed with the "perfect schedule", I'm asking Him what is it exactly that I can juggle well.  Of course, you know that we cannot juggle anything without His perfect provision in the first place.  So I guess the real question for me is, what is it exactly that He has called for me to juggle?  I don't have all the answers to this yet.  As I said I'm still sitting at His feet.  I think right now, He's working on just building some patience in me to help me slow down with everything.  Instead of trying to continue juggling anything, I need to be still, quiet and have my cup re-filled.

Thanks for listening... ;)

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Category: Transforming Moments

Wow!  Don't neglect teaching your children how to have a quiet time!  The Lord really impressed upon me this week that I wasn't doing enough to teach the kids how to have a quiet time.  So we took almost a whole morning one day to just chat about what our time with God should look like.  It has been an amazing week!

I read some entries from my personal quiet time journal and the kids were begging for more.  It was so cool!  The entries I read to them were my "thankful" entries, thanking God for the specific things he had done in the preceding days, things that the kids knew about but didn't realize I had been specifically praying for.  I then asked each of them to think of something that they each were individually thankful for, something specific & personal (not just the general "I'm thankful for my family" response - which they should be, but I wanted them to dig deeper).  It was hard for them!  So I reminded them of how easy it was for the Israelites to grumble over and over even after God had repeatedly shown his miraculous provisions for them.  We are the same way!  If we don't take the time to remember each of God's wonderful blessings and thank Him for them, we will take them for granted.  Instead of being able to name all the things we are thankful for, we'll instead focus on all the negative things.

So I helped them to each find one thing they could specifically be thankful for and they each prayed and thanked God.  Then, we talked about how our quiet times should be a two-way conversation with God.  We need to not only talk to God, but then also listen for Him to talk to us.  Although they know that God "talks" to mom, they really couldn't grasp how God would speak to them individually.  So we discussed how the #1 way God speaks to us is through His word.  When we sit down to read His word, we need to focus on hearing His voice through the words we read.  So I had them each think of something that was bothering them that they felt they needed the Lord's help with and they wrote this down in their journal and then prayed a short prayer about it before opening their Bibles. 

I didn't tell them where to read, but told them to find a place to read and then to read until they found either something that interested them or seemed really important.  Then they should reread that section until they found something they could write down in their journals about what they learned.  WOW!  It was so exciting to watch their faces light up with what the Lord taught each of them.  

Here are some details:

8yos: He was confused by mom's NKJV of the Lord's Prayer that morning & he just happened  to open up to this passage in his Bible  - God showed him how easy it was to understand at his level!  He was then directed to the verse 1 Peter 5:7 "Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you." 

9yos: To my "future preacher or evangelist", God spoke to him from Proverbs 1:1-3.  His prayer request for himself was to be able to stay on task with his chores and not be distracted.  The verse that jumped out at him was verse 3 "their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives".  He said it was "scary" (weird scary) the way that God's word spoke to him so specifically.  COOL! 

10yod: Her request was to have help with 1st time obedience.  Well she didn't find this exactly in what she read, but instead she found a verse that directly confronts a heart issue she has that is also related to 1st time obedience.  Being naturally organized and mostly well-behaved, she can tend to be judgmental of others instead of helping others where they fall short.  God led her to several scriptures, this one being the real eye opener:  1 John 3:17 "But if anyone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help - how can God's love be in that person?" .  Wow!

11yod:  This daughter asked for help in concentrating.  (She lives with a disorder caused from her prenatal exposure to alcohol that greatly affects some her cognitive abilities.)  Here's what the Lord showed her this day:  there was a subtitle written across the page she opened up to that said "Should I bother God with my problems?".  The scripture that went with it was Psalm 9:9-12 which in part says "The LORD is a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. ....He does not ignore those who cry to him for help."

Can I just say, WOW!!! one more time.  The most awesome thing about the experiences that day was that my kids felt God in a tangible way.  He was more real to them than ever before!  He directly spoke to their hearts and they heard Him.  "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." (John 10:27)    Praise the Lord!

Be encouraged!  Take some time to disciple your children in the area of their quiet times and watch how God will take your obedience and bless your children! 

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