Posted in Every Day Blessings
The finally day of convention opened with me still in bed not feeling too great. Had it not been for my 1ds11y enthusiastic plead to go, I’m not sure I would have made it out of bed (Dh took other boys off to soccer games). Besides being rather tired, my cold has moved into my chest so I am hacking & coughing so much that my poor diaphragm is so sore it is hard to breath. But in order to keep the fires ignited I managed to pry myself out of bed and only miss the worship portion of the closing ceremonies. Chris Klicka’s topic “The Heart of Home Schooling: Living What Really Matters” was not only encouraging, it reminded me that having relationships is the reason why we homeschool. Really that is the only thing that matters: our relationship with the L-rd, and each other.
The next session was Get Real by Todd Wilson and this was probably my favorite workshop of the entire convention. Not only is the man funny, he is Biblical, encouraging, inspiring, and he gave easy to remember practical put into action right now advice that I don’t have to read a book first to understand. He is so REAL himself it was like a sigh of relief!
The last session was Fiery Furnace Schooling which I was hoping would give me practical advice on homeschooling with my dh’s “all over the clock, never two days off in a row, barely making ends” meet job. While I was humbled that the women in this workshop had bigger, much bigger, furnaces – single parents, dh’s having affairs, runaway kids, dying mothers, dying fathers, suicide homeschoolers, depressed homeschool kids and more – it still didn’t solve my own fiery furnace. I walked out of this workshop hearing G-d say put together that workshop... the workshop that I needed that tells moms how to live with dh’s who work split shifts, swing shifts, night shift and how to make it all work with homeschooling. I could hear myself crying out to the L-rd saying, “okay but L-rd you have to tell me how to live with my own situation first” and then the words of this workshop hit me.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in the fiery furnace but they were not alone. The fourth man in the fire, protecting them, being with them, saving them, “never leaving them, nor forsaking them” was Jesus and He is always there for you and me. G-d is always in the furnace with us and we just need to stay where G-d is until He releases us. We need to stay in the fiery furnace until the work is complete, until “the gold is made pure” and we need to look for the 4th man in the fire. For that lesson, I am so grateful for this workshop.
And that ended convention! I managed to stay away from spending money on yet another book or more curriculum that will sit on my shelf until I have time to read it or use it, which might just be when my ds graduates LOL My 1ds11yr did spend some of his birthday money on some fun science things from R & D Education Center: a gel ant farm, and Torso Joe (a model of the human body) – things that he has been wanting for a long time. There were oh! so many things I wanted to get but G-d just convicted me that I am turning into a curriculum junkie and I need to just use what I have, finish the books I’ve got and stop collecting so much S.T.U.F.F (not to mention that it helps the pocket book too)
What I love best about this weekend is that it puts dh & I back on the same page and reminds dh how to support our Homeschool. Overall it was a terrific convention and I got waaay more out of than I expected and my 1ds11y can’t wait for next year’s convention so I guess he enjoyed it too.
