Inspiring – Page 66 – Home's Cool!

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

An Anatomy of Pain – Remember, the World Hurts, Like a Sledge Hammer

Posted on December 21, 2010January 29, 2019 by Katharine

Why it Hurts – Sticks and stones . . . you know names can hurt worse. A bruise from a stone heals in a week or two, but the pain from name calling can last as long as your memory. It can last as long as we let it.

We can let it hurt for ages.

Do we want it to hurt? Maybe there’s something inside us that does. Do we feel proud if we can get that lower lip to quiver one more time?

I mean, people, IT HURTS!

Right? People notice? They pet us some more? They feel sorry for us?

Maybe not.

It’s just the world – People! Them! It’s not my fault, remember! No, it’s just the world. We forget something: “In this world ye shall have tribulation.” It’s a promise from God, but not one of those promises we name and claim, is it?

Jesus told us. He warned us. We should know it. It’s part of being alive. Tribulation, from the Latin root meaning sledge-hammer. How appropriate. The alternative is leaving this old world behind. Being alive in this world includes getting hammered. Being alive in this world also includes being part of it. We are such sloppy communicators and such confused listeners, no one can help being part of the trouble.

God also told us, “The heart of man is desperately wicked. Who can know it?” I think that is part of the pain, too. We think we know so-and-so would never say that. We find out each person is capable of hammering on us. We think, finally, this relationship is secure.

Nope. Never.

As long as there are people, and that includes you and me, there will be hammerin’. People will hammer. They will hurt and not apologize. They will apologize and not sound sincere, not even know what they ought to have apologized for. It’s just the heart of man, including the women.

Sometimes, oh, I dunno, it seems, especially the women.

People don’t know what to apologize for because they have no idea they did anything. They truly have no idea what they are doing half the time, no idea what they’ve done. They say, “WHAT?!” and they mean it. What have I done? What is it THIS time? What?! They don’t know what they’re doing.

But we don’t remember something. The beloved voice that said, “In this world ye shall have tribulation,” also said, “Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.” He did not mean He could lick any enemy of ours in a moment, although He could do that. No, He meant He has overcome the whole mess, you and me included. The whole world—He could lick it all in a moment, and He will.

The God who said, “The heart of man is desperately wicked,” also said that He knows our hearts. Oops. Scary business, that. On top of that, He told us to rejoice and look up when it got really bad, because He would be close on the heels of the Very Worst Day. When That Day comes, we’d better be ready.

We’d better be cheered up!

More tomorrow.

Inspiring, Wisdom, Wives, Womanhood

An Anatomy of Pain

Posted on December 20, 2010April 28, 2015 by Katharine

This is not about physical pain, although all women, and especially all wives, are great experts at physical pain. After having 6 children and around 2000 migraines, I certainly am.

But this is about the pain that attacks your soul, the confusion, indecision, and heartbreaks that can blindside us all.

Like when the doctor tells you morning sickness is all in your head.

Let’s just face it: The happenings in life are often unfair. We devote a third of our government to being sure life is fair, but unfairness still slips in, doesn’t it? A lot, right? It’s not enough that a child dies, but it sometimes must be that someone killed him. It’s not enough that a woman loses her husband, but sometimes it must be that some other woman stole him. It’s not enough that a house burns down, but sometimes it must be that an arsonist started a forest fire.

Isn’t that how it goes?

And it hurts most when friends and family are the perpetrators, doesn’t it? When your child is ungrateful, it hurts more. When your husband is lazy, it hurts more. When someone at church lies about you, it hurts more. When your mother gets on your case, it hurts more.

Sometimes that’s just how it goes.

And sometimes, even that is not enough. Sometimes we also must go through these hurts alone. Having no defenders makes it tougher. Having no one to confide in intensifies it. Having no one just hurts. More.

Since I’ve been experiencing considerable pain, lately, I thought talking to you would help me keep my brain right-side up. Oh, I’ll share no real details, but generalities should be enough to help you help me help you. What about it?

Wouldn’t it be a good thing if we could turn our hurts into help for others?

I’m in. Let’s take a week to do an autopsy on mental and emotional pain. Let’s take every part out and learn what goes wrong and how to right it.

Maybe you know someone else you could share this with. Or send it to.

Maybe we all can feel better, think straighter, laugh more.

More tomorrow.

Home School, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

Attitude? Awareness? Vision? How Can a Tutor Know?

Posted on December 9, 2010May 20, 2016 by Katharine

I used to tutor.

Once, a young mother came to me for help with her first-grader daughter. The girl had been in a private school and was producing perfect work, daily, but on the following days, she seemingly knew nothing from the day before. Everyone was puzzled. The mom had heard about home schooling, found my phone number on a poster, and thought I’d know something the girl’s teachers did not.

Scary scenario!

However, I’d recently received a copy of a learning styles test a friend had written, and thought that with it, and with private tutoring, perhaps I could discover something an overworked teacher had missed.

The child was sweet, bright, and eager. This was going to be fun. I gave the mom a copy of the test to fill out at home, since she probably knew her daughter better than anyone else. I began carefully disguised check-ups of the girl’s reading and math skills.

She was a puzzling bundle. She could know something one moment, then know nothing the next. We read from an early reader, and she would do very well after I told her almost every word. I wondered—was she guessing? Memorizing?

The learning style test had come back showing her to be a visual learner. She ought to love reading.

I turned to the back of the reader, and showed her vocabulary lists placed there for the teacher. I pointed to a word from our day’s reading, and asked her what it was. That’s when everything became clear.

“Oh, Ms Kathy! I could never read that word; it’s too little for me to see it.”

Dear me. A visual learner who cannot see. Of course. She was, indeed bright enough to memorize each day’s lesson, but had inadvertently missed learning to read.

That day, she and I made huge yarn letters together, one per page of construction paper, and did copy work on the board with letters one foot tall. Immediately she knew what was going on and began making enormous progress.

When her mom came to pick her up that day, I asked her if either she or her husband had vision problems. She said they both had trouble seeing much of anything, that their vision was corrected with contacts of a strong prescription.

I told her, “I think your little girl cannot see. I think that is the basis of the problem, plus missing out on the foundations of reading readiness.”

We both had tears in our eyes that day, and eventually the girl received her first pair of glasses. I lost that tutoring job soon afterward, but the joy of helping such a needy one, so quickly, was compensation enough for me.

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Scream Carrot Gardening and How to Stay Alive

Posted on December 8, 2010May 20, 2016 by Katharine

In the summer, we still teach our children. You know we teach them all the time, right?

Really fresh carrots

One summer, we were all out in the garden learning about how hard carrots can be to pull up. It was fun, though, a sort of tug-o-war between children and carrots, with Mom along to man the shovel if the tops broke off.

So many Bible lessons happen in the garden. We constantly show them how well the weeded plants grow, compared to the weedy ones. They know a beet seedling from a pigweed seedling, although they so resemble each other.

And the buckets of rocks!

They have learned to love harvesting their own snacks straight from the garden, like a small, perfectly sun-ripened tomato, rubbed until shiny and popped into the mouth to dribble everywhere while quenching thirst. They know a small packet of seeds can make all those jars of wonderful food in the basement.

The most important lessons the garden teaches, though, is that when Mom says you have to do something, whether you like it or not, you have to do it. This lesson, in a grown child and transferred to other authorities, can protect job security.

In a young child, it can save a life or limb.

Most dangers in life are unexpected. We can teach endlessly and still miss the lesson that will be needed tomorrow. This was the case, one day.

My son, another fearless one, about age twelve, had managed to extract one carrot that housed a curiously beautiful spider in its stems. He brought it to me to see its beauty and I’m sure my eyes widened.

“Drop it!” I ordered.

He looked at me, saw my face matched my tone, and obeyed. Today I still think about it. He was happy with his find, happy in his boldness, and probably happy in anticipation of sharing and of my praise. What a big deal to older brother, to turn loose of this happiness! But he did it.

And that day, the garden yielded up the lessons of the black widow spider. God’s protection, parents’ obligation to protect children, children’s obligation to obey, and the continuing obligation for all to “FEAR NOT!”—all those lessons and more came from our garden that day.

And I am not afraid, but I still shudder. His right hand was two inches from destruction.

But God can fit inside two inches.

Last story in this series here!

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring, Sayings

How a Crazy Picnic Morphed into a Sweet Memory

Posted on December 4, 2010July 20, 2017 by Katharine

Long ago—oh, so long ago—we set out, trembling but sure, with little but our dear children and sheer determination, to home school.

Our children had endured unhappy experiences where they were, we had tired of the huge expense of a private education that produced unhappiness, and we imagined we could do at least as well as the teachers we had met.

Not much going for us? Well, we thought we had the world by the tail.

We did have it by the tail.

One of our first home-school acquisitions, a black Lab puppy, soon taught us some lessons about the joy of life. Before he grew out of the puppy stage, he had been, as the joke says, “like a Slinky—not really good for much, but it’s fun to watch him fall down.” As a Retriever, he totally loved retrieving, but never did really learn also to relinquish the retrieved thing. Still, if he brought the pop fly balls from wa-a-ay outfield, all slobbery, and we had to tussle them out of his mouth, it saved time and endless running for us and provided him no end of joy and exercise.

As our schedule solidified and we found more time for relaxation during schooling, we chose a particularly crisp, sunny day for a simple picnic. Just sandwiches, granola bars, and juice in sippy cups, each one making his own lunch, was all we wanted—that and a blanket outdoors. Because our year-old pup relished people food, we took along his dish, a bit of dog food, a dog biscuit, and some “fetch toys”. Loading all this into our wheelbarrow, we rolled out to the backside of our seven acres for a lazy hour of rejuvenation.

As we ate and tossed toys for our pup, we played silly games, joking and teasing a lot. Pup managed to steal half a sandwich from the youngest, which I replenished with half of mine. Oh, the laughter of that afternoon!

About a month later, we unearthed time for our second, ever, home-school picnic. Out came the same wheelbarrow, the same red blanket, the same toys, the same lunch bags….

Suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, our Lab appeared, running round and round the wheelbarrow, barking all the way. We laughed at him and his excitement. Could he be anticipating what our actions implied? Could he be excited about going on another picnic?

He scooped up his food dish in his teeth and ran a couple of circles around us, galloped off to the backside of the seven acres to deposit it, then rushed back barking all the way to hurry us along. That’s when we were certain of it: he actually remembered the fun of a month ago and seemingly could not wait for a replay.

Still laughing, more in wonder than amusement, we hurried as best we could while he continued barking.

What a marvel that a dog could understand family togetherness better than the world can!

The next hour filled with creating more happy memories.

But we guarded the sandwiches better.

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Homeschooling the Four-year-old

Posted on November 23, 2010May 23, 2016 by Katharine

The Screeching Halt

four All the training, learning, sharing, exploring, and other amiable activities of life seem to come almost to a standstill for the “four”.

This poor child stops growing for a while, around this age, and hence, nearly stops eating. Many foods become distasteful to him and his health becomes fragile.

I think all children nearly stall out as they near the four-year gate and pass through it.

Oh, but Only on the Outside

Stalled out and fragile or not, he is still alive. From within his new inactivity shell, the “four” becomes more observant. He notices that all newly-won liberties come with new dangers, new pain. Unfamiliar and misunderstood surroundings again scare him. The “four” can suddenly and seemingly inexplicably fear nearly anything: the vacuum, the dog, the dark, the lightning, or the wading pool are typical candidates for his seeming irrationality.

The Ball Is in Mom’s Court

It is a call for patience.The child who has learned Bible verses fears speaking above a mumble. The child who loves to hear stories fears Sunday School. The child who once jumped into the playdate holds back. The child who used to sparkle has fizzled out.

What can Mother do? She can tenderly understand, gently guide, and cheerfully go with the child into any fearful situation.

Her reaction to everything is important. If she inadvertently jumps at the sound of unexpected thunder, she should laugh and exclaim how surprised she was and lead him out onto the porch with her, to watch the wind and clouds.

She should sit in the wading pool with the poor dear, helping him obtain some enjoyment, overcome some fears.

She should catch lightning bugs and hold them for her little “four” to see that not all bugs bite.

She should mercifully seek ways to pull him out of himself.

Ah, but…

Mom’s aim should be to teach “Fear not.” (Luke 2:10 KJV) In fact, she should gently and gradually disengage him from behind her skirt and make at least a show of fearlessness an unavoidable requirement.

How many of us could use this teaching about courage, if only we could return to our four-year-old selves! The child who learns to fear God instead of the things God has made will go farther, faster than others will. This function of obedience to God is a concept the “four” can understand by now.

In fact, this teaching, this requiring fearlessness, can quickly lead to real trust in God’s almighty hand. As the “four” learns to categorize his fears according to the Word of God, he sometimes can see he needs God’s ability enlivening his inability.

Those who have applied careful methods all along should watch for this window. If Mother knows the child and carefully watches, she can boost the faith of the four-year-old. Many Saints have first prayed on an altar improvised of Mother’s lap. The “four” so taught always understands, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” (Psalm 56:3 KJV)

What a glorious tradition!

The rest of us had to learn later. After walking in fear. After the Lord’s discipline regarding it.

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Homeschooling the Three-year-old

Posted on November 22, 2010May 23, 2016 by Katharine

Beginning the Downhill. Yes.

three If we tame the “two”, we enjoy good harvest, for a while.

The well-taught “three” is the amiable toddler, the cherub of our dreams. Beginning to acquire so much, so fast, often the homeschooled “three” can learn to recite little poems, count to three, and build three-block towers.

Expanding Reach

He allows other adults in the circle of self. The “three” masters a few small, polite manners. He has learned to love doing good because Mother has been diligently rewarding good deeds. He likes other children who are his size, welcomes them in his world, and sharing becomes a new game.

Smiling

Although close watching and explicitly careful training continue paramount, the “three” at least does not cry for Mother if she steps out to sweep the front porch. The contentment, which can reign in this young life, is a beautiful reward for the previous months of faithfulness Mother invested.

Learning!

The learning needs of the “three” involve third elements. The two hands can now manage the addition of a simple tool, such as a large crayon, blunt scissors, or a glue stick. These two hands also can manage play clay, chalk, large-sized math manipulatives, and many other of the more simple learning tools such as an abacus.

Some “threes” are beginning to recognize and develop basic comprehension of letters and words. This child loves to watch you draw pictures, loves help with cutting and pasting a “beautiful picture for Daddy”, and loves word games with concepts such as opposites.

The “three” is continually branching out beyond the diaper, beyond the crib, beyond Mother’s arms, and beyond the single ambition of self-gratification. He no longer feels the need for all that sameness.

His small world fascinates him. He wants to learn to name colors and shapes, to build a letter “A” from cookie dough, and to progress beyond walking to running or jumping or tricycling. It is a good age to teach acceptance of all foods. It is a good age to teach simple jokes.

It is a good age. Everyone likes him and wants to tweak his curls, and for once, it is okay with him, too.

Caution

Because the “three” is sleeping less and likes his world more, a lot of noticing and imitating happens in this small life. Being careful what we do becomes very important. Some things we do, such as plugging in an electrical apparatus, are dangerous for a three-year-old to copy.

No matter how we watch, there may be disastrous outcomes from even the appropriate activities of this age. We want him eventually to learn to climb stairs, for instance, but we want him to learn caution, too, a delicate balance that can easily go awry. “Do-by-self” must learn to give way to help. Our constant supervision becomes, if possible, even more necessary. Once he learns to run, the front yard becomes a minefield…

Lessons

It is at this age Mother realizes the traditional temptation to smother and the need to let go a little. Mother must know the child, by now, and also know and heed the still, small voice of the Lord.

Also at this age the child learns to “love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matthew 22:39 KJV) Practicing manners, moments with little friends, and sharing games are the methods that will teach this all important concept, if Mother only watches and is careful to impose them in a timely way.

How we wish more of the people around us had the advantage of a Mother’s tender and persistent homeschooling at this age!

More tomorrow.