New Year, New Goals

I've been slacking in the slacking department.  That's when you know it's bad. ;)

For my sake, we will call it re-prioritizing.  So here I am again, attempting to write about something that has inspired me.      

So it's confessional time here.  I despise the whole idea of new years goals.  It's like an addict setting a date of recovery.  Why not do it now?  But since it's new years and I had an epiphany on Tuesday, that's what we will call it.  

Let me take you back to Sunday so we can get to Tuesday's enlightenment.  Sunday's best clothing. Sitting on the church pew.  Little legs wiggling.  I'm listening to the preachers topic.  It goes as follows: "Beware lest any man spoil you through vain philosophy and deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." Colossians 2:8.    

What does that mean? The Pastor used an example.  I will paraphrase.  He said,  "I sat in the house of a young man.  As his wife drove away, he buried his face in his hands.  When he made a vow to be with her forever, he didn't give up on it.  But his wife bought into the vain philosophy that life was all about her happiness."

How many of us have been there? Maybe not in this young man situation particularly, but have put our own happiness above doing the right thing?  

I have. 

Or maybe buying into the traditions and ideas of others that are opposing what God asks of us?  

I have.  I do.  

That's why I call this confessional time. Maybe I should rename the title.  Anyway, some days I buy into the vain philosophies the world has.  To name one, the philosophies about grades and education.  Slowly, day by day, I stop focusing on learning.  And slowly I begin to focus on grades and how many pages of what subjects were done.  Or can she pass the test? I can get my red pen out and slash away at mistakes and loose my child's heart. Or equally terrible, her love of learning.   

It's a come to Jesus moment here. 

Remembering that I don't remember hardly a thing of what I learned in school, I considered where we were going.  Is the end goal getting a certificate?  If that's my goal for Katie, then I have tunnel vision.  

The truth is here that I am a high school drop out.  Dropped out in 11th grade.  Got my GED.  In talking with high school graduates and even college graduates, I am not alone.  They have forgotten calculus, algebra, even fractions.  I don't remember history.  Never learned politics.  Don't care about Geography really.    

It's not about what I know.  It's about finding what I need to know to teach her.  

Homeschooling is a challenge, it doesn't come naturally for me.  It doesn't bring happiness some days.  But I am in it for the long run.  

People say, "Oh you're little girl is so sweet, God blessed you with a little child who's just so sweet. I could never homeschool my kids.  They aren't sweet.  I love my kids but they would drive me crazy." That's a compliment to us.  Of course, she's not perfect.  But the truth is really that yes, she is sweet. But it's not because she was born that way.  2's and even 3's were challenging.  There were days I wanted to be anyone but a mom because I didn't like the person she was becoming.  

My husband and I have spent our time teaching her what it means to be a person that is to be enjoyed.  Not purposefully.  But by habit.  We laugh at the jokes that are funny, and rebuke the tacky ridiculous jokes. But that only works if your children want to please you.  And they will only want to please you if you have won their favor.     

It's a good thing to win the favor of your child.  But a bad thing too!  And I say bad in my case because I am half the woman I should be.  And if she wants to be like me, God has a lot of work to do in my life.  But don't think for one minute that I don't take that seriously.  Somedays I spend the majority of my day admitting my faults and asking her to hold me accountable to changing them.  One day she slipped me a scripture about "keeping those things which we have committed."  I thank her for the reminders. Everyday I see her pick up my bad habits, I pray to God for grace to change myself for her sake.   

Can we win the hearts of our children by commanding them to do so many pages a day or requiring certain grades out of them?  No.  We just put an traditional image on them to be upheld. One could say grades are the evidence of what they have learned.  Sure, temporarily.  But come review time, they don't remember some random subject they were never interested in to begin with.  It's a filling up of precious time that can't be regained with useless information they will never remember.  Anyone relate?   

So here we are on Tuesday now.  I am reading a book complied by a bunch of older women who have homeschooled their children that did not have the luxury of a curriculum.  They paved the way for us modern day homeschoolers by fighting the law tooth and nail to have daytime custody of their children.  They didn't have someone telling them how to school their little ones.  Just a Bible and conviction in their hearts.  They learned quickly what they did wrong and things they did right. And one of the women said, "I asked my children often, 'What are you going to do with this life God gave you?'"

So here goes.  I said to Katie, "What are you going to do with this life God gave you?" 

Her response, "What does that have to do with playing?" 

Yikes.  I'm a failure! 

I said, "Nothing," and I repeated the question again. 

There is wisdom with the words that woman spoke because Katie's vision for the future begins to come out. She starts dreaming.  Inspiration is bubbling, I could see it in those big eyes as they lit up.  She's no longer focused on the temporal playing but her mind is drifting and imagination is churning in that sweet little head.  The mouth starts spewing her thoughts. So this led me to question how I can get her to that dream.  What will she need to know?  That question turns into a "school day" of learning about Syria.  I didn't know where Syria was at first.  Didn't know about Paul loosing his sight on the road to Syria's capital (Damascus).  Didn't know that was the first place Paul preached Christianity.  We found so much information on Syria right on our home computer.  It has inspired her to pray for this country.  Which by the way, needs it! We learned it is history's longest inhabited area. That information started entering her brain and caused her to ponder why God says Damascus is destined to become 'a pile of ruinous heap' in the end times per Isaiah 17:1. She didn't understand why, if it's the first place Paul preached Christianity, is it that only 10% of the population is Christian and 74% Muslim.  How did that happen she asked? Questions lead to answers.  Answers require learning.  

 
Katie may not remember the facts about Syria as she gets older. She may find that God has a different plan for her life.  However, it is my job to help her arrive to wherever that may be.  To spark an interest in her heart to discover and learn.  If I could only dream as big as her!  

What are you going to do with this life God gave you?

My daughter Katie on left, our sweet friend Kate on the right.  

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"Syria is a horrible place to live right now because of the war with ISIS.  I wanted to learn about the continent of Asia and we chose Syria.  Syria is the area in Asia that is the most in need of our help.  Lots of kids there are getting injured because of the war.

I want to be a vet when I grow up.  I love animals and to me, that's all that matter.  Animals matter because, like cows, they give us food and milk.  Dogs and cats are good friends to people. And our sheep steps on our toes all day. :) She might give us a lamb if we get a ram.  I really love animals.  I don't know if I am going to have a farm when I grow up but right now, I really just love working with animals.  And I really like the cat Turkish Angora, it's pretty.  I know that one because I have a big cat book. I really do want to be a vet when I grow older but I am open to whatever God's plan is for me in my life." ~ Katie 8 years old