home school

Homeschool Advice Part 8 | Stay Engaged

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Once again, this advice is for all parents, not just homeschoolers. Whether your kids are never out of your sight or you hardly see them; whether they receive their schooling directly from you, from a public school, private school, or a hybrid; literally no matter what is going on in your life with children, the advice is the same: stay engaged.

I know firsthand how tempting it can be to zone out during your homeschool day. Especially once your children reach the age where you become more educational facilitator than hands-on teacher, it’s easy to just let them go do their thing and assume all is well.

Resist this temptation.

Instead, stay engaged in the educational process. Initiate discussions. Ask questions. Have your learners repeat the information they are reading out loud. Not only will this simple practice keep you fully connected with their strengths and weaknesses, it will help them retain their lessons. It is wholly worth the extra few minutes.

Avoid Easy Buttons

Another bit of advice in this realm: don’t waste one of the greatest assets you have as a homeschooler – the ability to review mistakes made in homework. In my words: never waste a good mistake. All mistakes are fantastic opportunities to learn. So, don’t hit the easy button and just discard your kids’ work. Stay engaged in the entire process of learning, grading, and reviewing.

I recommend what I did – grade your children’s homework daily, then take time to go over not only what they missed but why they missed it. Sure, it takes extra effort on your part, but I promise the benefits for them vastly outweigh the inconvenience to you.

This process of reviewing missed problems or questions allows your children the enormous blessing of learning from their mistakes. Plus, it keeps you accountable for not letting things slide on the administrative end.

Win-win.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:17).

Another easy button to avoid is entertainment in the car. Those trips to and from activities or field trips provide excellent opportunities for conversation. You have a captive audience – as long as you don’t surrender your kids’ attention to technology.

By God’s grace, I avoided the use of technology in the car until my kids were nearly college-aged, and as a result, I was blessed with a multitude of incredible teachable moments and deep conversations. It always amazed me what would come up naturally in the course of passenger-seat conversations.

I still treasure our many (often hilarious) car-ride convos and have never once regretted leaving the distractions behind. To this day, my now college-aged kids prefer chatting in the car to zoning out on their devices when we are driving together.

Deadlines

One critical commitment you must make as the homeschool teacher is enforcing firm deadlines. When my kids were still babies, I began to research the pros and cons of homeschooling. I learned one of the most often reported complaints from colleges was the inability of homeschoolers to meet deadlines.

(And yes, I did in fact contact college admissions departments before my oldest turned four…)

As a Christian, this deadline failure ought to be an ouch moment.

Think of it this way – instead of demonstrating reliability, trustworthiness, and faithfulness, homeschoolers instead present a lax, disrespectful, and slovenly attitude toward other people’s time. An inability to meet deadlines and keep appointments displays a lack of integrity. It is both rude and irresponsible.

Not only would such a failing reflect poorly on your student, it dishonors our Lord. As Christians (homeschooling or no), we bear Christ’s name. Because of this, we are His ambassadors; thus, we should strive to do whatever it takes to make Him look good – reflecting His integrity and excellence to a watching world.

Even if it means doing hard, inconvenient tasks in our homeschool days.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).

On a practical level, think of what failing to enforce deadlines teaches your student about the real world. When rent or the electric bill comes due, deadlines become quite important. If your student goes to college, they will need to submit their work on time. If they enter the work force, they will still be required to show up on time and meet goals or target dates for their work.

Slippery deadlines are a HUGE temptation as a homeschooler. Yet I urge you – do not be careless with this vital skill. It has far too many real-world ramifications.

When you’re tempted to “show grace” on a deadline, imagine a doctor rolling in a couple of hours after the scheduled surgery while you lay prepped on the table or an electrician putting off an appointment to fix a smoking outlet for a week or two. Then be firm and hold your students accountable.

Homeschooling as a Job

One major way to keep yourself engaged is to treat homeschooling (or parenting) like a “real” job – even though it is a job you pay to do rather than getting paid.

Think of it as your full-time career with the Lord as your boss – because, well, that’s exactly what is going on if you are called to homeschool.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:23-24).

With this in mind, imagine your response if you sent your kids to a public or private institution and discovered the teachers were busy scrolling Instagram, never bothered to look over homework, or just decided to take the day off and watch movies once or twice a week.

Most of us would be outraged to discover this was going on in school, yet we find it all too easy to excuse the exact same behaviors in ourselves! Not cool.

Your kids’ education and well-being is worth the effort it takes for you to do the job well – not perfectly, of course, but to the best of your ability.

Don’t underestimate the trickle-down effect of slack behavior. If you demonstrate negligence, your kids will pick up the cue that cutting corners or scrimping on quality is an acceptable way of living life. Instead, model hard work, integrity, and personal sacrifice for the sake of God’s ways so they learn to do the same.

Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys (Proverbs 18:9).

Stay Engaged in Kingdom Work

Finally, stay engaged and look for gospel opportunities throughout your day. Homeschooling is not only about educating your child’s mind but also about discipling his heart. It is Kingdom work, and it is work with an eternal impact.

Keep the Word of God foremost in all you do. Look for chances to point out God’s work in your daily life, and draw attention to evidence of His mercy, grace, and goodness. Exalt Him wherever possible, even in the mundane details of your homeschool.

Final Thoughts

While it seems as if these years will drag on forever, they won’t. Your time with your children is precious and limited. Don’t squander it. All of the advice I’m writing out comes from a place of mingled regret where I failed and joy where I succeeded in my homeschool and parenting.

In homeschooling, I had no mentor, and I learned a great deal from failures. My heart’s desire is to give you a leg up so you can land on the other side with more successes and fewer failures than I. And above all, my hope is God can be glorified through sharing both my mistakes and my successes in homeschooling and beyond.

Homeschool Advice Part 7 | Read Aloud and Read a Lot

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” – Ray Bradbury

If you do nothing else in your homeschool, teach your children to read. Basic math is also a must, and thinking critically about what they read is equal in importance, but reading itself is an incredible skill that cannot be overstated. Since reading the Bible should be the foundation and center of all we do, it goes without saying that a person cannot understand the Scriptures unless he or she knows how to read. So, read. And read aloud. Then read some more.

Read Aloud To Them

Long before your children are capable of tackling texts themselves, I highly recommend reading to them. There is an established correlation between parents who read aloud to their very young children and the child’s later reading comprehension. Children who experience the benefits of being read aloud to often go on to not only have greater literacy and comprehension rates, but tend to read for enjoyment more often as well.

But don’t stop too soon. So many parents cease reading aloud to their kids the moment the young reader has a basic grasp of phonics and can make their way through a beginner chapter book.

This is a grave mistake. Reading is actually difficult work involving decoding signs and symbols into meaning. Often, a child can decode the words into sensible sentences long before they are capable of actually processing the greater meaning of the whole.

But when a parent reads aloud to children, their brains are free to assimilate, process, and critically think about the concepts they are hearing. They also learn the rhythms of language, gain exposure to complex syntax and use of imagery, and hear how others distill thoughts, feelings, and observations into words.

So don’t stop reading to your children the moment they crack the code for the first time. By all means, allow them the privilege and excitement of reading for themselves. Yet supplement their early reading with what I always called read-alouds; books you share as a family, read aloud by the parent and enjoyed by all.

Also – don’t stop this practice in elementary school. Read aloud to your children as long as you can. You may be surprised how long they will enjoy it.

In actual practice, I read aloud to my children until they started attending private school (in 10th and 8th grades respectively). Our read-aloud time was one thing I missed the most when homeschooling ended, and the kids expressed fondness for those times as well.

Not only did reading aloud serve as a bonding time for us as a family, it also helped each of them develop literacy, exposure to new ideas, and develop a love for reading (which, of course, varies from the middle child who seeks out and reads obscure Shakespeare plays for fun to the oldest who enjoys more modern books).

Have Them Read Aloud to You

Besides the books you read to them, be sure you insist on each child reading aloud to you for a few minutes every day. Don’t just assume they are grasping their reading lessons; be certain of it. And again, don’t stop this practice in elementary school but continue it for the duration of your homeschool.

There are several ways to do this. One simple way is to have them read a page or two of their reading/ literature, history, or science textbooks. Another great practice is to have each child take turns reading from the Bible each morning.

By hearing your children read out loud, you can be aware of areas they are misinterpreting words, skipping over difficult words or passages, or catch a myriad of problems in their infancy. Children who read aloud and have their errors corrected on the spot, who are encouraged to sound out big words, develop greater confidence and competency. It’s worth the extra effort.

Read Good Books

No matter what age or stage your children are at, they can still benefit from being read to. My number one advice for choosing a book to read aloud is to choose good, quality books with stories that stand the test of time. And choose books that are one or two levels above your child’s own reading ability.

Practically speaking, in the very early years (preschool – third grade), you have a plethora of children’s chapter books to choose from. The Moffats and other books by Eleanor Estes are fabulous, as are books like Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Ronald Dahl, and any number of children’s classics.

Do a Google search to find recommended reading lists for each grade, then choose one or more a grade or two ahead of your oldest student. In the elementary years, even young children can enjoy hearing books they may not yet be able to decode for themselves.

Note that in the elementary years, I personally recommend books that support Christian values. What you read to them will not only shape their minds but will contribute to shaping their worldviews. They are too young for abstract thinking, so be selective in your choices.

In late middle school, expand your read-aloud list to heftier material like The Screwtape Letters or Mere Christianity (7th-8th grades) by C. S. Lewis or Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. These books may be beyond your child’s grasp, but reading them aloud and discussing them has a tremendous benefit. In books such as these, they hear the voices of Christian thinkers as well as men from another age and culture – all of which can serve your children well as their minds develop.

There is also great benefit to reading more controversial books aloud to middle school children. Don’t be afraid of what’s out there, but dive in, read it together, and examine it critically. Discuss what you read: Does the author champion a view that honors God? What parts of the book line up with Scriptural principles? Where does the book differ from God’s way? What is the main takeaway from this book? Are the themes, lifestyles, attitudes or actions those we should emulate or avoid? Why?

Don’t throw your kiddos to the wolves and hope they’ll figure it out for themselves. Jump in and wrestle it out with them.

Read Old Books

“Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.” -Albert Einstein

One great service you can do for your children is to read older books. Take them back to a time when life was lived differently. Let them hear the flow of language, linger in the length of a long and luxurious sentence, and hear the tones, fashions, and moods of other periods in time.

By reading older books – especially when you spend time discussing what has been read – you help children see how cultural fads come and go. They can see how social norms may change but human nature never does. They are given a glimpse into the past and can learn that our modern ways of living and relating are not necessarily right just because they are current.

In short, they can learn what a small space each of us occupies, what truths endure and stand the test of time, and how true it is that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). A little humility goes a long way in learning how to think well, and books can be a great tool in learning it.

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.” – Abraham Lincoln

Homeschool Advice: Part 6 | Failure

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

In the early years of homeschooling, I began to re-evaluate the role of failure in life. I’d spent a good portion of my adult years berating myself for stupid mistakes, wasted time, and the like – to the ironic point of wasting more time stupidly dwelling on past mistakes. It changed when I noticed my ungodly habit rubbing off my kids and recognized the absolute desolation of refusing to learn from past mistakes.

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
(2 Corinthians 7:10)

Instead, I began to tell my children what I had learned from mistakes. When they failed at something, I would repeat a phrase they likely grew sick of hearing over the years: never waste a good mistake.

I meant it. The usefulness of failure became clear to me during an afternoon chat with a neighbor on her front porch. She mentioned failing statistics several times in high school and talked about how much she hated standard deviations and probabilities. When she caught my blank stare, she asked, “Don’t you remember?”

I did not.

Ironically, I’d aced the class. Yet as the conversation progressed, it became clear she remembered far more statistics than I did despite her failures and my apparent success.

As I took this new thought to the Lord, He showed me where my personal areas of failure were now lessons more deeply etched than those areas I’d skimmed over by succeeding.

Because of this realization, I determined to not only allow my children to fail but to show them how to best learn from it. I didn’t withhold the large red X on incorrect problems, and I resisted the trend in my circles to give them straight As at the end of each grading period.

Instead, I graded appropriately. Good grades were earned, not granted. Whenever work was done incorrectly, I would bring the graded paper back to my little pupil and have them rework the problem. Together, we would think through what went wrong.

However, I did not change the grade. Instead, I provided a chance to learn from mistakes so the next grade would be better.

I wanted to challenge them, and I wanted them to fail so they would see failure is not an end. It is not a thing to be feared. Instead, failure is merely another step in the journey. In truth, failure can even be a more memorable step than instant success. Whatever we wrestle through, we tend to recall more vividly.

I’m convinced this is part of why God allows us to fail. By failing, we see our own fragility; our weakness and need for Him. Also by failing, we learn not to be afraid to try because we discover failure is not so bad, after all.

In fact, through failure, we learn humility and to better trust the God who never fails. 

"Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, 
remember the former things of old; 
for I am God, and there is no other; 
I am God, and there is none like me, 
declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done,
 saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,'
(Isaiah 46:8-10)

Homeschool Myth #1: You Need Limitless Patience

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

I don’t Have the Patience

“I could never homeschool. I don’t have the patience for it!” Thus goes the most common refrain I heard from other parents when they first learned I homeschooled – back in the day, of course (my kids are all now in college).

My reply never varied. “Neither do I!” I would exclaim.

Homeschooling has been called “parenting on steroids,” and it’s true. A homeschool mom or dad is with the next generation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no weekends, no planning periods (at least not in my case) and you’ll often boast an entourage when you visit the necessary room. You’ll have every button you own pushed (including many buttons you didn’t know existed), you play the roles of both parent and teacher, and you will have every grain of patience tried, tested, and expended – often before 9:00 a.m.

Yet you do NOT need a limitless amount of patience. What you DO need is a vibrant relationship with the Most High God. He is the Giver of all good gifts, and that includes patience. Instead of needing to be able to rely on your own strong & stalwart patience, you need to live in surrender to His Holy Spirit daily, hourly, so the fruit of patience can grow in you.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience... (Galatians 5:22a, emphasis mine).

Patience Is a Fruit

Don’t miss this: since patience is a fruit, we must remember fruit takes time to grow and mature. Patience is not a prerequisite for beginning a home school; it is a fruit cultivated as you walk through the process. And it is worth the labor to cultivate.

Will you fail? Absolutely. But I would argue it is actually good for you children to see past a carefully-curated, self-reliant, perfect-but-false image and instead watch the process of sanctification unfold in a real human being.

In fact, I see it as an advantage to homeschooling that your children have a front-row seat to watching you deal with your emotions, frustrations, and become impatient with them. It’s good they get to see you deal with stress inappropriately and repent, get back up, and keep going. It’s a lesson like no other when your young ones watch you lose your cool and learn that the world does not shift off its axis and career through space like an oversized ping-pong ball when a human being fails to respond to stress in perfect patience.

It is also good for children to learn that patience is developed over time so they know that they, too, will be afforded the opportunity to develop patience rather than carrying the weight of being expected to handle every bump with perfect composure the first time around.

When they see you fail, get up, dust yourself off, and keep going, they learn to do the hard work of moving through failure and sin to a place of repentance and renewal. Not to mention perseverance; that gem of a virtue which is so lacking in modern society.

Impatience Is Human

But of course, we are a notoriously impatient species. Just think of what happened to the fledgling nation of Israel when their leader Moses took a bit over a month in meeting with the Almighty and bringing back the tablets of His covenant. Rather than taking it as a good sign when they saw God’s glory remaining on the mountaintop, the restless horde decided to chip in their varied jewelry and make a trinket to worship. Impatience isn’t a modern problem; it’s a human one.

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, they people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him: (Exodus 32:1, emphasis mine).

Would it be convenient if God called us to do hard things like homeschool and just bestowed upon us a wealth of patience, wisdom, and genius right off the bat, making us supernaturally perfect at the job at hand? Of course it would be convenient. But it wouldn’t build our relationship with Him as we learn to come and ask for our daily bread – or daily patience – and rely utterly on Him.

Trusting God to Fill our Lack

My friends, more than God wants perfectly patient little children, He wants children who understand our aching need of Him and who depend on Him in relationship. The psalmist writes in Psalm 81:10, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”

This is what He wants for us in anything we lack – a heart that understands its own fallibility and a desire to ask our Father for what we do not have, trusting Him to give it.

In my homeschool days when my patience was tapped (as it often was), I learned to cry out to the God who always showed such patience with me. And more importantly than anything else, I learned that my God’s grace truly is sufficient and His power is made perfect in my weakness – just as He said.

Watching the Fruit Grow

So what is the fruit of this daily struggle to learn patience, to fail and get up and try again? For one thing, I am a far more patient person than I was when I began this journey.

Perhaps more compelling is what I see in my kids, all in college as of this writing. They did not turn out perfect, nor did I expect them to. But at the ages of 23, 21, and 19, they are absolutely amazing young people. They are delightful to be around, they make me laugh and we have real fun together. Really. I enjoy my adult children, and they astonish me with their wisdom, their grit, and their willingness to do hard things.

And would you believe it? Each one of them has more patience in their early 20s than I did even in my 30s and 40s. They are not perfect, but they are exponentially more impressive and enjoyable than I was a their ages.

Patience, it seems, is not only taught through personal trial but also passed on to your young as they participate in the process. Our God is just good like that.

So if you are thinking of homeschooling but fear you don’t have enough patience, allow me to set your mind at rest: you don’t. Instead, you have something far better – 24/7 access to the Father of Lights who loves to give good gifts to His children and is there with you through the painful parts of acquiring those gifts. And you also have my testimony that it is worth it.

I hope that helps in some small way.

Tanstaafl and Education: A Homeschool Resource

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

“Oh, ‘tanstaafl.’ Means ~’There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.’ And isn’t,” I added, pointing to a FREE LUNCH sign across room, “or these drinks would cost half as much. Was reminding her that anything free costs twice as much in long run or turns out worthless.”

“An interesting philosophy.”

“Not philosophy, fact. One way or other, what you get, you pay for.”

-excerpt from The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

Free Public Education

My nation has a free public education system. And by free, I mean paid for by tax dollars, which means it is not technically free. It also means whatever agency or group handles the funneling of said tax dollars into our education system very likely has more clout than the taxpayers when it comes to policy-making, curriculum choosing, and other ways those hard-taxed dollars are used.

And this is a problem inasmuch as too few of our officials know what a child is, much less what is good for one. Most of their time seems to be spent in an abstract political universe with only brief forays into reality.

And thus, the sorry phrase, good enough for government work now applies to the shaping and curation of many young minds across the USA. The word tanstaafl pops into my mind most often alongside thoughts of the American free public education.

A Brief History of Public Education in America

It wasn’t always this way. In the early agrarian years of this nation, children most often learned incredible amounts of information just by living and working alongside their parents. Survival was the reward, and I’d argue it was a better one than a paper degree. But that’s another topic.

In the earliest days, wealthy families often had tutors while poorer families taught their own kids what they needed to survive and run the family business or farm. The farther from a town or village one’s family lived, the less likely one was to have access to formal education of any sort.

Formal education was pretty haphazard, seasonal, and utterly dependent on a wide variety of factors foreign to the modern lifestyle. Basic math and reading were often taught at home through the normal course of life – items bought or sold in town, the reading of the Scriptures, and keeping up letter correspondence with family and friends far away.

By the 18th century, towns and villages might have a small common school – often doubling as the church meeting place on Sunday and as often staffed by either a preacher (if the town was lucky enough to have one in residence), itinerant teachers, or just someone who was willing, whether or not he or she were trained. These early schools were often tuition-based or funded by the generosity of the townspeople, though not always in dollars and cents. A parent might provide housing for the teacher, and bartering for goods & services flourished in those days.

It wasn’t until the 1830s that a more systematic public education system began to form. Even then, it barely resembled our modern schools. There were no minimum ages, children came if and when they could, and training in morality was seen as an imperative to producing good citizens along with an almost-secondary focus on the “Three R’s” of reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic.

Factory Model Learning

By and large, our current educational model was shaped by the assembly-line mentality of the industrial revolution. Today, its shape is maintained more by politics than by professors. Ask any public-school teacher today, and he or she will tell you how much time is spent collecting data points on students, preparing for standardized tests, trying to enforce discipline without tools, tweaking lesson plans for IEPs, and so on.

The complaint I hear most from my teacher friends is that they don’t get to actually teach. They’re too busy dealing with the latest policies and trying to find the kids lost in the cracks of the ever-fluctuating standards.

Tanstaafl. You get what you pay for, and I can tell you first-hand that you are NOT paying to adequately compensate the teachers who now have more hoops to jump through than a circus lion. The public school system of today is profoundly broken, and it is not the fault of the teachers. Most of them are like the children of Israel in Egypt, being told to churn out the same number of bricks and supply their own materials to make them with – or else.

So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw. Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’ ”

Exodus 5:10-11

Now What?

In the post-COVID19 world, more and more people are choosing to homeschool. Private school is simply not always affordable. And if I may be frank? Neither is public school. There are always extras – sports fees, supply fees, keeping-up-with-the-joneses fees. Not to mention the non-financial costs of policies driven more by adult political games than by concern for the wellbeing of human children.

When the world closed in 2020, more and more parents saw that their kids learned as much or more at home than they did spending several hours a day in a classroom full of cell phones and weary teachers staggering under the weight of the “thou shalt” agendas of the modern educational system.

This is not the world I began homeschooling in, but it is the one we live in today. And please hear me when I say: I don’t believe everyone is called to homeschool, nor do I believe everyone should. But if you find yourself thinking about homeschooling, please allow me the privilege of sharing the journey with you. I am planning on several posts to share what I learned in my years of homeschooling.

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned, and you’ll get the benefit of hearing what I did wrong and what I learned through those mistakes. You’ll also get to see where God led me to do something right quite despite myself. I hope you’ll be encouraged, challenged, and maybe even entertained. But most of all, I hope to honor God by taking what He has given me and pouring it into the generations coming up next.

How many posts will I write? Well, that depends. It depends on varying time demands, health considerations, family financial needs, and things like that; but mostly it depends on whether or not my scribblings prove helpful to others. Because what I learn, experience, feel, or endure was never meant for me alone. It is meant to be shared so that you may be strengthened and God glorified.

So I invite you to “listen in” as I recap this section of the race I’ve run, and I sincerely hope it helps!

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

2 Corinthians 1:5-7
References

/https://www.americanboard.org/blog/11-facts-about-the-history-of-education-in-america

/https://edtechbooks.org/effective_teaching_in_the_secondary_classroom/a_short_history_of_education_in_the_united_states

/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED606970.pdf

Then and Now

~ Heather Davis ~ 10 Comments

To all my blog friends and followers, I am in the midst of a new novel and working with a deadline. I asked the Lord to make His will clear and help me meet my writing goal last month in the midst of impossible circumstances. Contrary to all human logic, the goal was met!  But my blog networking/reading/commenting had to be sacrificed… Still love you all, though!

God has been reminding me of much. Below is a post I wrote back in July of 2008. It came to mind yesterday and as I read it, Psalm 126 continued to reverberate through my mind, in particular verse 3.

Have the battles I mention below been won? Not by a long shot. If anything, they have intensified. Yet God is good, and today I can praise Him because through it all, He has done great things for us!

” The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.
(Psalms 126:3)

My Father’s Love – July 2008

One summer evening, I was frustrated

An escalating discipline issue with our son left me feeling like a failure as a parent. The homeschool year was looming and I did not feel ready. My once healthy body seemed to be falling apart, treatments for one set of problems did not always work in conjunction with treatments for another set, and bits of me seemed to be aging prematurely in the most depressing ways.

I was (and still am) tired of pain, tired of medicines, and tired of being tired all the time.

There was more, but suffice to say that I was overwhelmed. After putting the children to bed, I trudged downstairs ready to attack chores which piled up during the all-consuming battle with Little Man and his great, big stubborn streak.

As I wearily prepared to wash the dishes, I felt a strong urge to go outside. I started to resist but recognized my Lord’s quiet voice urging me. So I abandoned the dishes and went.

It was beautiful out. The heat of summer had mellowed into a pleasant warmth. I began to pray, laying all my frustrations at God’s feet and trusting Him to know the ones I couldn’t voice.

As I prayed, tears began and I fell silent, gazing at the horizon. The sun was just setting and the sky was streaked with faint color. For a moment, I sat then stirred myself to rise and go back indoors.

Again, that urging, “Just sit. Wait. I have something to show you.”

I sat.

I listened.

The cicadas were beginning their evening song. I realized that I used to enjoy listening to the cicadas on summer evenings but had not had the time since moving into a larger house.

As I listened, I began to hear not only bird song, but individual birds and became aware of their locations around me. Always, the cicadas hummed their rising and falling song in the background. Peace washed over me and suddenly the pale colors in the sky began to seem a little richer… and a little richer… until the sky blazed a red-gold tinged with violet.

Still, all around me birds, cicadas, and frogs in the lake sang their goodnight praise to their Maker. Distant voices, rather than disturbing the symphony, were simply a part of it; the owners an unknowing participant in a harmony of worship.

I also began to worship, enjoying the show, enjoying feeling wrapped in my Father’s care.

When my husband arrived home from his errand, I was still lounging in the grass. I knew in my heart that my problems were not miraculously resolved. I knew that my health trouble was not over, nor was the battle to apply my son’s stubbornness to the correct path.

Instead, I had something better–my Lord had reminded me that He would be with me every step of the way. He had reminded me not to forget to praise Him through it all.

By bringing my attention to the song of His Creation, my Father caused me to remember that He loves me too much to remove the trials.

No matter what comes of it all, He has my best interests at heart. After all, no matter what happens to me here on earth, this is only the prologue. The chapters of my story are yet to be written – though God knows the words already.

I came away that night, not with solutions but with the peace that comes from understanding in a more complete and deeper way that I am in training for eternity.

Yes, the work is hard, but it will be worthwhile. And most importantly, my Father truly does love me. Me personally. That amazes me most of all.

What’s New With Me

~ Heather Davis ~ 7 Comments

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5

I know I’ve been something of a random poster these days; sometimes once a week, sometimes less. There are various reasons why, but today I thought I’d share the most complicated one of them with you.

You see, quite a bit has changed in my life lately. After 15 years of full-time motherhood and 10 of homeschooling, my oldest two (tenth grade and eighth grade) are attending a private school. While I still homeschool the youngest, this has been a rather dramatic alteration in our lifestyle and schedule.

Now instead of letting the kids sleep until 7:00, the older two get up at 6:00. The youngest gets up at 5:00 — don’t ask me why. She’s just like that. We do our Bible studies in the predawn hour but in separate rooms. It’s kind of cool, actually.

Instead of a quick trot to the school room, I am now hauling two of them on a thirty-minute drive south. That’s thirty minutes one-way, which means an hour is spent in the morning commute.

The youngest either comes along or stays home and works on her own schooling, depending on my husband’s schedule. Also, depending on his schedule, that hour commute is sometimes doubled.  Either way, there I am standing with one foot in two worlds.

And then, of course, there are activities and extracurricular events. There is church and community group. There is striving to find the time to stay in shape — or rather, in some semblance of shape — despite an odd assortment of injuries I have managed to accumulate, apparently just to keep things interesting.

I am also endeavoring to learn Hebrew; a task at which I am progressing at a snail’s pace. A dead snail’s pace. But it’s great fun, probably because I am the quintessential nerd.

Also at this stage of my life, there are the teenage years and puberty happening all around, along with the great emotional needs that accompanies this life stage, much more intense and exhausting than the toddler years as far as I can see. Or maybe I’m just exhausted because of age… or because of chronic migraine and its various treatments… or just because.

And so on, and so forth.

But to me, personally, the biggest, most exciting, and yet most frustrating new thing is that I have finished the first draft of a novel.

No, really. It’s true. It doesn’t seem possible to me, but it is true.

As a matter of fact, I am writing these words now with something of a guilty conscience, mainly because I am taking a break from rewriting a stubborn paragraph that simply will not come together.

All the while I am hiding from my intractable characters that have chosen this night not to behave and docilely speak sensible sentences as they ought, my Hebrew vocabulary cards are staring at me balefully, reminding me that I have not even glanced at them today and here it is eight o’clock at night.

But that’s another matter. The crazy, exhilarating, and intimidating truth is that I have actually typed out an entire novel and am working through the revision.

So what’s next?

Who knows? I consider it highly unlikely the thing will be published, but then that is in God’s hands, as is everything else.

Either way, I look to Him for wisdom in all of it — the rewriting, putting out feelers for publication, raising my teens and tweens, homeschooling, private schooling, being a wife, facilitating a small group, prayer meetings at church– all of it. It is either all for His glory, or it is worthless.

Either way, I am praying almost all the time these days because, frankly, I need God every second of every minute of every day no matter what I am working on.

So that’s basically all that’s new with me! Drop a line sometime and let me know what’s new with you. 🙂

Back-to-School Meditations

~ Heather Davis ~ 3 Comments

But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?
Matthew 16:8

And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
Mark 8:21

 

Back to school. Those words invoke a pretty wide range of emotions, from excitement to dread and everything in between, sometimes all at once.  As a home school mom, I often suffer from a sense of insecurity at the start of each new year. Will I be able to help the children with their subject matter? Will we cover enough information? Will they be well-rounded and well-grounded? Most importantly, are they really getting it when it comes to their Bible studies and their relationships with God?

As usual, I was talking with God about my fears and insecurities before we began our school year and discussing with Him the fact that my teen and pre-teen children seemed to be further than ever from Him. I was bemoaning my failure, asking Him to show me where I had gone wrong. Have I been too legalistic? Too harsh? Too lenient?

As I poured out my heart to Him, God hushed me with the reminder that even the best Teacher the world has ever known did not always get His lesson across to His students.  If Jesus asked questions of His disciples such as, “Do you still not understand?” so frequently, do I honestly believe I can achieve better results?

No, I am not a perfect teacher. I would venture to say fairly boldly that I am not even a good one. Nor am I a perfect role model, especially to these three who have seen the irrational and bizarre moods caused by the prodromal phase of a migraine often enough to recognize and identify it with uncanny accuracy.  However, if God has truly called me to do this — and I am convinced that He has at least for now — then He is faithful and He will surely do it.

Despite my fondest, early imaginings, none of my children are super-geniuses nor are they super-spiritual. While they are all bright and have gifts in different areas, none of them are on track for college graduation before they can drive (which is a blessing since I would be on track for the funny farm if they were!). To my sorrow, not a single one of them shows the glimmerings of an astonishing faith, an especial zeal, nor of deep insight into the things of God.

However, as God  reminded me on that morning walk, the twelve disciples did not exactly show signs of being world-changers during the time of their tutelage, either.  So many times Jesus patiently and lovingly reprimanded them for their little faith or for failing to understand parables or events.  As a matter of fact, there were areas in which the group did not connect the dots until after He had been crucified and rose again:

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.
John 12:16

It heartened me to begin the new year with a fresh perspective. This understanding does not eliminate the weight of my responsibility one whit, nor do I take my job less seriously. Indeed, it inspires me to prayerfully seek the Spirit’s help to be more patient when I repeat myself again and again and again and again…

It also makes me resolved to work at home schooling heartily,  as to the Lord and not to men. It reminds me to continue diligently to study His Word and show myself approved, to love the Lord my God with all that I am, and to encourage my children to do the same.

And perhaps most importantly, I will not judge the fruit of my little gardens before the seedlings have even produced proper buds. I will continue to plant, to water with both prayers and tears, and to ask God for the wisdom and strength to tend them well during the time I am given. Then, when I have done all that is within my ability to do, I will step back and watch to see what God will make of my little efforts.

I firmly believe that He who calls me is faithful; He will surely do it. And I pray the “it” I wait to see will be that God will bring all three of my children into a close relationship with Him, loving Him with all their hearts, souls, and with minds that are well-trained despite my inadequacies.

 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:6-7