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Sunday / January 18, 2009

“For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). Sometime after the third or fourth year of homeschooling, I finally gained enough confidence to believe I was capable of teaching my children at home. I could see my children were actually learning, and I was excited to be involved in their day-to-day learning adventure.

Everything was clicking with our curriculum, and we actually seemed to be in a rhythm with our daily routine and homeschooling schedule. But something was missing, or so I thought.

As I gave in to my doubt, depression began to cloud my thinking with “poor me” thoughts like: “No one appreciates you,” “You’re just a mom,” and “Everyone thinks you’re nuts and could care less about what you’re doing!” My self-defeating talk continued and many times was substantiated by attitudes and remarks of those in the community who didn’t approve of homeschooling.

Each day I seemed to take one step forward and two steps backward in recognizing my value as a homeschooling mom. Wasn’t there any reward, recognition, or encouragement for faithfully loving and homeschooling my children? Then, God’s gentle rebuke spoke to my heart one morning during devotions. “Why are you still seeking the world’s approval instead of mine?” He asked.

Ashamed, I wondered how many times I would need to learn the lesson of Colossians 3:23-24: “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.”

Feeling renewed after confessing, I walked into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. There sitting on the counter was a carefully wrapped package from my loving husband and children. Surprised, I opened the gift and found a sparkling, professionally-made plaque engraved in gold. Below my beautifully scripted name read the words, “Mother of the Year-in recognition for selflessly loving your family.” Tears filled my eyes as I hung the trophy on the wall. Satan was wrong! I was valuable to God and to my family, and that was enough.

Father, I praise You for the constant reminder of Your love in Your Word. Teach me to always run to You first when I feel discouraged and to claim Your promises as my strength. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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This Friday’s HOTM meme is showing your school room…I hung up the solar system above our school table.  Of course this little crumb found her way on top of the table.

And with one mighty swipe of her little hand, she wiped out the universe!!  It all came down, Earth, Pluto, the sun was out…

I did get the universe fixed but couldn’t get the rings back together for Saturn.

Kids are fun!!

I grew up in a “troubled” family, however, I have no regrets-I’ll explain another day.  Because of many things, school was not high up on my list, survival was.  As a result I did not care about learning.  I was in the mode of thinking, “I just want to get this done and get out of here” and move on.

After having our firstborn, I started to research homeschooling.  Hubby knew of some of my high school days and was a little unsure of how this homeschooling thing would work for me.  Can’t blame the guy, I was thinking that too.

So to get to the point…the one thing I’ve learned is the confidence that I am fully capable of being what I need to be for my family.  Do I fall down?  Oh yes, I do, everyday,  I scrape my knees it happens so much.  I fall down everyday with my kids and school, but I don’t give up.  I keep trying, keep reading everything I can to teach myself to be the best Parent I can be.  The best Mom I can be.  The best Teacher I can be.  The best Wife and Helpmeet I can be.  And I can only do those things through the strength my Lord, gives me.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible,

but the God all things are possible”.  Matthew 20:26

And what relief to know that God is with us through all of this.  Just lean on Him, He wants us to do that.

Do I worry that I am all that I need to be with my kids?  You bet.  But what I have come to learn is that lessons will be completed, life will be busy, a controlled chaos I call it.  The little “crumbs” will still learn, and they will all come who they are to be in life.  God gave them to me.  I will nurture them.  They will grow.  It will all work out in the end, because I have the confidence that it will.

con·fi·dence

But I will still fall down….and His mercy is abundant.

Teach them God’s decrees, and give them His instructions.

Show them how to conduct their lives.  Exodus 18:20

What is the one thing you learned that you didn’t expect from homeschooling?

This is the Friday meme from Heart of the Matter,

“O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: because his mercy endureth for ever.” (Psalm 118:1)  Standing in the basement doing laundry, I wondered, “How much of your life do you sacrifice before there’s nothing more to give?” I was missing a beautiful summer day outside and feeling frustrated that there was so little time for the things that I enjoyed. I dreamed of relaxing in the sun with an ice cold glass of lemonade and a good book or riding my horse into the open pastures near our ranch. Homeschooling seemed to be consuming my entire life and each day I felt a little more drained. If I wasn’t teaching my children, I was cleaning their messes. Would there ever be time again for me?  Self-pity is a destructive force in a person’s life because it fails to acknowledge God’s goodness with a grateful heart. The Hebrew nation’s constant grumbling is a prime example (Psalm 106:25). For over 470 years, they cried out to God for a deliverer to rescue them from bondage in Egypt. When deliverance finally came and Moses led them to the Promised Land, they continued to complain, even to the point of longing to go back to Egypt. Although God had proven Himself mighty with miracles and provisions, they failed to be thankful for His loving hand of protection.  What about you? If the demands of homeschooling have got you down, stop your personal pity party and think again about what the Lord has done. Yes, your days might be busy, but God has blessed you with incredible opportunities to change the world through your children’s lives. Let praise and thankfulness replace your “poor me’s” and watch as God blesses your faithfulness in serving Him as a homeschooling parent. “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” (Psalm 34:1)

Forgive my selfishness when I fail to appreciate all that You have given to our family. Lift my heart today and help me to focus on those things in life that are truly important. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Home-schoolers are more likely to attend college and be more politically active than their peers, a study says. The survey of more
than 7,300 adults who were home-schooled found that among those ages 18 to 24, 74 percent had taken college courses, compared with 46 percent in the same age group among the general population. About 12 percent of the polled home-schoolers had received bachelor’s degrees, compared with about 8 percent of their peers.

The study, by the Oregon-based National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), showed higher levels of political involvement for home-schoolers in several categories. The poll shows home-schoolers are more likely than their peers to vote (74 percent versus 29 percent), to make political contributions (9 percent versus 3 percent) or to work for a political cause, party or candidate (13 percent versus 1 percent). Some of the findings were not surprising, given earlier studies showing high levels of academic achievement by home-schooled students, said Tom Washburne, director of the Virginia-based National Center for
Home Education.

“We expected to find that they were getting good jobs, going on to
college at a high rate, that they were involved in their communities, all of those come as no surprise to a home-schooling parent,” Mr. Washburne said. “However, we are excited by the findings about the civic involvement of the graduates. Their voting and their involvement with campaigns and political parties is astounding compared with the general public.”

The idea for the study “had been percolating in my mind for at least
a decade,” said NHERI President Brian D. Ray. A proposal for the study was turned down 10 years ago, he said. But noting the growth in home education, he said, “Now we have a much larger population [of home-schooling alumni] from which to draw, [so] maybe it was good to wait.”

NHERI estimates that more than 1.7 million U.S. children are
home-schooled. The new study “is one of the few attempts, maybe the only attempt, to get at the question of what do home-schoolers look like after the home-schooling process,” said James Carper, professor of educational psychology at the University of South Carolina, who reviewed Mr. Ray’s findings. “On most measures, they look better than the general public.”

Home schooling has been criticized by the country’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA), which passed a resolution at its national convention declaring that “home-schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience.” An NEA spokesman yesterday said the organization had no comment on the NHERI study.

Mr. Ray said critics “have claimed that adults who are home-schooled would be social isolates, disengaged from civic life and perhaps uncaring about the world around them. The findings of this study, however, indicate just the opposite in terms of these adults’ behaviors.”
Among the study’s findings:
About half (49 percent) of home-schoolers ages 18 to 24 were
full-time students. In that age group, 50.2 percent had “some college but no degree,” compared with 34 percent of the same age group in the general population. In that group, 8.7 percent of home-schoolers had two-year associate degrees (compared with 4.1 percent in the general population) and 11.8 percent had bachelor’s degrees (compared with 7.6 percent in the general population).

Among various measures of community activity, home-educated adultswere more likely than their peers to have read a book in the past six months (98.5 percent compared with 69 percent), participated in community service such as volunteering or coaching youth sports teams (71.1 percent compared with 37 percent), and attended religious services at least once a month (93.3 percent compared with 41 percent).

Asked whether they agreed with the statement that “politics and
government are too complicated to understand,” 4.2 percent of
home-schooled adults agreed, compared with 35 percent of the general population.

In six measures of civic involvement, home-schooled adults
consistently ranked higher than the general U.S. population.

Home-schoolers also ranked higher on measures of personal
satisfaction and psychological health, reporting more contentment on the job and with their families’ financial situations. Asked about
happiness, 58.9 percent of home-schoolers reported they were “very happy,” compared with 27.6 percent of the general public.

Home-schoolers differed significantly in their responses to the
question: “Some people say that people get ahead by their own hard work; others say lucky breaks or help from people are more important. Which do you think is most important?” More than 85 percent of home-schoolers said “hard work,” compared with 68 percent of the general population.

About 74 percent of the home-schooled adults with children said
they were home schooling their own children. The thousands of home-schooled adults who participated in the survey were found through “a highly connected network of home-schooling organizations, ” Mr. Ray said. Their responses were compared with data for the general U.S. population from the Census Bureau, the Department of Education and the National Opinion Research Center. The study did not compare incomes of adults who had been home-schooled with the general population, Mr. Ray said, because of a shortage of age-based income data plus the fact that the average age of the home-schooling alumni in the survey was 21 and nearly half were full-time students.

“If we can come back to a substantial portion of this sample in five
to 10 years, we’ll get a much better idea of comparative data regarding occupation, income and completed level of education,” he said. The study rebuts one of the most persistent criticisms of home schooling, Mr. Washburne said.

“Home-schooling parents have known for years that home schooling works,” he said. “What we always knew to be a myth regarding socialization has turned out to be just that, a myth. Home-schoolers appear to be active, engaged, happy adults.”

Copy/paste this web address, scroll down to the middle of the page, find the 6/23 article on Homeschoolers are only good for cleaning toilets, grab a snack and a beverage, read away, be sure to leave a comment!!!

Obviously the person who wrote this statement probably gets some satisfaction of “getting our goats”, so to say.  Which by the way, did you know how healthy goats milk is?  Ahhh, for another time.  )

We are called to pray for our enemies, please join me in praying for this atheist.

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15)

The benefits of homeschooling are wonderful, but there are times when parents face difficult issues. As children grow into their teen years, they realize that homeschooling sets them apart from the mainstream. Wise parents will understand their teenager’s need for acceptance during this transition into adulthood and provide an added sense of belonging. However, no matter how much affirmation you give your child, his true value and uniqueness will only be confirmed as he realizes and understands his worth in God’s eyes. Dealing with the world’s rejection is difficult for any Christian, no matter the age. God’s Word tells us our true citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20) and that we live as strangers in this world. (1 Peter 2:11) Considering these facts, we too must understand that we will never fit into the world’s scheme of things as we live for Christ. Not only does homeschooling set us apart, but being a Christian puts us on the world’s “most hated” list. “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” (John 15:19) Our worth and value, therefore, can only be based on what God thinks of us.

Do you ever feel ostracized as you homeschool your children? God sees all that you’re going through and promises to never leave you, nor forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5b) Remember, you won’t be a “stranger” forever. Some day, both you and your children will totally fit in as you walk into the heavenly home He has prepared for you.

Lord, Please show me how to encourage my teen as he struggles with the same acceptance issues as me. May we both be strengthened by Your unfailing love until You bring us home to heaven. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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I have been at this site, looked around a bit. I do plan on visiting and using it. As always, use your judgement. As some information may be worldly.

Take care,
Amy