Homeschool and Mother's Journal, 9/15

In my life this week:

This week entailed a field trip, our regular Wednesday night AWANA, the beginning of the fall clothing switch, and on Friday night a homeschooling social at a dear family's house for game night.

I also worked to finalize our fall homeschool daily schedule. School officially starts on Monday, but on Friday morning we tested our morning schedule to see what changes would be required. 

The DVD player broke in our older, master-bedroom computer, meaning we now have to do the Teaching Textbooks math CD ROM on the playroom computer, which is off the kitchen and can also be heard in the dining room. One part of our morning called for Teaching Textbooks math going on during the same time as the song CD for the girls' Sing, Spell, Read & Write program. That got a little interesting and needs to be tweaked, but otherwise the schedule worked fine.

On Monday we'll test out the morning changes and see how the afternoon works, but we're finishing early so I can get the clothing switch finished before my four-year-old daughter tries on all the clothes and makes me crazy wondering where my tidy pile of give-away clothes just went.

Did I tell you our air conditioner went out and Monday through Thursday were blazing hot, with the house reaching 82 degrees and us owning only one small fan plus a couple air cleaners that hardly qualify as fans?

Not fun, so when we woke up on Saturday morning to a 67-degree house, Momma was doing the happy dance and I even made cornbread to go with our chili and chocolate chip cookie bars for the preschooler church snack tomorrow morning.

I love me some fall weather and I will earnestly pray summer doesn't reappear (much to my husband's dismay). He's a summer creature you know and I don't know how we ended up together, feeling so strongly about our seasons and all. It's a war around here sometimes, with husband praying for summer and me praying for fall.

Our bi-weekly Jesus Storybook Bible children's ministry occurred on the first cold day of the year, so I had to frantically go through storage boxes to find suitable clothes for the children, while trying not to create a laundry and clutter nightmare on the same day as our Bible Study. It's always slightly frantic getting the house tidy and clean before 4 PM on Saturdays, especially since Daddy works on Saturdays until 1:00 PM and can't run much interference with the kids.

I delegated well today, though, with the boys doing all the vacuuming and the girls dusting and tidying up the playroom, getting it ready for a vacuuming. The 4 year old is a lousy housekeeper and needs to be frequently reminded of her "duties". Why is it that 2 year olds are thrilled to help but when age 4 arrives, cleaning becomes the bane of their existence, unless it involves the duster or the windex bottle?

Anyone out there nodding their heads? At least at the four year old trying on clothes incessantly and leaving a trail everywhere of shoes, play handbags, and dresses and shirts?

I would get mad, except she's so darn cute when she tries on clothes and dances around me. "Do I look enchantingly beautiful, Mommy?"

To which the 6-year-old, frog-toting tomboy sister replies, "Beth! There's more to life than just clothes!"

In Our Homeschool this week:

See notes above. I guess I'm poor at sticking to categories.

The only other homeschool note is that taking a break from school should maybe not include taking a break from math. Fractions and percents are hard and the procedures get fuzzy in the brain during periods of un-use. There was much groaning on the first math day back. Too many fractions and percents for their liking.

Helpful Homeschooling Tips to Share:

Try to do the fall and spring clothing switches on a school break. Pretty obvious and what's wrong with me, anyway?

Places We're Going and People We're Seeing:

The Friday night game night was a fantastic stress reliever. We all had a wonderful time and one of the families in attendance also has a child with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. That's amazing because the frequency of this disease is 1 in a 1000! The mother and I couldn't stop saying how amazing it was that we ended up at the same homeschool party. God is simply amazing.

She's a dear woman and I will see her once a month at this Homeschooler Game Night. Next month she's bringing her recipe for crockpot lasagna. She promises us you don't have to precook the noodles. Sound fascinating?

She also has an autistic daughter of 15 who functions like a 9 year old, and she has a son with ADHD. Autism is one of several things that can pair with ADHD either in the same child, or in a sibling of an ADHD child.

I will be praying for this woman, and she for me. Her sweet son with the arthritis patted my Beth on the head before they left, and told her he would pray for her joints and her joy. That about sent me into tearful convulsions.

He's ten and was diagnosed at 18 months old. He has it in fingers and other smaller joints (a different type than my Beth has).

Our field trip was to a working farm to learn how to make our own bar soap and other household supplies. The woman who taught it lives and dresses like a woman from 150 years ago, and she has the lofty goal of teaching sustainable-living classes to as many adults and homeschoolers as she can, so that these valuable skills will not disappear from our culture.

We took home many recipes to try.

Lye, used to make soap, is a poison, though, so I won't be trying my own soaps until my youngest is a bit older.

They are working on building up their farm to include original buildings with working equipment you would have seen in a town 150 years ago. A real working village.  It was a fascinating place with many buildings already in place!

My Favorite Thing This Week:

We went to a large rummage sale at the church my husband works at, and my Beth, upon leaving, gave all the volunteer senior citizens a hug. They were thrilled and I felt so blessed to be her mother.

She made out like a bandit, finding a beautiful porcelain doll for $2 and other little trinkets for cheap.

My other favorite thing was getting some neighborhood evangelism done, and praying about the outcome. May it be a glorious one, Father!

My Children's Favorite Thing This Week:

The game night and the church rummage sale. The boys found the Battleship Game in perfect shape at the rummage sale and brought it to game night.

The family that hosted game night had a beautiful bunny they let run around the house like a cat or dog. It goes to a cage to do its business though (it potty-trained itself!). My Mary was thrilled with it and didn't even make time to play a board game. Bunnies are very timid though and this one, at two months old, wasn't tamed yet and mostly hid from all the kids under the couch.

I'm Grateful For:

~ The Lord and his faithfulness and provision

~ Four precious kids who keep me young and happy

~ My husband's gentleness with me

~ Good Christian friends

~ Fall temperatures

~ Online friends and e-mail friends from afar

~ Children's books

~ The teaching of reading

~ A wonderful letter from our Compassion child Nelson from El Salvador

~ Expecting a letter from India soon, from our precious Divya, and from Raphael in Burkina Faso (all the Compassion letters seem to come in chunks).

Verse or Quote to Share:

Giving thanks for this wonderful verse:

Psalm 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Thank you for reading and how was your week?




 

How To Love Like Jesus

11-year-old Lexie came over today, our neighborhood friend. She frequently wants to come in and play on the piano and see what my children are up to, but I'm ashamed to confess, I don't always let her in.

Those of you with no ADHD experience won't understand this, but letting her in is like enduring fingernails down a chalkboard for a half-hour, non-stop. 

I love this young lady, but she has severe ADHD with oppositional defiance. She's unable to play a board game or do any activity for more than five to ten minutes. She flits around like a butterfly, or like the mouse in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I'm always reminded of those books when she visits.

Extremely passionate and insistent about something, only to forget it moments later.

And she absolutely must be the center of attention at all times, which is especially annoying on van rides.

God has this knack for taking her out of the neighborhood at just the right time--when I don't think I can endure one. more. visit.

Boom. She's gone.

Moved out of her grandparents' house, sometimes for months, sometimes for a few weeks.

Just recently she's come back to the neighborhood and can I be honest? My eyes roll when I hear the knock at the door. Must I, God? Must I let her in? 

And I grieve my own ugly heart for asking this.

Sometimes he lets me say no because my own children's needs are overwhelming me, and sometimes he makes me let her in.

Today she told me, again, that she wants me to homeschool her. She tells me the kids at school are mean, they tease her, they never include her. No one ever invites her over and it's no wonder. Few will tolerate her bossiness and chronic fibbing and her desire to be the center of attention, not to mention the exhausting lack of focus.

I want to make it all better. I want to homeschool her, but I can't. I can't do love that way, day after day, sacrificially. I think homeschooling is the answer for her, but it has to be her own mother investing in her that way. She doesn't really want me to homeschool her. She wants her own mother to be capable of rescuing her from the callousness of public school. I sense the truth from her young heart and it makes mine break. She wants a mother who isn't paralyzed by her own issues...one who can and will fight righteously for her daughter.

Today as she played the piano and went from one activity to another, trying to monopolize my home, I felt the strongest pity I've ever felt for anyone.

I wondered of God: How will she ever find a decent husband? How will she overcome her reading and math difficulties and find a job? Will she ever have close friends? Will her family ever emerge from serious dysfunction? Will she turn to drugs for comfort, as the despair and loneliness get worse? Will callous men take advantage of her and then drop her?

She's sweet at times--a sweetness born of suffering, I suspect--with an even sweeter face, but how far will that get her, in the face of her many, serious challenges?

The enormity of her situation overwhelms me. How many people are this annoying, without being capable of change? Her impulse control is three years old, not eleven years old. It seems so terribly unfair, it's hard to fathom. Personalities are so varied, but in most cases, they are tolerable to most people. This allows some acceptance in our lives, which is so important.

God, how I want this child to be an instrument of your glory! I want you to take all the strikes against her--the neurological ones, the family ones, the social ones--and make something poignant and beautiful and whole of her life.

Because when I think of the negative strikes, it seems so hopeless and dark. I can't even stand contemplating it emotionally, it's so depressing.

Pity is never as good as compassion and shame on me for feeling it. Compassion is never as good as love and shame on me for stopping there.

Pity comes from a self-righteous place. God transformed my pity to compassion and my compassion to temporary love, as I listened to her conversation and tried to let love flow from my heart to hers, divinely, despite watching the clock frequently, wanting her to just go. Love her through me, God. I'm no good and I'm too selfish, but use me anyway to love her. Let her have a taste of the love you're capable of. May she yearn for more, for a Lover of her soul who will never leave her nor forsake her.

I hope she keeps knocking. I want my heart to get better at welcoming. I need to get better at this.

All of us need a Lexie in our lives to remind us: while we were sinners, Christ died for us. He accepted us and loved us radically. He concentrated on what we would be in Him.

We're no better than the worst personality we can think of. We're no more tolerable, no more lovable, no more worthy.

When we have a Lexie in our lives, we have a picture of the gospel. The gospel took hopelessness and brokenness and despair, dunked it in the water and brought it back up...baptized into His holiness. What was black and vile becomes white and glorious, like a glistening fresh snow.

We are all Lexie and we best not forget it. And we better learn how to love, as we are loved.

We can't create love from pity, or even from compassion. Only from a position of humility can we truly love. Only by choosing to view our fellow man charitably, in a baptized, pure-as-snow light, can we love him as Christ would.

The Lord's love eclipses brokenness. May ours do the same.

Prayer Time:

Dear Heavenly Father,

You are glorious and perfect. You graciously love us even though we fail you daily. Thank you. Thank you for the Cross, for the washing of our wretched souls. Thank you for the fresh start everyday. Give us a fresh start as lovers, too. May we love from a position of humility, not of pity or compassion. May our love heal, uplift, eclipse, and make new.

In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

Note: I haven't given her mother a book yet, but I did find this online , which I gave her tonight, written by Lee Strobel. If you're ever asked the question: "Why does God allow suffering?", you might want to print out this article.

Wanted: Just the Right Book

Updated to Add: Thank you for the book suggestions! I'm writing them down and checking them out. In the meantime I took this wonderful article over to my neighbor.


One of the neighborhood children we minister to went to AWANA with us last night. She hasn't had any spiritual input that I know of since the last time she was at AWANA, as she moved out of this neighborhood for a time. Our young friend's spiritual ideas are a bit confused, mixing a little with what she's heard about meditation and possibly about eastern religions. I think she's made a commitment to God, but I can't be sure due to the other ideas that seem to have cropped up in the last five months.

At any rate, she's very spiritually interested.

This afternoon she told me she is trying to get her mom to believe in God. Five years ago her mother lost a child to drowning, then she left her husband, and things have gone down hill from there, according to our eleven-year-old friend. There's been a lot of grief and even more trouble, with the law and with unfortunate liasons.

Her mother asked, "If  God is real and he knows the future, why doesn't he tell us when something bad is going to happen?" This is a variation of the common question "Why does God allow bad things to happen?

That this woman is asking this is a wonderful sign! This is how the relationships we develop can bring fruit. If we wait and just concentrate on a non-judgemental, caring relationship--in this case it was with her daughter--the Spirit will work and when the time is right, previously uninterested or spiritually-hostile people will become seekers of the Truth, and we, God's people, are already in place to help answer their questions. It's beautiful how God sets it all up.

I desperately want to get this right, but all we have here are theological books that wouldn't be appropriate in answering this mother's question, and I don't communicate very well verbally, so much as through writing. And this mother is shyer than I am. What I really think would help is a short book that answers this question concisely and effectively--a spiritually sound book but without a lot of complicated theology.

Do you have any book suggestions? We are starting school Monday and I'm trying to finalize our schedule. At this time it would be difficult to spend five hours trying to search online for the right book, although I will if I have to.

I thought I'd ask you first? Thank you!