A startling change in events for this poor beleaguered family is on the horizon. Read about it here.
I find this encouraging.
Hope you do, too.
In order to submerge the individual and develop ideal citizens, Sparta assembled the males at [age] seven into barracks and entrusted their subsequent education and training to official guardians. Although such measures have been deliberately approved by men of great genius their ideas touching the relation between individual and state were wholly different from those upon which our institutions rest; and it hardly will be affirmed that any Legislature could impose such restrictions upon the people of a state without doing violence to both letter and spirit of the Constitution.Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) at 402
How about that.
What ARE we doing?
Anyone brave enough to hazard a guess?
Whenever we hold hands with the United Nations, that is what we get. They tell us it’s all about the rights of children and other “disabled” people, but we really know what it’s all about.
Don’t we?
It’s not just the Gates Foundation, folks.
A new batch of chicks makes this again relevant. Enjoy!
Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. James 5:7b-8
Faking patience. Our own thinking tells us, of course, the lack of affliction causes us to act patient.
That is true.
And as long as all we are concerned with is acting the part, a lack of affliction will suffice.
True patience. The Word of God has a different take on it.
God says we need affliction, troubles, problems, even suffering, in order to learn true patience.
Fake patience will evaporate in any trial. And trials will come.
You know it, too: No pain, no gain, right?
James uses the farmer to illustrate the necessity of waiting and the reward for patience.
When a farmer plants his seeds, he knows that he will have to work and wait before he will see the fruit of his labor. First he tills the ground. Then he plants seed and prays for rain. In a few days he sees something coming up through the ground.
What would you think of a farmer who harvested his crop after those few days’ growth? Would he have anything worth eating or selling?
No, he needs to wait more, be patient more. He wants a strong, mature crop. That takes time. He has to work—tilling, weeding, irrigating—and wait until the process is complete. If he harvests too early, he will ruin it.
Parents must be patient too.
The first nine months seem to go forever. It’s a difficult wait, but a good chance to do the work of accumulating baby supplies. The next few hours of working and waiting for delivery to be over can seem like forever, too. We do warp time, don’t we!
But immediately after that all waiting is over, right? Wrong.
It’s time for a different time warp.
Parents work for years, caring for a child and instilling in him the training, discipline and encouragement he needs to mature enough to survive on his own.
Sometimes it seems like one step forward and two steps back. After all, they DO say we spend two years teaching a child to walk and talk, and the rest of their lives teaching them to sit down and hush. Heh heh.
It’s that way for every parent. Do not think for one minute that if you ditch your child, you will relieve yourself of the waiting, of the work of learning patience. You don’t really know patience unless you’ve waited for a prodigal.
Yes, child-rearing takes patience. In the same way, our Father is patiently training, disciplining, encouraging, and maturing us—through our afflictions—to be more like Jesus.
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:4
As we anticipate the rewards of patience, we can endure whatever happens in our lives. We can cope when we remember that heaven is forever and earth is passing. When the ground is shaking all around us and we are tempted to despair, we know God loves us and is with us. We can be patient because we know Jesus will come again and all bad things in life will finally be set right.
We do not merit any blessing from God, regardless of our personal right-doings. All blessings come from God’s mercy, and without God’s mercy and compassion toward us, we would be at Satan’s pleasure all the time and life on earth would be like Hell.
As it clearly is, for some people.
Same for our children. We love them and show them compassion, supplying their every need, for no reason other than our loving mercy. When we do not, their lives are like hell.
Never forget that.
If we want the blessing of whole adult offspring, we must humble ourselves and patiently endure the working and waiting.
The masses…
Most people today are characterized by impatience and love of ease. They are motivated by immediate and shallow rewards. They seem unwilling to work and wait. They are lured by lottery, credit card debt, and get-rich-quick schemes. They look to preachers who will feed this attitude, teaching Godliness as a means of gain. They have itching ears.
Quitting seems easier.
We should work and wait for the autumn rains. Really.
Don’t quit.
Especially do not quit on your family.
The preacher said:
Let’s think about a bucket, some rocks, and some sand.
Let’s say the rocks illustrate our priorities, our bucket list, and the bucket represents our life. The sand represents all of the other things in life that we have to do.
What happens if we put the sand in the bucket first?
We cannot fit all the rocks in, can we?
Our priorities find themselves crowded out.
However, if we put the rocks in the bucket first, the sand sifts around the rocks. They fill in the cracks or the time we have left after our priorities are accomplished.
Let’s apply that to our “how-to” ideas about home schooling, shall we?
Our priority must be that each human being on this earth should learn to read. Why? Because of Habakkuk 2:2 “[…]the Lord replied: ‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that whoever reads it may run with it. […]’”
It is recorded forever in the Word of God, that He expects reading to happen. The very fact that He inspired men to write to us, logically leads to His expectations that we read.
Learning to read does not always happen in some educational settings. The child who is slow to read might never learn in some settings.
We, however, in our own homes, have the privilege of customizing the curriculum to fit the child who needs his schoolwork to come at him from a unique angle. We can drill one phonic concept for two days, if needed. We can read while pointing to allow “sight reading” to materialize. We can try glare management, page masking, and many other techniques, at will. No matter how good a teacher might be, she can hardly do this when she is dealing with 20 new readers at once, can she?
So we prioritize reading.
As the student ages, the obvious may surface, that the child is unable to learn to read. “Unable” is not the same as slow. After a couple of years, if reading is not happening at all, no matter what, then it is time to dump the bucket out and rearrange priorities. The new priority is to make sure literate content reaches this child’s mind through whatever means it takes.
Any writing can be found or created in the audio format.
It becomes the teacher’s duty, then, to provide this input. Although this is a big job, it is not too difficult for one mom with one child, but imagine a teacher of 20 handling it. It’s unfair to her, right?She wants a life, right? But you can do it. In fact, these helps become your priority: They are your life. So at this age, we insert any learning that is age-appropriate, especially Bible, math, and science, always in the audio format. Often, this is how our greatest minds have emerged to benefit mankind. Often, those not programmed to read well, find far more capacity in other disciplines than a good reader does. Although we never stop trying to impress reading skills upon our students, and although they may learn to read as adults, we insist they learn the essentials through whatever means necessary, always looking for that one thing that will be the spark for your own child’s chance at brilliance.
Make a list. Prioritize the big rocks to go into the bucket first.
Yes, you can make a child live happily ever after. That’s a good goal for a life, don’t you think?
One Friday, after my usual eye doctor visit I had another appointment, with my grandson, to attend his birthday party, which had been arranged specifically to mesh with my schedule.
We had a lovely time celebrating this lovely grandson and the hour arrived to let him get to bed, and us home.
It’s a long drive over narrow, hilly, curvy, crumbly, bumpy country roads, from his house to mine. Some of the roads have few markings, due to paint rub-off, due to overuse and under-upkeep. Some of the bridges are only barely wide enough to be two lanes.
Quaint.
Plenty good enough for me. I drive a Ford truck. One of the last of the Rangers. Just a bit jazzed up from the last owner . . .
However, I noticed someone following me almost all the way. It’s harder, yet, to drive at night with lights in your rear-view mirror. This person was not exactly tailgating, but sure was sticking like glue. Sighs.
Also, on these country roads, we often encounter deer, skunks, armadillos, dogs, cats, possums, etc. We always drive with attention to the woods along the road, looking out for the gleam of the eyes of something that wants to hop out before you just as you pass, so you can hit it. With the smaller creatures, it’s mostly too bad, but with skunks and deer, you can really acquire a messed-up vehicle if you hit them.
So I swerved a time or two.
We also sometimes encounter huge trucks, used to help chicken farmers keep their chicken houses cleaner, that we fondly call “Tyson’s Soup Trucks”. I don’t think you can Google that and learn what it is, so just use your imagination, okay? It’s gross. Anyone would rather go one-on-one with a cement truck than with one of those. Okay?
So, we really, really yield the right of way when one of those “soup trucks” is trying its best to maneuver a tight country curve. So I yielded, really yielded, once.
As I neared town, as the road smoothed and straightened and had a more substantial shoulder, I noticed my almost-tailgater friend also had blue lights atop his car. Sighs. I was in no mood for being spot-checked, but so be it–I stopped.
The officer was really handsome, young with a baby face to match, doing his level best to look stern and official. I’d take him for a son, if his mom didn’t want him. He told me I’d been weaving and driving on the shoulder, crossing the center line, etc. Well? I guess he was so busy watching me, he forgot to watch the road. I should have bumped a skunk for his driving pleasure?
Then he began searching inside my cab with his flashlight. Then he wanted to know where I’d been and where I was going. Wow. I am plenty old enough to be his mom. I’m used to asking those things of folks his age.
I’ve been to my grandson’ birthday party and I’m on my way home.
Not convinced.
Okay, before that I had an eye doctor appointment in the really big city, to get a shot in my eyeball.
That got his attention.
And here is the funny part.
You know how the thought of getting a shot in your eyeball makes you shiver, but doesn’t do that for me anymore?
He shivered. Not a little, barely perceptible shiver, but a big shiver, one due the enormity of the thought. His big hand stopped pushing that little pen and he lost his cool for just a moment. And after that, he decided just to give me a warning and then he let me go.
But not before he left his parting remark: “Well that explains your red, weeping eyes.”
Hmm. Driving a jazzed up truck, weaving, red-eyed granny–I’m sure he was disappointed.
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