Category: Scripture

Posted in Believe it or not!, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

THE Cure for “The Quits” – At LAST!

Posted on by Katharine
English: An aerial view over the north part of...
An aerial view over the north part of the Grand Canyon.

Most of us entertain a combination of all four of the “quit” reasons I gave my friend that day.

From the core of our beings, we know that the home is where our beloved children belong, but we forget, we tire, we listen to others. If we keep fighting, we succeed, but too often, we quit. Quitting is not the way of God’s people. We must press on. We must realize that any prize that includes the rescue of our children from hell is worth any effort.

Many do not realize that it takes only a tiny bit of quitting to quit entirely, because the rest is downhill. It is like walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon, where unwavering commitment to careful success is of utmost importance: One slip can spell disaster, two slips most certainly can spell disaster, and few if any have survived three slips. The difference is that we know certain death lies at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but we do not see that danger for our children in our wavering commitments to home schooling. We absolutely must develop a strategy for the times when we are tempted to take that slippery, deadly road of ease.

What should such a plan look like? Why, it must lead in the exact opposite direction from the bottom, just as you would lift a child who was slipping down a great gulf, of course! Therefore, any plan must include the following four aspects:

Keep the vision constantly before you. Pray that God will renew your vision for your children, in your heart. Make a list of all the reasons He gives you to home school, and READ it. Add to it often. Decide, forever, that home schooling is good. Read good home school magazines. Read good home school books. Read good homekeeping blogs. (Oh. I guess you already are doing that!) Remember all the upright people that home schooling has contributed to this world. Read the scientific statistics that prove the benefits of home schooling. Find a good support group and be involved in it, making good home school friends. Connect with Home School Legal Defense Association for wonderful confidence boosters. Wake up!

Determine that any cost is nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed in the end. Eighty-five percent of the children who attend worldly schools grow to deny their parents’ faith. That does not happen with home school. What are a few moments of sleep compared to their lives in heaven and a “well done” from our Lord? What is a new car? What is a worldly friendship? What is a college education? What is a second income? What, on this earth, is worth the loss of even one of your children? Pay up!

Commit yourself to your children, as unto the Lord. People hear calls to all sorts of missions, all the time. Churches have “charge conferences” to determine what each one’s job should be. Tithes and other resources are pledged all the time. You have been called to your children, just because you bore them. They are your charge. Pledge your life, before God, to be what they need, so they can grow up right in this wrong world. Join up!

Do not slink back and let the enemy succeed with you and your children. Your enemy is looking around for whomever he can devour, just like a roaring lion. Learn to recognize his roaring for what it is. Set your face like a flint. Grit your teeth. Exert yourself. Protect and defend your children, as any good parent should. Provide for them. Pray for them, for yourself, and for all home schoolers. Stand up!

And do not give up.

__________________

photo credit: Wikipedia

Related articles
Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

A Cure for “The Quits” – Part 3

Posted on by Katharine

bunsen burnerOkay, we’ll take on the last two reasons for quitting today.

Another reason we sometimes feel like quitting is that we grow weary and faint. (Hebrews 12:3)

Let’s face it: to work at home is work. When someone asks me if I work, I tell them, “All mothers work.” Perhaps that is not universally true, but I am persnickety enough to make the point.

Yes, I work, and so do you. Therefore, it feels like work.

Not all people are accustomed to real work. Being breathless or perspiring can make some of us have panic attacks because we think it is unbearable.

It wears us out, sometimes.

It makes us feel like escaping, sometimes.

It leaves us depleted, left over from yesterday, sometimes.

We want to relax. We want to play hooky. We want to read novels and eat chocolate.

Sometimes, we just weary of the discipline.

We are doing well when suddenly, out of nowhere, we find that rebellion is not only for children. We simply do not want to be sober-minded and take leadership over a pack of unruly ones. We feel like going on strike. Sometimes we act on all these feelings.

Last, but not least, we ignore our enemy. (1 Peter 5:8)

This is, possibly, the most dangerous reason for quitting that there is. Our enemy is looking for someone to devour. He tells us ridiculous things that we are dumb enough to believe.

You are ruining your child’s potential. You did poorly in math. You cannot provide a Bunsen burner. You will lose the love of your child. You will get arrested.

So run the insidious remarks of the enemy of our souls, of our children’s souls, and of our entire existence.

He stands to gain if he can make God’s people look ridiculous, so he does all he can to make us do the ridiculous.

We do not realize how ridiculous it is to be able to home school, even to have begun, and then to fail to reap the benefits in our children’s lives.

To hear, to believe God, to have the means, and to know better, and then to quit is just beyond explanation, beyond understanding.

Of course, someone may have a unique circumstance (although I have never met that one) but almost all do not. Most are simply listening to the enemy without even knowing that he exists. Most are simply quitting because of the dark things they heard whispered into their ears, dark things that they failed to negate, failed to fight, and failed to turn over to the Lover of our souls.

Okay, now we have examined the four main reasons we quit. Tomorrow WILL come the answers.

Related articles
Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

A Cure for “The Quits” – Part 2

Posted on by Katharine

tons of fast food...Related to losing the vision, yet distinct in a way, sometimes we know what God has said and we determine to do it, but we fail to count the cost. (Luke 14:28-30)

If we do not count the cost, we can find ourselves unprepared to pay the cost. This can make the cost seem too steep, although in our hearts we know that no cost is too much for our children’s welfare.

Still, we pause.

We think of quitting.

We fall back to some degree.

By cost, I do not mean only monetary cost.

Although with homeschooling there is a little cost, it is also possible to homeschool without spending very much money at all.

No, the cost I mean is often in the realm of social connections. When we begin home schooling, often we lose old friends, or so it seems. What truly may be happening is that we finally discover who our real friends are. We discover, also, how much loyalty our family members feel towards us. Sometimes it is appallingly little.

It hurts.

It is a lot to pay.

We feel like courting the approval of man.

Sometimes, the cost can be in the realm of lost second income, too. We find ourselves in the position of having to sew our own clothes, clean our own house, or cook our own food. The fact that we are, at last, able to do so, because we at last have the time for it, does not seem to soften the reality, sometimes.

Or the cost could come in units of time, itself. Without the usual eight-to-five pushing us ever onward, we may discover sleep. This can also feel like lost time, lost time for ME, but time we willingly gave, perhaps, to an employer, when it was for money.

Therefore, we may just keep insulting our family with the same old expensive fast food, in favor of staying in that warm bed.

Is this you?

Do you wonder how I know?

Are you beginning to guess at the cures?

More tomorrow!

Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture

It Is Stupid to Hate Correction: a reblog of sorts

Posted on by Katharine

“To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction.” Proverbs 12:1 (NLT)

To learn I have to love discipline?

Who in their right mind loves discipline? I certainly don’t, but none the less, to hate correction is, as the Bible says, stupid.

Can the Bible say that? And the answer is, yes It did. I believe the Bible used such a powerful word here because it wanted to get the point across. It was meant to get our attention. . . .

Go here to read more.

This is a good article from a very good site. Enjoy!

Posted in Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Wrong.

Posted on by Katharine
Guido Reni - Joseph and Potiphar's Wife - WGA19310
Guido Reni – Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife

Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”

But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.

One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

 — Genesis 39:6-20

________________________

photo credit: Wikipedia

Posted in Inspiring, Photos, Scripture
Posted on by Katharine

I’m not a tat kinda girl, but . . . get you some tissues and GO READ THIS. It’s not what you think.

Tiff Miller's avatarThe Faery Inn

One of my sisters and I were able to go to the doctor’s office with my parents for the latest MRI results.

They’re not good.

The cancer has spread to the meninges (the membranes that cover the brain & spinal cord).

Okay – backing up just a bit.

For the last several weeks, my Dad has been struggling with pain from an extruding disc in his back, which has nothing to do with his cancer. He can’t sit or stand for very long, and spends most of his time lying down. He has also been dealing with nausea, headaches, and lack of appetite that he thought might be related to pain meds. It’s not.

So the MRI this week. The cancer in the meninges. Those symptoms are directly caused by his cancer. It’s all throughout a good part of his brain & spinal cord, and that is very concerning. The…

View original post 508 more words

Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Growth

Posted on by Katharine
Foster Bible Pictures 0078-1 Aaron's Rod Budde...
Aaron’s Rod Budded and Blossomed

The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and get twelve staffs from them, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write the name of each man on his staff. On the staff of Levi write Aaron’s name, for there must be one staff for the head of each ancestral tribe. Place them in the Tent of Meeting in front of the Testimony, where I meet with you. The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites.

So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and their leaders gave him twelve staffs, one for the leader of each of their ancestral tribes, and Aaron’s staff was among them. Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the Tent of the Testimony

The next day Moses entered the Tent of the Testimony and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the house of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds. Then Moses brought out all the staffs from the Lord’s presence to all the Israelites. They looked at them, and each man took his own staff.

The Lord said to Moses, “Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the Testimony, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die. Moses did just as the Lord commanded him.

The Israelites said to Moses, “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all going to die?” Numbers 17:1-13

Ooh, I see this too often!

Women rebel and are corrected. Then they say, “Poor me—I’ll DIE!”

If you can finally convince them that obedience will not kill them, they sulkily say, “The whole thing in anti-woman!” although actually, they could greatly improve things FOR women by doing right.

es un almendro floreciendo

If you attempt convincing them of that, they next will blame all their troubles on the church, or even more, on Christians, and deliberately and happily sow seeds of persecution.

Lastly, if they have a shred of intelligence coupled with an iota of wisdom they might try asking, “Is it dangerous?”

And then a few of them will see the delight and begin to live right-side up.

And live to catch the blame from the next barrage.

___________________________

photo credit: Wikipedia/Foster Bible Pictures 0078-1