Musings on Home Education

 Why I Homeschool Our Children

A Brain Dump

I think that when people learn that I homeschool our children, they assume that they know why. Really, no one has ever asked me why I homeschool or questioned it in any way that I can remember. It's usually something like 'Do you homeschool?...Oh, that's wonderful. *Smiles at children*". It's nice to have a positive response from people, but I hear things from time to time that make me think that people assume they know why we homeschool, when they don't really. Honestly, I was asking myself today, "Do I even know why I homeschool?" Since I was happily homeschooled for most of my school years, leaving my early and trying days of first and second grade at a typically-flawed Christian school, far behind, it simply seemed natural to keep homeschooling. I wouldn't just set up lesson plans for my kids, I would pick up from where I left off on my own education and keep my nose in as many books as they did, and we would putter and hum our way through the crisp fall days with open-windows, the blanket-wrapped winter sick days that are mostly audiobooks, or winter snow days that are rushing to get one required subject done before hitting the sleds, and then float (or trudge as the case may be) into spring, interspersing scholarly endeavors with forays into the garden and lunch at the picnic table. I just wanted to live this life.

But of course, the real reason we are home educating our children, is that there are no schools in convenient distance that are inculcating the truths and virtues that we desire for our children - such as worship of the Creator, deep family relationships, and the high hilarities of language, Greek, Latin and English - among other things. That's a good justifying reason. 

But as I've now kept the home school ball rolling for 6 years, and the thought that our oldest may someday need more instruction than I can provide, I realized that my attachment to homeschooling was not merely one of principle. It is perhaps even more an attachment of fierce independence. Imagine - having another person, separate from our family, dictate my daily schedule - my child's teachers at some school having power over when we eat breakfast and what books we have to read and what time we have to go to bed at night. I inwardly recoiled at the thought, and pitied in my heart all the poor, slaving mothers who toil to keep their kids on the school's schedule. It made my blood hot to imagine myself losing my days of idyllic independence in order to be at the beck and call of another institution. I also reflected that this reaction is not exactly virtuous. But really, how can people say home schooling is hard, when they have to roll out of bed in the darkness to send their child to a school that probably has fluorescent lights in the classroom and no fresh flowers dropping dried petals and spider webs onto the spelling book? Not even mentioning the leftover bacon and fresh banana bread that may be acquired from the absurdly nearby kitchen during school hours, I believe that homeschooling can possibly be too idyllic to prepare children for the harsh realities of life in a fluorescent lit office cubicle. But I'm not afraid to defy that fear and give out spelling words from the kitchen, with my hands buried in sticky granola mixture, which will soon sustain the weary apprentice of cursive handwriting and spoil his appetite for lunch (oh dear, what are we having for lunch?). 

I do not disguise from myself that this idyll has its shortcomings. I do not imagine that home education can give a child all that they need, any more than a public education. These will each leave a child with gaps, of either community or family or knowledge, that they will long to fill. But we will pray about filling those gaps. Ultimately, whatever way we prayerfully choose to educate our children, the education is something that God has provided, and we give thanks for the blessings and trust God to provide what seems to lack. My feelings about homeschooling may come and go, and be better or worse from day to day, but the life that God has provided for us is a reality for which I can give thanks, even as time brings changes. 

The Mad Mother's Song

The children and I were recently introduced to The Mad Gardener's Song by Lewis Carroll via The Daily Poem. What a brilliant piece of nonsense! We all enjoyed it, especially me - so much so, that early this morning, I found myself composing my own version in the same form. The practice of composing one's own words in another's form is a way to learn different writing styles, and is a handy way for me to enjoy composition in this sometimes hectic season of life. My poem is  un-originally titled -

The Mad Mother's Song

She thought she saw a flock of sheep
That grazed upon a moor,
She looked again and saw
A soggy diaper on the floor.
"I should be grieved," she said
"If this remained forevermore."

She thought she saw a roll
Of toilet paper on the shelf.
She looked again and saw it was
An evil Christmas elf.
"Deception is the worst" she said
"When practised on one's self."

She thought she saw her husband
Coming home from work at noon.
She looked again and saw
It was the baby's dirty spoon.
"How rare," she sighed,
"To see our hopes be realized too soon."

She thought she saw a tank of goldfish
Waiting to be fed.
She looked and saw it was
A pile of laundry on the bed.
"Were those as dry as these," she said
"They would be rather dead."

She thought she saw a flock of geese
Migrating to the west.
She looked again and saw it was
Her daughter's winter vest.
"If one cannot migrate," she mused,
"It's best to be well dressed."

She thought she saw an ostrich
With her purse upon its back.
She looked again and saw it was
Her child's unfinished snack.
"If we waste food like this," she fumed,
"We'll end up in a shack."

She thought she saw her FitBit said
She'd walked a hundred miles
She looked and saw her husband
Had been standing there awhile
"How good," she cried, "To be alive
To greet him with a smile."

She thought she saw a choir of toddlers
Singing in her bed.
She looked again and saw
It was a doll without a head.
"How true," she thought, "that many trials
Are less than what we dread."

Note to the curious: I actually do not have a Christmas elf on the shelf or a FitBit, nor do I regularly encounter headless dolls. These simply came to mind as common items that fit my rhyme pattern!

The Power and the Glory

"Look! There's a little finger of cloud coming down! It's a tornado!!!!"
It is a calm, breezy day with wispy clouds in the sky, but my five-year-old son is unwilling to believe my assertion that he is mistaken.

"What if a star just came down and fell on the whole earth? What would happen?"

"Oh! Look at that gray billowing smoke in the sky. Over there! It must be a volcano erupting!"
I answer - "That's a puffy gray cloud. It might rain. But it's not a volcano."
I say it not because I'm a killjoy but because I believe truth is ultimately more satisfying than delusions. But this child will keep on looking for signs of wonderful disasters (not to mention appearances of supernatural beings and exotic animal species).

Lots of children are like this, especially young boys - I have early childhood memories of an older brother who made the same wishful assertions.  A real tornado or volcano in the dreamed-of proximity to our home could be the destruction of our whole way of life - and if there is anything little children don't want, it is the destruction of their way of life. But deep down they want to see something explode. People laugh about it, because for many the desire lasts long past childhood.  Evolutionary theory could perhaps contrive some explanation for the hunger for great scenes, but this hunger cannot jive with the idea that we exist merely to survive and perpetuate the species. We were created by God to behold the glory of God. Every little boy who wants to see something blow up spectacularly is expressing an undirected longing for his little heart's big Creator. That's just one of the reasons I think it is important to present the whole Bible to our children, and not just Bible character story books that tend to leave out the richly worded passages about God's character and actions.

I've been reading through the Bible to the children for the past year and this morning we read 2 Samuel 22. The volcano boy listened with riveted attention over his bowl of oatmeal as I read -

“In my distress I called upon the LORD;
to my God I called.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry came to his ears.
“Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations of the heavens trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub and flew;
he was seen on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness around him his canopy,
thick clouds, a gathering of water.
Out of the brightness before him
coals of fire flamed forth.
The LORD thundered from heaven,
and the Most High uttered his voice....

- 2 Samuel 22:7-16

I thought "Yes!". This is strong meat for my boy. There is nothing better I could give him right now.

The full-orbed character of God is all that is required to satisfy every longing of the human heart. We can only see all of it by reading all of Scripture, and our children need it just as much, if not more than we do. It is a great mistake to think that children's longings are more easily satisfied. Adults are far more easily pleased. Some days we just want to see our God as provider and praise Him for the paycheck. But the little guys are primitive and they want to see glory, and their childlike faith is ready to believe that God has all of it, which is good, because He does.

Several weeks ago, on a fresh snowy day, I was outside with my son and he posed the best of his thousand questions for the day:
"How does the snow show God's glory? Because it's not powerful."
I paused a bit then said, "It gives us a picture of God's cleanness and purity, and how he can cover our sins and make them disappear. The Bible says, 'Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow' when God forgives them."
He just looked up into the sky and seemed to think, while I strolled off to fill the bird feeders. My heart was glad, because once again I was reminded that God is sufficient for every longing of the human heart.

Let's not let our children be satisfied with Superman scenes on a screen, when they have a God who puts all the super heroes to shame. He can defeat not only our external enemies but the very sin of our inmost hearts. "Worship Him all you gods" should be written above the movie screens, and if it is not, we can remind our children that before the majesty of the Lord of Glory, their favorite super hero has no option but to bow down.

The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice;

let the many coastlands be glad!

Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;

righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

Fire goes before him

and burns up his adversaries all around.

His lightnings light up the world;

the earth sees and trembles.

The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,

before the Lord of all the earth.

The heavens proclaim his righteousness,

and all the peoples see his glory.

All worshipers of images are put to shame,

who make their boast in worthless idols;

worship him, all you gods!

- Psalm 97

Cotopaxi by Frederic Edwin Church

Acquainted With the Night

"You were up a lot last night," my husband said to me this morning as I describe my feeling of out-of-it-ness and of having cotton balls in my eyes. His saying made me think of Robert Frost's poem "I have been one acquainted with the night", and despite my head-numbing sleep-deprivation after being much up with a stuffy nosed infant, I felt the need to write my own version of the poem, with matching meter and rhyme scheme. Maybe better than a cup of coffee? The muse was awake if nothing else is.

Here is Frost's poem, and here is mine:

I have been one acquainted with the night

I've learned to change a diaper with the dark

To spare bleared eyes the glare of night time light.

I've loved a hungry baby in the dark,

Though dull with weariness and ache of sleep,

Love's joy in giving kindle's strength's dim spark

I have been often tired enough to weep

Until the sweetness of small velvet life

Cradled to me, a tiny charge to keep --

All this, to be a mother and a wife

And further to be held in Heaven's sight --

I could not ask for any better life

Than what is given to me. It is right

That I have been acquainted with the night.

Sleeping Mother with Child by Christian Krog, 1883

On Bringing Up Children - An Extensive Quotation

I dearly love George MacDonald's fiction (despite his sometimes faulty theology, which I have found to be unnoticeable in the best of his good and beautiful children's works) , and within the past several years I have traveled through a lesser-known trilogy of his - Annals of A Quiet Neighborhood, The Seaboard Parish, and The Vicar's Daughter. I was pleasantly surprised to find at the end of the last book, a whole chapter on the bringing up of children. It is written by the fictional vicar's daughter herself, but I am sure reflects G.M.'s own principles of child-rearing quite well. I heartily agreed with just about all of it, even though I had never encountered some of the specific ideas articulated, and wanted to put it somewhere where I could access and share it easily. So here is most of the chapter, hunted up and copied from Gutenberg.org:

I think there can be no harm in mentioning a few general principles laid down by my father. They are such as to commend themselves most to the most practical. 

And first for a few negative ones.

1. Never give in to disobedience; and never threaten what you are not prepared to carry out.

Why?

Our son is in the "Why?" stage of life, between 3 and 4 years old. The questioning seems almost merciless at times, pushing the bounds of infinite regression, as he pries for just one more tidbit to feed his young appetite for knowledge. "Why did you drop that cup? Why does that happen sometimes? Why do you need to use the bathroom? Why don't you want me to put my hands in my mouth? Why is that not good? Why did you do that?...." The answers I have to give him for some of these wearisome wonderings seem quite valueless to me. But sometimes the "Why's" do turn up valuable bits of information. When I begin to talk to him about Scripture truths and he asks questions like, "Why did Jesus die? Why did they kill him? Why did He let them kill him? Why does he love us?" Oh, that one is a why indeed.

Today after reading about the garden of Eden, he asked, "Why did God make a tree like that?" and "Why did the snake lie to them?" As I pondered and articulated answers, I began to realize how, unlike many of the tedious details of my daily life, the story of God offers riches of knowledge ready to supply an infinite hunger to know and be fed in heart and mind.

If I would only offer Scripture the ravenous curiosity that my child offers me each day, how much might I discover? There is a point of stopping where "The secret things belong to the Lord our God" (Deut. 29:29), but I think that just as often as we are tempted to pry where we have no business, we are tempted to neglect stores of good things in which we ought to be having a great deal of business.

When I wake with a morning text in my head, maybe a question would bring more good to me from it than the customary thoughts. His mercies are new every morning. Why are His mercies new every morning? Because His faithfulness is great. Why is His faithfulness great? Because He does not change. Why does He not change? Because that is who He is.  At this point there are no more questions, but a great deal of solid assurance.

I think that at the back, or the bottom, or the peak of all our questioning, the ultimate answer will always be the person and nature of God. Because He is who He is, this is. Let's be taking our children's questions there too. For our children it will be a refuge.

Gathering Storm Near Ry by Vilhelm Kyhn

What Happened to Margalo - Part 5

When Margalo woke, the dripping had stopped and bits of early morning sunlight were winking through the spruce boughs.  She noticed that the spruce tree was also very noisy. Many birds had taken refuge in the tree during the long, wet night and this morning they were all going on at once - singing, chirping, chattering and whistling. One of them was chattering rather more loudly than the others. It was a blue jay.

“Yes siree, I tell you,” he was saying, “I wasn’t a bit afraid of that fella, though he was twice my size. Were the wife and I about to let that hawk have a look at our nest and young’uns? No, sirree! We went a flying at him like all get-out, and he was mighty surprised. Yes siree, I tell you, mighty surprised. He turned that red tail right around and went back from a-whence he came!”

“And the crow,” mentioned a similar, but softer voice - the jay’s wife.

“Oh, yes, the crow,” the jay continued. “Well, he did help a little - not being our friend you know, but common enemies with the hawk - he came along and made a con-tree-bution to our chasing the hawk.”

“We couldn’t have done it without him, I think,” said the jay’s wife.

“Couldn’t have done it!” the jay exclaimed. “I won’t argue he was useful, but really now...”

Margalo shuddered. They were talking about that hawk again. She hoped she might never meet him - being less than half the size of even a blue-jay, and having no mate to help protect her. But there was nothing to do about that now - except to take care of this disgracefully matted plumage! Margolo fluffed her light brown feathers and began to preen herself discreetly, keeping near the trunk so as not to be noticed. When her feathers were once more sleek and tidy, she decided to have a look around and hopped a few inches out on the limb, turning her head and tiny bright black eyes this way and that. The birds were still chattering away.

Then, from high up in the spruce, there was a loud sound of feathers being shaken - loud, because they were LARGE, rough, rustling feathers. Margalo froze. The other birds froze. The chattering stopped. A dozen feathered heads tilted upward, and a dozen sets of small shining eyes gazed warily into the topmost boughs of the spruce.  Most of them had forgotten the fact that little birds were not the only kind of birds to hide from storms in giant trees. In the stillness, they all sensed a trembling in the treetop and felt the branches quiver lightly as two large clawed feet sprang from the spruce’s height, and two great brown wings flapped crisply upward into the morning air.

Another small brown finch besides Margalo had slept in the tree that stormy night. His name was Benedict. Benedict slept in the spruce tree every night – not just when there were storms. He had not seen Margalo, because he was perched several branches higher, but he did notice when the hawk had first landed in the tree late in the rainy evening.  The hawk seemed more interested in resting at the moment than in looking for small birds to attack, for which Benedict was grateful. Besides, Benedict (who was sensible as well as courageous) knew there was no use in getting away on such a night, so he remained where he was and went promptly back to sleep. But he was relieved when the hawk flew off in the morning, taking his sharp eyes and sharp talons with him.  

After the hawk had gone, Benedict ventured out from the dim, damp inside of the tree to the wet and prickly outside which glistened gently in the morning sun. The clouds, having spent themselves on the land, were floating loose and lacy in the blue sky. Everything was fresh and delicious and bright again. Benedict decided to have a good hearty sing. So he did.

“Swee-e-et is the morn!
A new day is born!

Swee-e-et is the air!

The sunshine is fair!”

Then Benedict saw Margalo on a branch below him. She too, had hopped out into the sunshine and was refreshing herself by drinking beads of rain from the dripping spruce needles, pausing now and then to delicately shake the moisture from her brown feathers. Benedict thought she was very beautiful, and was sure he hadn’t seen her before. “Perhaps she is lost” he thought, “and will need my help.” So he flew down to Margalo’s branch. “Good morning,” he said.

        “Good morning,” Margalo replied.

        “Have you spent a pleasant night?” asked Benedict.

        “Pleasant enough,” Margalo answered. “I would much rather have spent the night in Mr. Grove’s barn, but I lost my way in the storm, so I was glad for the shelter of this tree.”

“I am familiar with Mr. Grove’s barn,” said Benedict. “Would you like me to show you the way back?”

        “Oh, yes, please – and thank you very much” said Margalo, which Benedict thought was quite proper, and he said “You are welcome” then turned toward the sun. “Follow me,” he said and with a flutter of wings rose into the air. Margalo with a flutter of her own was not far behind.

Benedict guided Margalo safely to Mr. Grove’s barn, where a cluster of worried pigeons greeted her with much relief and chortles of pleasure. Margalo thanked him again very cordially, and Benedict replied, “I am glad to be of service.” Then, having accomplished his mission, he flew back into the morning air and headed south towards the rye fields.

What To Do, What To Do?

If news media reports, television announcements, and social media trending topics could be weighed in a balance, I wonder what the daily tonnage would be? Surely it would be a weight too burdensome to be borne. Even the fraction of the stuff that the average American tends to gather for their sack of daily worries is too heavy for my taste, so I try to accumulate as small a load as possible. But I still end up on many days with a chunk of discouraging information about the state of things...and oh, what to do with it? Especially for mothers, every bit of baddish news adds a weight of care to our concern for our children. What do I do as a mother with another piece of news that reminds me what a dangerous, broken world I will have to send my child to face? I don't have to list the variety of depressing issues available for us to consider - anyone reading this probably knows them all too well. 

But to make the illustration concrete, here is a piece of something I happened to pick up yesterday from a Washington Post article on Trump attacking someone on Twitter - "Her phone began ringing with callers leaving threatening messages that were often sexual in nature." One thinks, Ah, poor lady! but a mother thinks, How awful that our nation is increasingly full of predators, and I have this sweet baby girl - oh God, help! Mamas know this thought sequence really well. But I paused in my sorrowful prayer and thought What DO I do? What do I want for my children? This world is just going to be nasty until Jesus comes back, and I can't always protect my children. What do I seek for them? What can I give them? and the words came to my mind - "Holding fast to the word of life (Php. 2:16)." Yes. Yes! This is what I want for them. This is what I will labor to give them and pray to see made real in them - the truth about God, the gospel of Jesus, the whole counsel of Scripture, the grand, sweet promises, the unshakable hope, the words that bring life to the soul, that sustain the believer through every trial and carry them onward to Heaven, that nothing on earth can take away from them. Truly, if the bad things on the news happened to my children - and yet, they held fast to the word of life - it would be enough.

Yes, the worst could happen - that a child does not hold to the word of life. But the battle cry of every mother's heart should be, Not if I can help it! Or for the more vigorous among us, Over my dead body! This is done, not simply by force-feeding the tots a pile of memory verses -though that doesn't much hurt! - but pressing into the solid comfort of the Word of God myself. I can't give what I don't have. But when it comes to what to do with 'the stuff out there', I can use those heavy lumps of bad news, and plunk them down on the lever of my determination to hold fast to the word of life before my children - to know and cherish the word of God for myself, and so doing to set it more faithfully before them. To use another metaphor - the colder the thermometer drops outside, the more wood you throw on the fire. Let me be found strengthening my soul with the Word of God, and when my children need strength, it will be the first thing I give them.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
(Philippians 2:13-16 ESV)

Art ~ Munkácsy, Mihály, Woman Carrying Faggot, 1873

Consider the other side of the battle on The Impossible Goal.

Baby's Daily Lesson - 1 minute Bible Overview

Babies, even before they can speak or understand many words, beg with their sweet faces to be spoken to. In addition to the usual, "Aren't-you-just-a-sweet-lil-muffin-darling-baby?", I thought it would be good to incorporate a distinct mini body of truth into the daily chatter. A straight Scripture passage like Psalm 23, Psalm 1 or other texts are wonderful, as well as hymns, but I wanted something that comprised key points of the Bible's story without being a whole catechism, mostly comprised of key verses that I know from memory. Probably a dozen more combinations could be made that are good, but this is the one that I have started using. and it brings such joy and encouragement to my own heart as I get my daily gospel history fly-over.

Who made you, Baby?

God made me!

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Know that the LORD, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his; 

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned - every one - to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away, behold the new has come!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.

And He who was seated on the throne said, "Behold I am making all things new!"

Genesis 1;1

Genesis 1:27

Psalm 100:3

Isaiah 53:6

Romans 3:23

Acts 10:40

John 3:16

2 Cor. 5:17

Revelation 21:1, 5

All Scripture from the English Standard Version

About Parenting

The Scripture truly is sufficient for parenting. That is, if you read your Bible heartily, consistently and prayerfully, you won't really need parenting books. The Bible is the best parenting book ever, and it will take all our lives to mine its riches in just that one area.

You might be saying, "Really? I mean, yeah, there's the fourth commandment, and that Deuteronomy passage about teaching them diligently, and then a bunch of the Proverbs about parenting, and Ephesians 6, and then that passage about Timothy's mother and grandmother...and it's all really good, but that's such a small percentage of the Bible to study when I want more specific answers for how to deal with my children every day." At least, that's kind of how I thought at one time.

But consider this: The Bible is a book about all about parenting the way the Bible is a book all about marriage, because both of these relational realities picture aspects of God's relationship to His people. In the Bible, we see God dealing with his children from beginning to end - loving them, directing them, blessing them, punishing them, reasoning with them, rescuing them, helping them, and welcoming them home. He does it perfectly. The more we learn from God as Father, the better we will know how to parent. But it doesn't come off nice and slick like a 20 Steps to Raise a Dandy Kid. God did plant some outstanding parenting sign posts throughout His Word, but the Bible isn't just a handy list. The Bible is a story about God and His ways with men, and we have to spend time in that story, following His ways with our hearts as we read His word over and over, praying to see Him, letting His revealed character transform our vision of what it means to be His, and then what it means to glorify Him in stewarding the children He gives us.

I haven't quite finished the journey I've described - but I've started it, and the glimpses of the road are enough to make me say, "Come on down this way - it's amazing!" That is, the road of reading more Scripture, memorizing, meditating, repeating, reading over. At the beginning of this year, I took a challenge of reading a book of the Bible 20 times. I'll admit, I didn't make it to 20 - I read my book of choice just 10 times, but then I did choose 32-chaptered Deuteronomy, so I don't call it a  goal failure. But I was amazed at what happened during those ten readings. God Himself started to become very familiar, and His methods of dealing with His people started to impress themselves more deeply into my moral sense and thinking patterns. That's what Scripture is supposed to do. (When you find yourself making automatic mental reference to Israel in the wilderness while trying to deal with a complaining child, my premise at the top will start to make sense.)

So read the Bible and pray. Yep. Comes down to that, doesn't it? But more and more. And maybe stop reading all those blogs. Except maybe sometimes read them, because (thank you) you're reading mine and I hope it did you some good.

-- A word to other mamas. I only have one child, so it's easier for me to read the Bible than others, but it's still not easy. Ask God to help you read His word and then keep your Bible(s) handy and look for how He will answer. No complaining that you can't find time if you haven't seriously asked God to provide some for you. Seems to me its one prayer He will be quite willing to answer.

To Stand Before the Son of Man

Yesterday I was gripped by these words of Jesus in the gospel of Luke:

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." 

(Luk 21:34-36, ESV)

This morning, I could hardly go on to other study without returning to the chapter again and writing out my thoughts on it:

Have I been watching myself with a view to staying awake spiritually? If I am consumed with the cares of this life - however pressing the duties of wife and mother may be - and am not mindful of the coming of the Son of Man, I am living as one asleep. Times of upheaval, trial and persecution have come upon God's people often and again since the last days began, and they may come upon us again, even soon without warning, and perhaps many times, before His return.

Whether it be the last day of all, or only one of the birth pangs preceding it, I know that in myself I have not the strength to face it. In my human nature, I want to live on in comfort, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage our children, our grandchildren, nestled in comfortable homes, friends with all and enjoying business and leisure from day to day. If this should be interrupted by an evil day, and I must follow Christ into the fire of men's hatred and the destruction of my comforts, how will I stand? Here is Christ's command: Watch and pray that you may have strength to escape all these things and stand before the Son of Man. Surely He would not direct us to such a prayer unless He intended to answer it. He does not call me to worry that something bad might happen, only to watch my soul and pray for strength to endure and escape all that may come to me before I enter His presence.

Today is a day of home and shelter, food and family. Tomorrow may be fire and sword, the hatred of all mankind and exclusion from society. Let my goal be not to have the blessings of today at any cost, but to escape with my faith intact, to endure to the end, to realize the salvation of my soul and stand before the Son of Man at the end. Then let me ask Him for this - not only for myself but for the next generation, upon whom the evil day may come more strongly than my mother's heart could ever believe. Let me be instructing my children not only in eating and working, in speech and play, but in the teaching of Jesus Christ and their need to know and be found in Him before that great day. May they together with us have strength to escape and to stand before the Son of Man at last.

Eagerly Waiting

"Lord, give us much wisdom 

to teach our children your Word, 

so that when you come to them, 

they will be eagerly waiting."

 - Corrie Ten Boom

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, 

but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. 

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 
-John 3:8 ESV

Out of The Mouths of Babes

Husband gone all week and then all weekend;
driving husbandless and distracted to church with baby and receiving my first traffic ticket;
roughly four hours of sleep last night;
persistent health difficulties;
surprisingly large doctor bill's in the mail;
and...a fussy baby...who came onto the kitchen rug to spit up at my feet a piece of paper that had gotten into his tummy.

I found in the next room remains of the paper he had ingested. It was a quotation from Jeremiah Burroughs: "Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, gracious frame of spirit that freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition."

Out of the mouths of babes.

Good Parenting Advice

"We evangelize children through the years by confronting them with the Gospel. Let them live with people whom Christ has saved, people who live Christ-centered lives. Let the children never question the power of God to change men and women. Let them hear the stories of God and Jesus in which people were saved.  Let them hear the stories of the church in mission. Let them experience failure, that they may realize that man cannot save himself.  Let them ask God for forgiveness, that they may experience the answer to their faith in God. The life of a child in a Christian home may be full of blessings such as Jesus declared in His Sermon on the Mount, full of discouraging sinning experiences, full of forgiveness, full of promises from God, and full of pulls of the Holy Spirit to take the narrow way. All these are leading the child on toward God."

- from Christian Education in the Home by Alta Mae Erb, 1963

That They May Come

"Ah ! it is such a thrice blessed thing to have a praying mother; a mother who does not merely say in set form 'and speech. " Go to Christ, my child," but in her daily life, full of sweet experience of all that is involved in it, says, " Come to Him !"" 

-  The Percys by Elizabeth Prentiss, 

Let it be so with me.

(Read the little-known gem, The Percys by Elizabeth Prentiss here . Both parents and children will gain riches from this delightful and edifying family story by the author of Stepping Heavenward.)

Two Children's Songs

I love finding fun and singable ditties for teaching preschool kids - ones that have a good melody line and are not pure goofiness - and was feeling like something new today as I  pondered this morning's class over my breakfast. These two I came up with and can't wait to teach them!

B-L-U-E Spells Blue - to the tune of "Happy Birthday"

B-L-U-E spells BLUE!

B-L-U-E spells BLUE!

Like a clear sky (stretch up arms)

Or a blue-bird (flap arms)

B-L-U-E spells BLUE!

B-L-U-E spells BLUE!

B-L-U-E spells BLUE!

Like the ocean (stretch out arms)

Or the blue whale (join pointed hands and make diving motion)

B-L-U-E spells BLUE!

The second song I made for "J" week and think it will be fun to play with.

If The Jellyfish Are Coming - to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It" 

(Student 1 volunteers to be jellyfish and stand next to the teacher looking menacing and dangling fingers. Student 2 volunteers to be daughter and stand on other side of teacher)

If the jellyfish are coming, get away! ( All march in place)

If the jellyfish are coming, get away!

If you see them in the water (shade eyes and look appalled at 'jellyfish')

Get to dry land with your daughter (teacher clasps hand of 'daughter' and 'flees' to the other side of the room)

If the jellyfish are coming get away!

Students can rotate taking turns to be jellyfish and daughter until everyone has a turn and knows the song!

If Only They Knew...

Reading today in my human development textbook* on the decisions that agonize parents of abnormal children I was stirred by the powerful nature of our world's blindness to the truth of the Creator.
In the case study, a couple is discussing the implications of having a baby with Down syndrome...

"It's not as though we're deciding whether or not to have a baby. We're deciding what kind of baby we're willing to accept. If it's perfect in every way, we keep it. If it doesn't fit the right specifications, whoosh! Out it goes."...

John was looking more and more confused. "Martha, why are you on this soapbox? What's your point?"

"My point is," I said, "that I'm trying to get you to tell me what you tink constitutes a 'defective' baby. What about...oh, I don't know, a hyperactive baby? Or an ugly one?"

"They can't test for those things and --"

"Well, what if they could?" I said. "Medicine can do all kinds of magical tricks these days. Pretty soon we're going to be aborting babies because they have the gene for alcoholism, or homosexuality, or manic depression...."

"Look," he said, "I know I can't always see things from your perspective. And I'm sorry about that. But the way I see it, if a baby is going to be deformed or something, abortion is a way to keep everyone from suffering - especially the baby. It's like shooting a horse that's broken its leg.... A lame horse dies slowly you know?...It dies in terrible pain. And it can't run anymore. So it can't enjoy life even if it doesn't die. Horses live to run; that's what they do. If a baby is born not being able to do what other people do, I think it's better not to prolong its suffering."

"And what is it," I said softly..."what is it that people do? What do we live to do, the way a horse lives to run?"

What do we live to do? If only they knew! This is why we share the gospel with people: they do not know what they were made to do -"to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever". To not know that God is our Maker, that sin destroys our ability fulfill our God-given purpose, that the cross and resurrection of Christ restores us to our God-glorifying destiny - to not know these things is an unspeakable tragedy. Without the gospel, life is meaningless. Without the gospel, we cannot see a hope or divine purpose in the gift of an abnormal child. Without the gospel, we will slaughter unwanted babies, and never know why it makes us feel bad. Without the gospel, we are in a wretched darkness that does not end when this life ends.

How sweet, then, is the light that God causes to dawn on darkened hearts, to give us "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God"(2 Cor. 4:4, ESV) , who restores that image in us, and who will work all things in our life for good. How sweet it is. If only they knew.


*The Developing Person Through the Life Span by Kathleen Stass Berger, 7th ed.