Why We Homeschool

Jenny

It was a little over a year ago, in June 2015, that I sensed the Lord confirm that our family was to commit to the idea of homeschooling. I’m sure some of you can relate – when the Lord is speaking and you have some resistance in your heart, whether due to fear or unbelief or just plain ‘ole not wanting to hear it. Well, my resistance had been fear – extreme fear. Palms-sweating-anytime-I-thought-about-it fear. But it was to the point that any church worship service, any sermon I listened to at home, any devotion that I read was all through the filter of homeschooling and surrender. It’s pretty hard to deny when the Lord surrounds you.

So, in a moment of His grace, I finally surrendered to the idea of following Him through this journey, knowing that I couldn’t do it. There was no way. But His Word says that He can, and so I was stepping out in faith to trust that He was not going to abandon me in the middle of the ocean of homeschool.
This happened on a Sunday morning. The next day, I woke up and most of the fear was lifted. It was amazing. The first of my own little personal miracles I have experienced since committing/surrendering to this path. My palms stopped sweating anytime I thought or spoke about it. I was still nervous, and still am some days, but it was not paralyzing anymore. That is what the Lord can do to fear – take away it’s power!

One of the ways that my husband and I sensed the Lord’s direction in homeschooling came through a couple reoccurring messages about the passage in Joshua 4, where Joshua is commanded to cross over the Jordan into the promised land, leading the remnant of the Isrealites that were left after their parents’ unwillingness to believe the God’s promises to take possession of the Promised Land 40 years prior. They were finally being led back into God’s Promises, and so they set out on dry land, just like Moses’ and their parents crossed the Red Sea years before. God was doing it again, what only He can. After everyone had crossed over the Jordan, the Lord commanded Joshua to take stones from the center of the dry sea bed, and bring them to the other side to build a memorial.

Joshua 4:2-7
“Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’” 4 Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. 5 And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, 6 that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ 7 then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”

I love this story, I love the symbolism of the memorial stones and how God is so intentional to provide for our weaknesses. Despite the miraculous display of parting the waters and leading them safely across – as if that wasn’t enough! – He then calls them to do something in order to remember His faithfulness in it. He knows they will forget, that they will doubt, that they will call into question His power and faithfulness, provision and care for them. And so He provides even in this, a powerful reminder that will call to mind all the ways that He has moved on their behalf in the past. And because He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, to remember that same faithfulness is present with them in each day.

So the hubs and I sensed the Lord telling us that just like these forgetful, unfaithful, HUMAN Isrealites, we needed our own memorial stones. We needed to write down, keep, and revisit all the reasons that we felt the Lord impressing on our heart as to why this journey was for our family.

—Personal Disclaimer
And I want to take a minute here to emphasize our family. I don’t personally believe that God calls every family to homeschool. I believe, in His Omniscience, that He knows what each family needs, according to the plans and purposes that He has for us to step into.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:10

He knows, for whatever crazy reason (because honestly it feels a little crazy some days), He knows that this is what our family needs. And as I walk in, I can begin to see some of the million reasons for it. I can see how the Lord is using this journey to draw me more to Himself, to remind me of my utter need for Him and to keep me dependent on Him, and to reveal more of the sinfulness in my heart that He desires to root out and transform. I could go on and on…

So, whatever the specifics for you – because they will be and should be different from anyone else due to your unique calling in Christ – I think the general principles still apply. The Lord will lead us along paths that require our dependence on Him, that we will not be able to handle on our own if we are daring to live faith-filled lives, and that will constantly expose our weaknesses and sinfulness and need for a Savior. That’s how He reminds us that we are His, that He is enough, and reveals Himself to the outside world as the Capable One. Not Jenny, not ever Jenny.
—-End of Disclaimer

So our family set about starting this list of ‘memorial stones’ that we will revisit often and run to on hard days to remind us that this is in fact that way the Lord has set out for us.

For now, I will refrain from sharing. These are personal reasons, reasons that I desire to hold close to my heart for this season and allow the Lord to really allow to become part of its heartbeat. And I would never want my stones to become a stumbling block for anyone else, because it’s not about my reasons or what the Lord has spoken to me. It’s about your reasons and how the Lord confirms for your path. And so I encourage you – whether it’s through a mission statement or a little informal scrap of paper, to jot down some things you know the Lord has confirmed for you and your loved ones. Hold it tight. Let it become part of your heart, so that it flows out into your story.

But I am choosing today to share some of the amazing benefits I’ve seen so far along this journey, and to acknowledge the ways the Lord has so faithfully revealed His goodness and His ability to change my heart.

You know how I mentioned that almost immediately my fear subsided after surrendering to the Lord’s path for our family? Well, just 6 months later, where once was fear and extreme anxiety, was not excitement and anticipation for homeschooling! Again, a personal miracle for me. And when we started in January ’15 with our little baby steps into schedules and structure, I discovered that I love it. Something that I wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole and probably the offer of a lot of money I know delight in and look forward to. Only God, people. Amazing.

So here are a little of the fun things I’ve discovered so far.

These two – It’s my prayer that as they live day in and day out together that the Lord will build an amazing friendship and support system in each other. I pray that they learn to encourage and sharpen and care for each other.

I had never made the connection between homeschooling and how my obsession with school supplies would collide! I love all this cutesy, fun, creative curriculum that we get to use, and it encourages me to think outside the box as well.

I would have NEVER believed, if you had told me that the first week into homeschooling both littles, that I would have allowed tubs for sand and dirt into my kitchen! But what I have seen, as I have watched them both be excited and inspired by learning through play, that it has inspired and excited me. And I am now okay with messiness, in doses. 🙂 This is a personal miracle for me, as a recovering perfectionist who enjoys specific things having specific places – none of which accommodated sand before!

I have been given the gift of time, time to witness my daughter’s wonder of God’s creation and the ways that He has given her a deep appreciation for it. She inspires me every day. Sincerely. She loves and enjoys life in ways I don’t think I ever have, and it is changing me to see the Lord’s handiwork in her. I am thankful for the time I have with her, to see her grow into the little girl the Lord is shaping her to be, to Lord willing the woman continue to chase after His heart with the passion and adventurousness I see in her now.

I have gotten to see before my eyes how this little one is changing and developing. I have seen the ways that he plays change and evolve as he has watched his older ‘sissy’ creating in her special creative ways. I have been amazed to see the potential that God packs into kids, and how quickly it starts to come out at such young ages. And like I mentioned above, I am so grateful for the time that I get to witness this little man learn and grow. I know that God has amazing things for this one and am thankful to get to watch the Lord’s work unfold.

This was a fun little study we did on the Fruit of the Spirit, something that just flowed naturally out of some other things we had going on and was just one example of how the Lord has directed our steps to what He wants to be speaking to our hearts in this season. It’s been neat to see how the Lord ministers to our family, and I believe all families, holistically – that the devotion we read with the kids isn’t meant just for the kids. He has a way of relating a toddler’s devotional about self-control to my adult-sized issues with allowing emotions to dictate too many of my decisions, and reminds me that His Word is for all peoples in all stages and seasons and ages. And it just so happens that my daughter tends to take after my emotional tendencies (insert sarcastic “yay!”), so as the Lord is showing me how He can change my heart, mind, and behaviors, He is also at the same time equipping me to help her to walk in freedom from emotional chains. Although I would choose for Him to perfect me before the kiddos arrived so that I could perfectly offer them Jesus, He chooses in His grace and wisdom to continue to refine me through the process of parenting, and that imperfectly pointing them to Jesus is His plan.

The above picture isn’t mine, but I felt it captured this last thought I wanted to share. It came up when I imaged searched “Freedom” and was entitled “Ultimate Goal: Freedom from Self-Imposed Limitations.” I think this perfectly describes what I have seen the Lord doing in my life. The past two years, the Lord has reintroduced the concept of His grace in a way that made me realize that I don’t think I ever really grasped it before. I firmly believe that I am saved by grace, that my eternal home in heaven was secured by what Christ (and only Christ) did on the cross and that I am reconciled to God because of Jesus. But somewhere along the way, I started to believe the lie – a very subtle one – that the rest was up to me. The sanctification part, the perfecting part, the obedience and living up to God’s standards after receiving Jesus as my Savior and the Holy Spirit inside of me – well, that was up to me. And so I have spent years under the bondage and weight of a burden that I was never meant to carry and honestly cannot carry. I forgot that Hebrews 12:2 states clearly that Jesus is not only the Author of my faith, but He is the Perfecter of it as well. It is His work from start to finish. And so with this new-found understanding of grace, I am learning to really step into the freedom that Jesus has for me, to let go of the ‘self-imposed limitations’ I have erected and held onto firmly under the misconception that it was up to me to accomplish and earn. Brene Brown says, “When we’re fueled by the fear of what other people think or that gremlin that’s constantly whispering “You’re not good enough” in our ear, it’s tough to show up. We end up hustling for our worthiness rather than standing in it. When we’ve attached our self-worth to what we produce or earn, being real gets dicey.” Yeah, real dicey.

I now know the truth in a deeper place in my heart than ever before, not just head knowledge that is still impotent to transform and change a life. I am fully accepted because of Jesus Christ, that there is nothing I could do to earn it and nothing I can do to repay it, and any attempts is just being yoked back into slavery (Galatians 5:1).

And you know what comes with freedom?! You enjoy your life! Right there in the smack-dab middle of the mess there is joy! Right there in the middle of the imperfection and process and incomplete, there is a sigh of relief and rest because I know that Christ finished the work on the cross and promises to bring His work to completion in me. My job is to obey – the results are up to Him. Finally the pressure is off to perform and I’m literally freed up to do the things that God was calling me to in the first place.

So what is your story? What is your risk that God is calling you to or that you’ve stepped into? What have you learned? I’d love to hear!

Kicking off The Alphabet House

Jenny

This summer has been so much fun so far. We have lots of friends whose schedules are more freed-up in the summer time, which allows for some awesome kid playdates (which comes with the wonderful side of adult conversation!), and so we have really enjoyed getting to spend time with some wonderful people in our lives. The past few weeks have also consisted of Natalie’s official birthday week celebration (post to come about all the fun activities), which overlapped with her three cousins spending the week at Harwood Camp. (Just in case there was any misconceptions – 5 is different than 2.) 🙂 We had a BLAST, but this mama was pretty exhausted come the end of the visit.

Needless to say, we have gone lax with our structured school schedules, and have found learning opportunities in the nooks and crannies of the day.

So once things slowed down a bit around here, after the return of the extra 3 kiddos, I excitedly jumped into The Alphabet House! We’re only a month ‘late’, but a few great things about homeschooling – flexibility to change schedules, no real fear of parent-teacher conflict due to last minute changes, and the freedom to really enjoy the people around us and allow relationships to be priority in our lives. I’m so thankful for this season of our lives!

I also have approached this month differently than my first with Mother Goose Time. Last month was my first baby-step into schooling with two, and so I was very grateful for a teacher’s guide and Little Goose Guide to walk me pretty much step-by-step through the process of the daily activities. I thrive on structure anyways, and so this was a reassuring benefit to this curriculum. However, now that we’ve gotten our toes wet, I feel more confident now to review and then pick and choose which activities seem the most appealing to this stage of life, that I feel like the kiddos will enjoy the most, and allow the rest of it to just be ‘extra’ if we have time. This is a HUGE step for this perfectionism-recovering mama who usually views a to-do list as set in stone, to be met or to be grieved over at the end of the day. Thank You, Jesus, for freedom and grace, and learning to choose the best over the good! Because Lord knows there are a MILLION and ONE choices out there for us homeschooling mamas (and anyone, really) to grab our time and attention and energies, and at the end of the day, was it even really fruitful?

Anyways, I could go on, but back to Alphabet House! So this month we’re pulling out a few days at a time and letting the themes flow together right before us. The amazing theme and design team from Mother Goose Time weaves the daily topics together so beautifully that it’s so easy for our discussion to flow from one daily topic to the next without much prep or work on my part. I love it in this season where I want to be available mentally, emotionally, and physically to my littles (who need so much) – I’ll gladly receive the benefit of others’ hard work in that.

So we started out the day with grabbing some books that I already had around the house, more for a visual to show them where we were headed and that books are always going to be a part of our learning process.

And I grabbed the awesome manipulative bag that came with this month’s box – foam shapes and cute little plastic keys!

These were the cute little doors that came with Day 6’s bag: Doors and Windows!

We built Peterman a little door out of our math manipulative blocks so he would have something to unlock.

I challenged Natalie to build something and she chose a rocket (R as in Rocket was a theme last month’s curriculum, so neat to see those ideas still being on the front of her mind).
However, now that I’m looking back at the pictures, I don’t think we ever quite made it. We got a little sidetracked once I pulled out the keys for Peter and started talking about doors. Oh well. The rocket will wait for another day!

I pulled out the number cards that came with this month’s focus, and Peter decided he wanted to share some of sissy’s foam shapes to fill in the circles on the page. So we spent a little time reviewing shapes and seeing if we had any other pieces that would fit his card.

Natalie decided to match her foam shapes to the Daily Topic Sheet, adding her own little doorknob. (Peter mimicked this addition in the pictures above, adding a quite large doorknob to his door.)

We talked a little about different doors and types of homes, and knowing they both love a good fairy tale, we focused on Day 5: Castles!

And then they wanted to feed the dragon, and so it ate some of the random manipulatives that we’ve collected so far: pom poms and keys (because dragons will eat anything). Peter didn’t like the idea of the dragon eating his precious little rabbits (one of the manipulatives from May’s Growing Gardens), so he saved those and moved to another activity.

Here was the fun dragon we built!

The discussion of what to feed the dragon

Peter had since accomplished the Rabbit Rescue mission and had left the scene

A girl and her dragon

We then moved on to this fun exercise from the day focused on RV’s. Peter matched all the shapes correctly, which was fun to see him excited in his success.

We wrapped up the morning by building the rest of our Alphabet House so that they could see it take shape (and because mama loves a finished board!).

After a really fun, relaxed morning, I was really giddy at the prospect of this fun month before us! With so much sweetness in my morning – from the super cute curriculum to these amazing two little children of God, I was pretty much ready for a soul sugar crash by lunch. It’s a fun season and I’m embracing it! I know they won’t all be like this, so I will take the good right now and store it away with all the other millions of ways the Lord has been so faithful to direct our steps, change our hearts, and reveal His goodness.

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A Month of Mother Goose Time

Jenny

This past Thursday evening, the hubs and I were listening to a message from Elevation Church (a church and ministry that is near and dear to our hearts) from the Stretchmarks sermon series called Staging Your Celebration, and I really felt inspired to implement a new tradition for our family.

My main take-away from the message was that we need to celebrate the successes in our lives (however small and insignificant) in order to have the momentum to continue towards the goals the Lord has put before us. For me, I interpreted celebrating to look a lot like gratitude, to call to mind all the million ways the Lord has been faithful in the past, and more specifically, the recent past, to bring me to my current state.

So even if my current state looks pretty darn messy and to contain not a whole lot of progress, He has still brought me to this point. He has given me vision of where He wants to take me in the future-that is evidence of His Presence and work in my life. And instead of letting that vision paralyze or shame me, thank Him for being able to take that next little step with Him.

Practically for me, this applied to my new journey in homeschooling. It is SO easy to look at the vision the Lord has cast before me, and even though I do not know how long He may be calling us to commit to it, it can be quite daunting to even think of the next year, if I’m perfectly honest.

Because some days are. just.hard.

But the Holy Spirit spoke to me through this message and gave me His gift of perspective (and what a valuable gift it is). Perspective to choose to see the vision not as some long task set before me, but as I promise spoken of His Presence and guidance, and that that same promise that is calling me to homeschool a year from now is the same one that I can grasp right now, because He’s here for the next step, and all the other steps in-between.

How often do I allow the lack of perspective to sap my energy today?

Instead of His plan being a motivating, empowering companion along the way, the goal becomes a commanding dictator in the far off future, only revealing to me how very far I am away from where I am being called to.

This evening’s specific gift of perspective was the idea of having a review party at the end of each month. (Envision worksheets and crafts and topic posters all strewn across our kitchen table (i.e., the school desk), hanging streamers from the ceiling and around chairs, and cake. That must be included.)

This would give us an opportunity to show the hubs all the amazing work the kids have accomplished during the month (the mounds of painted and pasted creations that were building up in a storage tub in our office), to celebrate Natalie and Peter’s hard work and all the awesome things they are learning, and covertly review all the topics we’d discussed to see how much they are really retaining.

And in doing this, to recognize the progress that has been and is being made. To practically and proactively acknowledge where the Lord has been moving and what He has done.

The idea seems simple enough, but for me, it was an answer to prayer. Jordan and I have really been struggling with knowing how to meet Natalie where she is in her current stage of development. There have been a lot of behavioral issues that have come up recently and I feel like the majority of my time is spent on correction and discipline. The idea of a review party was timely, offering us a way to invest in Natalie relationally by encouraging her in all the positive choices she has been making that have been overshadowed by 4yr old big emotions and meltdowns. And more importantly, to affirm who the Lord has made her – big emotions and all – the creative, insightful, curious, compassionate, spunky, amazing child of God.

In the same way that I need to be reminded of just how far the Lord has brought me and by His grace still thankfully still changing me, I can be reminded that He is not at all finished with my kids yet, either. It is okay that they are still in progress. It is okay that my daughter still has a hard time not being controlled by her emotions. She is 4. 4! Why do I stress about this?

If I’m honest, I see how she she may struggle and assume if we don’t ‘nip this in the bud’ (as in right now, today), she is going to be a 30 yr old melting down in the middle of a grocery store because the cookies she wants are out of stock. It sounds ridiculous when I follow the train of thought and put it into words, but for me, it’s how I crazy. It’s how comparison gets at me because I see other 4 yr olds that can handle situations that set my daughter off, and I feel like we’re behind, deficient, and missing this parenting thing.

And I forget that it’s a process. And that there has been progress.

My biggest fear in parenting is that I will be trying to discipline and correct qualities out of my kids that the Lord intentionally put into them.

But with the Lord’s gift of perspective, what I would once labeled as failure instead can now be an opportunity to learn more of what is good (or not good) for my kids now, and then how we can work them towards certain goals in a pace that is realistic for them for the future.

For me, this picture really captured is concept.
My daughter has been building towers since she was tiny. Before she spoke 10 words, she was putting blocks on top of blocks.
But when she created this tower the other day, she told me to take a picture of her ‘leaf tower.’
She has added leaves to her design, incorporating what we had been discussing and learning through our Growing Gardens theme this past month.
To the outside eye, it probably wouldn’t be that significant. Another tower. One more of a million.
But for me, I saw a difference. New concepts were now part of her design.
She may still be doing some of the same ‘ole things, but there is change.

A Process. And there has been progress.

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