Homeschooling: The Journey Begins

Homeschooling and I have resembled a science experiment I did as a kid. I would pour water and oil into the same cup and swirl it around, but no matter how much I swirled and shook, no matter how many oil bubbles were created, the elements never blended into a homogeneous solution; they each remained distinct.

I've been swirling around in a jar with homeschooling and we've been bubbling against each other. Last year was a mix of frustration and self-doubt, mingled with enthusiasm and disappointment. Nothing, literally NOTHING, went as I had planned or imagined. My children did not wake up with enthusiastic smiles begging to begin school (yes, I had dreamed of my children loving school so much that I simply fed their eager imaginations and hunger for learning). Samuel did not sleep or play quietly while the older children and I read fantastic stories about fairies, world history, and science. I did not manage to drag my sleep deprived body out of bed before my children so I could greet the day with peace and joy overflowing from my time with Jesus.

My water of life was not mixing with my oil of homeschooling. By the end of the year, we were just really broken down into lots of little pieces and I was left staring at the fullness of my sin (impatience, lack of love, pride, and the list keeps going).

This is what homeschooling sometimes looks like in our house. Samuel climbing on everyone!

As we entered into summer, the Lord and I entered a season of His revealing how much work He has still to do in my life. I feel like he pulled back the curtain of my heart and gently shined His light into so many places where I need to grow.  My heart was humbled and repentance entered in. His gentle instruction has led me over the past few months and He has hemmed me in, behind and before, with His tender love.

Amidst this season of repentance and rebuilding (although isn't all of life full of both?), the Lord continued to encourage me to homeschool. There was no head-bashing. No forceful pushing. Just His firm gentle insistence that He would do this with me and that I could trust His leading in my life. I wanted to homeschool, I truly did, but I wrestled with whether I could homeschool. I have ADD, a part of me that is both wonderful and frustrating, and I wondered whether I could tame my mind's constant pushing and pullings to properly educate my children.

And so, somewhere in my heart, I committed to this journey. Really, I committed to my children, because I'm homeschooling for their sake and not my own, and I committed to the Lord.  Chaos may abound and attitudes may flounder, but the Lord and I are on this journey together.

Paideia, the latin word for nurture, stood out to me suddenly bold and bright as the Lord lit it on a page before me.  In Ephesians 6:4, Paul writes, "Fathers, do no provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."  The word nurture here is paideia in the original greek. The Lord impressed it into my mind like a seal upon wax, scribbled in the margins of my bible and circled in my own hand.

God has called me to paideia my children: to nurture, discipline, train, and instruct them in the way of the Lord. The public schools won't do this for me. God did not call my church to do it for me. He didn't ask a private school to do it for me. He commanded fathers (and I'll imply from the whole of scripture that this includes both sexes) to train their children in the way they should go, to talk about Him when they sit at home and when they walk along the road, when they lie down and when they get up (Deut 6:7).  To be clear, I don't think God calls everyone to homeschool, but a number of years ago I very clearly felt the Lord tell me to homeschool. And so, here I am, finally committing to this journey.

I'm not committing to "homeschooling" itself. I'm not pledging myself to the classical learning style. I'm not placing my flag on the hill of better education.  I'm standing my ground on paideia. My children may not speak chinese, sign language, and write in perfect cursive by the time they are six. They may not learn to read faster than their peers. They may not have perfect attitudes and be the best behaved children on the playground. But I'm not homeschooling for these reasons.

I'm homeschooling because I want my children to see Jesus, day in and day out, in my weaknesses and in successes. I want to nurture them and instruct them. I want the gospel to saturate their life.  I want prayer to be in their left hand and God's word in their right. I want faith to be as natural to them as breathing and salvation to cover them like a helmet. Because they are going to face some battles in this life, (we all do, don't we?) and I want them to be prepared in the "nurture and instruction of the Lord." I want their first response to be "Jesus!" and their last breath to be "Jesus!"

And since He has called me to this, I believe that He will equip me for it because He has prepared these "good works" in advance for me to do.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 1:11).  I am assured that my hope, which is Christ, will not disappoint. I am confident that every promise God has made is "Yes" and "Amen!" in Jesus. So I'm walking into this knowing God is with me and that He will guide me and instruct me. That He longs for my children to walk with Him and that He is faithful to finish the work He has started. That His Word will not return void. That He will extend His faithfulness to the thousandth generation of those that love Him. These are the promises I cling to and the impetus for this journey. 

No matter whether homeschooling and I are remain water and oil, paideia and I resemble sugar water. Sugar dissolves when it is mixed and stirred in water and both are changed by the process. This journey may have mixing, stirring, and all kinds of agitation throughout the process. In the end though, something new and sweet emerges. Add a little lemon and you've got a refreshing drink. ;)

I will be chronicling my journey here to keep a record and history of the "science experiment" God is conducting in my life. Sometimes you'll see the agitation process. Sometimes you'll get a drink of our sweet concoction. My hope is that we'll look back and see a record the results of God's handiwork and His scientific method at work in our life. 

Care to join us? 

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Adventures In Faith: {Satisfied}

A whisper in my ear. Another lie. 

Failure.  I know. I am still failing. At everything.

I can't do this anymore. I'm so tired.  It all feels likes so much work.

My bible lays next my couch, beckoning, promising to fill my empty heart with the things it needs.  I turn away and turn a mindless show on the television.

My bible calls out again. You need me. I get up and do the dishes, pushing away the tears that are threatening to spring up again.

Jesus calls. Come to me. I play with my daughter and put her to bed.

Jesus, help me. I cry in the shower. The tears mingling with the water flowing.

My bible is still there. Next to the couch.

I hear Andy asking questions, What do you want to do tonight?

I can't think. I can't handle this one little innocuous question.

I need to read my bible. I say it in my head before it makes it to my lips, but it does.

I grab my bible and drink, deeply.  I feel like I'm quenching a deep gnawing thirst. Each moment more in the Word and the thirst stops aching so deeply. Every word and I feel my emotions gentle, my heart beat more calmly, my tears draw back.

I didn't know I needed it so much. I used to go months without reading the bible. And now? Now three days and I feel myself drying out inside.

“My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me,

    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,    broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

Jeremiah 2:13

Digging their own cisterns.  The metaphor rings deep in my soul and I think of how I have been trying to hold water in my own leaking pool, which has been dug in the dirt of my effort, and finding over and over again that the water there doesn't satisfy and is full of disease and sickness.  Finding myself over and over again hunched in pain as my water makes me ill and poisons me from the inside out. 

"For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Revelation 7:16

And here I find that His word is true and that as I drink from His spring of pure, clean, living water, my tears begin to dry in my eyes.  Even as I am still reading His word, he takes me and satisfies the deep emptiness inside that He was always meant to fill. 

Jesus is enough for me, filling every crack in my heart. Flooding in and washing the broken pieces out while bringing his soul-quenching peace. A soul delighted in God will want for nothing other than God. It knows at the heart of life is Him and, once found, nothing but Him can quench the thirst that He is meant to sate.

Satisfied. I am satisfied. 

“Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives.”  Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

5 Things I've Learned From My Husband

Everyone wants your advice.

Or so the unstated philosophy of my family goes.  They have a catch phrase that precedes any tidbits of advice that they will push on you, solicited or not.  It goes: If there is one thing I've learned in my life...

In honor of them [and unsolicited advice everywhere], I've created the Five Things I've Learned... series on this blog.

Be prepared to be amazed by the unsolicited tidbits of life-learning I will pass on to you.
....

5 Things I've Learned ... 

From My Husband

1. Dancing in the kitchen is better than a ballroom.

I once thought the best dancing happened in ballrooms, with mood lighting, good music, and a variety of skilled dance partners. I was wrong. The best dancing happens at home, after a long day, when your husband turns up the music, grabs your dish-soapy hands, and twirls you onto the kitchen floor and you dance the evening away with just him... and maybe your two year old. That is the best dancing.

2. How to use lightroom and photoshop.

Guys, I really thought I was tech-savy. And then I met Andy. I am daily learning how little I know. The more I learn, the more he seems to know.  I can't catch up. This man is a tech-genius.

3. What true forgiveness looks like.

I mess up. A lot. And in big ways sometimes. And yet this solid rock of a man that I married is gracious, kind, loving, forgiving, and always understanding. How did I get so lucky?  I'm pretty sure I'm getting better at demonstrating some of the godly characteristics that he has shown me, but he constantly impresses me with how he lets God live and love through him.

4. Cars are a hobby.

Can't they just be transportation? Do they really need to be hobby?  I'm waiting for the day when we have the same car for more than a year. It hasn't happened yet...

5. The best advice is a listening ear.

It doesn't make sense, but watching Andy proves it again and again. People don't need your advice. They just need your unconditional love, support, encouragement. They know what is wrong in their life, and they likely know how to fix it. They don't need you to point it out; they just need you to listen and care. And if they want that advice? They'll ask for it.

Who knew?

© Andy and Elisha Catts - our first wedding anniversary in Sunriver, Oregon.

Comment Discussions: What have you learned from your husband?