Tag Archives: boys

Ideals and the Daily Grind

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Home Education, Motherhood

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Lately I’ve wrestled with my assumptions about how homeschooling ought to be experienced–both by me and my children. There’s this tension between the “freedom” that we have as homeschoolers along with the “delight” that we want to nurture … and the painfully hard job of holding the line while a child has to do the work of growing into maturity. You can’t do it for them. You can’t soften the blow. You can’t lift the weight.

homeschool hard weight growth work

Well, you can try. But might not be good for them. Despite not measuring up to the Instagram ideal, the daily grind–with all of its bumps, boredom, and blunders–is good for kids.

We’re beginning to wrestle with these things now that our oldest is ten and carrying more responsibilities. And it’s hard. It’s really hard. Not because he’s rebellious or anything. Just because it means he has to grow up a bit, this child who’s still bummed that he aged-out of child care at our homeschool support meetings two years ago. He’d rather be in there with the 7-and-under crowd just like he’d rather continue doing all of his math and language lessons with me.

But he has to grow up.

And I have to let him.

school boy homeschool hard growth grind

I think of all the ways I could have prepared us better for this transition to greater responsibility and greater independence. There’s much room for improvement and repentance, and I just get to mourn the gap because my baby, my youngest, just turned eight–it’s not like I have kindergartners that I can “do better” with.

But then my husband tells me that I’ve done great. That this transition is hard. Period. (He would know. He was homeschooled.) You could have done some things better, but here we are–and he’s going to get stronger from this trial precisely because it’s hard, precisely because it’ll teach him to pray–as long as we hold the line.

My husband is right, of course. For all the failings, we’ve done well. And are doing well. I don’t measure up to my ideals and neither do my children. No surprise there, really, if I’m honest with myself.

This reminds me of that ideal that is not idealistic. That we’re raising children to become adults. Adults who have to work hard. Adults that will make mistakes and have to correct them–whether in math or driving or work or relationships.

Turns out in bringing up my boys I’m being brought up, too. The higher ideal–for all of us–is growth in maturity, ultimately in Christ.

Praise God I haven’t gotten it all right! I’d be an arrogant sourpuss if He’d allowed me to get it all right! No. There is no perfect ideal in parenting or education. The only Perfect Ideal is Jesus Christ Himself. So the best we can do is look to Christ and hold on. Hold the line of faith as we hold the practical standards for our kids, standing firm as they learn to stand firm themselves, dependent more and more upon the Lord–and less and less upon us.

This. Is. Good.

Hard but good.

True growth, and thus the ability to experience greater “freedom” and “delight,” comes when we submit to the work set before us, choosing to bear up under the weight God has assigned rather than to shirk it or complain. Our children grow the same way we do–if we let them.

 

How about you? What hurdles or struggles are you and your children facing this year? Can you recognize the “hard but good” in it? How has it forced you to rely more upon the Lord? I’d love to hear from you.

Learning from My Children: To Dance Like David

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Christian Encouragement, Motherhood, Stories

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https://i0.wp.com/www.jesuswalk.com/david/images/tissot-david-dancing-before-the-ark-640x444.jpg

“David Dancing before the Ark” by James Tissot.  The ephod might have been a simple robe like this, or it might have been a loincloth.

Last night as I was making dinner I put on a Fernando Ortega CD.

My seven-year-old began moving to the music, something reminiscent of interpretive dance and ballet, though he has had no instruction and has seriously no chance at all of picking up such graceful moves from his parents.

At the end of “All Creatures of our God and King” my son announced that he wanted to dance to that song for next year’s talent show.

My initial reaction was less than enthusiastic.  I’m a rather reserved person.  I’d be somewhat embarrassed for him if he did something like that, something so…so…contrary to our culture’s gender stereotypes.  I wouldn’t want him to be labeled or made fun of.

And then it hit me:  I was responding in my mind like Michal did to David.

Are you familiar with the story?

And David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod.  So David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouting and the sound of the trumpet.

Then it happened as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

My precious boy was dancing before the Lord, in jeans and no shirt, joyfully moving his feet and lifting his hands to heaven, rejoicing in a song of praise that he has long loved.  Not unlike David danced before the Lord to celebrate the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.

And I was thinking about what other people would think of it if they saw it.  Not unlike Michal, who despised David for his exuberant worship and criticized him with biting sarcasm.

My son wasn’t the one missing something–I was.

“I will celebrate before the Lord,” David responded.  “I will be more lightly esteemed than this!”

Oh for the freedom to express our love for the Lord, giving Him the worship that He is due without allowing the fear of man to hinder us.

Am I willing to be undignified in the views of the world?  Am I willing to come to God as a joyful child?  Without reserve?  Without concern?

Am I willing to give my children the freedom to do so?

My boy may not remember this idea by the time the talent show comes around next year, but I at least am taking his example to heart.

Has the Lord ever taught you a lesson through the simple, unreserved faith of your children?  Please share in the comments below!

“The Stronghold of Obstinacy”

24 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by in Christian Encouragement, Motherhood

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“I want to turn the internets off, so it won’t take so long,” my four-year-old said one afternoon as we walked back to the house from checking the mail.  I chuckled, knowing exactly what he was getting at.

“I will turn the internets off,” he continued.  “That will make me happy!  Ha, ha, ha, ha!  I really can turn them off.  That will be good.  You won’t spend time on them. Ah-ha, ha, ha, ha!”

This adorable diabolical scheming is a pretty precious view into the heart of my child–helping me to see what he sees when mama checks out of the living room and into cyberspace.

With that scenario playing in my mind, the reading in My Utmost for His Highest this morning was quite convicting.  Here is an excerpt:

Do you have anything to hide from God?  If you do, then let God search you with His light.  If there is any sin in your life, don’t just admit it, confess it.  Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?

Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you.  If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you.  You were looking for something big to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go.  But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, “I will not give up my right to myself”–the very thing God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Lately my greatest claim to myself has been my own self-determination.  I get very frustrated when my plans are foiled, and I spend my time according to my whims and pleasures–rather than according to my responsibilities and divinely-appointed interruptions, which are the clear will of God for my days.  Instead of serving my husband and children, or producing something useful or edifying for others, I flit time away online or just twiddling my thumbs, being nothing but a busybody–finding some skewed sense of urgency, importance, and needfulness in what I am doing when I am really accomplishing nothing but my own entertainment and self-indulgence.

Thinking that my time is my own is part and parcel to thinking my life is my own, only I deceive myself into thinking otherwise.

O God, please help me to number my days, that I may present to You a heart of wisdom, to be careful how to walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of my time, which You have allotted to me, because the days are evil.  And may I do all of this knowing that I am not my own, I have been bought with a price–with the precious blood of Christ–set apart to live every moment for Your glory, accomplishing the works You have prepared for me.

As I was writing all of this down in my journal, the boys were listening to the Jesus Storybook Bible.  As it told the story of Jesus’ and His disciples’ last evening together in the upper room, there is a supposed conversation going on about the fact that no one had washed their feet:

…Someone had to wash away the dirt, but it was a dreadful job.  Who on earth would ever dream of volunteering to do it?  Only the lowliest servant.

‘I’m not the servant!’ Peter said.

‘Nor and I!’ said Matthew.

Quietly, Jesus got up from the table, took off his robe, picked up a basin of water, knelt down, and started to wash his friends’ feet…

Hearing voiced the loud and proud objections so common to my own heart, “I’m not the servant!” and then imagining the quiet humility of Jesus in contrast about brought me to tears.

My life is not my own.  My time is not my own.

May God break down that “stronghold of obstinacy” within me.

May I learn to be a servant.  May I learn to be like Jesus.

The Blank Page

27 Saturday Dec 2014

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I was scrambling to straighten up the table after sending the boys to bed.  The next day’s to-do list sat ready at my place at the table; there were just a few odds and ends yet to stash away someplace else before I could retire for the night.  And that’s when I saw it, staring back at me from the tidied surface–a blank sheet of notebook paper.

There is something intriguing, inviting about a blank page.  It implies a new start, a fresh beginning, a story waiting to be told.  I suppose even a new Word document may have the same effect on some people, but for me there is something so much more enchanting about a tangible, dry piece of paper, thirsting for real ink.  The lines themselves suggest a longing for the paper to be filled with words, sentences, paragraphs…a story.

And so, as I grabbed my things to take upstairs–water, purse, Bible–I took the single piece of paper with me as well, determined to fill it before drifting off to sleep.

I tucked the boys in, brushed my teeth, changed into my pajamas, tended to the (far too hyper for bedtime) children once more, and then finally settled into bed with a pen and that piece of paper that had, all the while, been calling out to me, begging me to fill it.

The words came quickly at first, like exhaling.  While getting ready for bed, they started forming in my head, waiting eagerly for me to sit down with my pen–like I had been holding my breath–but now, pen to paper, they rushed out freely, taking their own shape as they came.

Writing is like that.  You have an idea of what you think you want to say in your head.  It may be cloudy at the moment, or it may seem crystal clear.  Until somehow, that thought, those words travel from the head, through the heart perhaps, and then to the hand and fingers, where they are somehow translated into ink on paper by way of a pen.  It’s amazing how my words can feel as if they take on a life of their own.  Sometimes this bothers me.  I like to think and present ideas logically, so this kind of intuitive take-over can make me feel as though I haven’t communicated effectively, as though I’ve gone off on some tangent and left my originally-intended outline behind.

But all too often, after reviewing what my head, heart, and hand have penned, I find that the result, while it may not have perfectly followed my outlined intentions, has more depth and feeling and fluidity than I could have ever “logically” planned out ahead of time.

And thus has been the case with this particular piece of paper.  I wanted to describe how the words came quickly at first, which they did.  But I didn’t quite expect them to come so quickly after that point.  I thought I would have to muster up some sort of plan in order to fill the back of the page.  But alas, here I am with just nine lines left to fill and still a few concluding thoughts.

There is such beauty and intrigue in an open page–and arguably more of the same in a simple sheet of notebook paper than in a blank white box on a computer screen (at least, that has been my experience).

Having hit thirty this year and feeling much more painfully how swiftly the years pass by, it seems as though many areas of life hold nothing but boundaries and limitations–a real bummer for a dreamer like me.  But an open page is a field of possibilities, an adventure waiting to happen, in which even I, the writer directing the course, get to be surprised along the way.  And so I have a feeling this will not be the last time I fill an empty sheet of notebook paper before filling the empty sheets of my bed.  Good night.