Celebrating Our Graduate

Celebrating our Graduate as a Family

 This past Saturday, June 7, 2014, we graduated our 4th of five children from our homeschool, another milestone reached for him and for his dad and me.

5 of My Gifts from God

That's my boy!

 Exuberant and loving, Kipp is a joy in our home.  I am blessed he won’t be leaving us just yet.  He has elected to pursue his associate’s degree in computer science at the community college before continuing at a 4-year institution, if the Lord allows.  There is joy in the journey.

At his graduation ceremony, the president of our state homeschool group was also watching her youngest child of nine graduate. She noted that though people often comment that this is a bittersweet time, she disagreed.  

“It’s just sweet,” she professed.  

I’m not sure any transition is ‘just sweet’ for me, but there is a sense of that sweetness in the respite of accomplishment, of completion.  There is a sweetness in watching the little ones we brought into the world now prepared, albeit never fully, to take on that world themselves.  There is sweetness in remembering, because it is the sweetness of the memories that remains.  

Our Fine Young Men

Yet how easily tears flow these days as each transition not only brings its own twinge of trauma, but also a re-visitation of all transition traumas past.  So…sweet yes, but it is a sweetness that exposes both weakness and strength, tenderness, with all its facets, yet energetic vitality for what’s ahead.  There is joy in the journey, even in transitions.

         So as you celebrate your own transitions, whether they be graduations, or weddings, or something else, I encourage you to cherish them.  Bask in the moments, because they pass so quickly.  They are gifts from God.  Let go of the lies that rob you of your sweetness, and treasure the preciousness of your life.  Even in transition one can relish and delight in the joy of the journey.

Transitions Make Memories

 To you my special family:  I love you guys.  You are all and each special blessings to me from God.  And I will thank Him all the days of my life for you.  Go forth.  Be a blessing and be blessed.     Love, Mom

Practicing Good Statesmanship

United States Capitol

Have you heard about the fanatics, mostly Christian, who planned a revolution against the government? 

Physical Fitness in Home School

Clipart source

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”  (1 Corinthians 10:31 KJV)

No matter when we start our school year, most of us tend to have a sense of beginning or or transitioning to something new in September.  Children usually move to a new grade, classes gear up, new programs begin.  Even as home schoolers we have many patterns ingrained in us that adhere to the common cultural norms like this and there is nothing wrong with that.  Having standardization works in a number of ways.  However one area that I hope we can break out of standardized thinking is in ‘the check in the box’ mentality to learning in general and physical fitness in particular.  

There are some subjects we want our children to learn simply to have a familiarity with the information, to help them be well-rounded, or to give them a taste of it to see if it might be something that would help them find their bent.  Exposing them to that subject matter and moving on works fine.  Other things we know we have to build upon like reading, writing, and arithmetic.  In the early years these are foundational for what will come later, and most of us understand that these are not learn and dump studies.  Spiritual development is a category all to its own.  As Christians we should train our children to have their faith inform all of their studies and not fall into the trap of  just exposing them and laying it aside. Bible study is more than a separate compartmentalized subject which may be foundational for more Bible study, but rather it is applicable to all of life, throughout the day, across all subject areas.  

Persevering in Our Calling

Deuteronomy 6: 5-7 “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when thou sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.”

I am a bit eccentric.  I like being left-handed, thought my most attractive feature growing up was my feet - alas, no longer the case, - and am glad that I am part of the 5% of the population who doesn’t have wisdom teeth, not because I don’t have wisdom teeth, although that is great, but because I am part of the 5%.  So it may not be a stretch to say I was initially drawn to home-schooling simply to be different.  It also shows I am a bit dull to just now be realizing this.  Eccentricity and denseness is not what got me to actually begin home-schooling or what kept me going, however.  It was clearly a gift from God.

Before we even had children, we attended a small church in Tennessee which had one home-schooling family.  I had never heard of home-schooling, but I was intrigued and wanted to know more.  This kind, godly family invited me into their home to spend the day watching how they home-schooled.  It was delightful chaos as this mom nurtured the growing minds and hearts of her children.  I was in awe.  Now attracted to this concept, I attended a home-schooling conference with my new friend, bought books on the topic, and examined different views on education, all before my first child was even conceived.