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

If Only They Were Perfect — If Only WE Were!

Posted on September 21, 2012September 21, 2012 by Katharine

If a child is non-compliant on purpose, he needs far more than another reminder.

This is the hardest part: Requiring.

Children do not automatically walk in goodness, contrary to popular opinion. Some want to stay in bed in the morning. Some want to skip brushing their teeth. Some want to play during chore time. Dogs eat a lot of homework.

We know it is better for them if they have good sleep, health, and work habits. Our good plans for them must cross their wills.

That is why God put them in homes with parents. Parents can place requirements on children for their own good. This is common knowledge in all cultures, except the current permissive. People who follow the original ways of requiring children to act sensibly, have produced sensible offspring.

Stating the obvious is necessary, these days.

I believe my children will always practice brushing their teeth daily, because they are accustomed to having white, clean-feeling teeth, so brown, fuzzy teeth bother them. The same is true for bathing, eating healthful foods, and Bible reading.

Oh, they may experiment with departure from the absolute best, but they also will sense a difference, a loss, and choose the right way. For instance, my daughter became a ramen junkie during college, but the other day she said, “You know, I am just starving for a good, crisp salad.”

Yes!

They were not born this way. We required it of them.

The child who habitually eats cake and cola will not sense the ill feeling from it in adulthood.

The child who habitually reads everything but the Word will not miss the Word as an adult.

The difference between those generalities is most usually the differing requirements they faced as children.

Who wants to raise a loud, interrupting, unhealthy, illiterate adult with crumbling teeth and no knowledge of the sacred?

Draw your lines.

Repeat.

Remind.

And require your children to heed.

Help them have the excellent gift of good habits.

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photo credit: wikipedia

Inspiring, Sayings

Mind the Other Gap

Posted on August 14, 2012August 14, 2012 by Katharine

I don’t know how we got to the top, but we were inside a very small building atop a tower, like a firetower in a forest. My memory of many of the details of that day are lost in the cobwebs of childhood. I do remember a row of windows around the entire building, and a telescope of sorts.

I know it was a tourist attraction because there were other people up inside this building with us. In fact, it was somewhat crowded. Amazing what we do and don’t remember. I remember the floor was unvarnished hardwood and dirty, and my dress was red.

And I was wearing patent leather shoes with slick soles.

The attraction in this room on stilts, besides the magnificent view, was the ride back down to earth in a sort of passenger car on a cable. Great fun, like a zipline for civilized folks with small children. People ascended and descended regularly, and we viewed the view while awaiting our turn.

I was so little. Yet I remember a sense of needing to hurry. I suppose the quicker people loaded and unloaded the cars, the more money the owners earned. Finally we approached the doorway where the car was dangling, waiting for us to board. I watched this car swaying and heard it creaking while the owner reminded my parents of the huge space between the building and the car, with about a hundred feet of space below it. My parents cautioned me and explained the extreme danger in stepping wrong.

I froze. Anyone could see the gap was far larger than my tiny feet, and, in fact, my whole self could fit easily right through that gap. Of course, it was too huge a leap for a terrified little one.

I dug in. I was scared and wanted down. I cried.

That’s when my parents lifted me. I still was terrified, but they overcame my will with their own strength and jointly lifted me over that yawning hole, down into that cable car. I still was terrified. They had seen it was too hard for me and, after warning me not to struggle against them in my fear, had mercifully done it for me.

I am sure the view was spectacular on the ride down, but I don’t remember that part.

I do remember my parents’ loving mercy and surpassing knowledge and strength.

And I think of the gap between this world, that we think is so real, and the other world that exists all around us, that is really real — the Heavenly Kingdom.

The step we must take to leap from this world into the other is terrifying and too far, in our eyes.

But the loving mercy of our Heavenly Father and the Jerusalem Above, which is our mother, stand ready to bridge that gap for us, if we only will not fight it.

Love lifted me.
Love lifted me.
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me.

________________

photo credit: Wikipedia

Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Wrong.

Posted on August 12, 2012August 12, 2012 by Katharine

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

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photo credit: Wikipedia

Inspiring, Photos, Scripture

Posted on August 10, 2012August 10, 2012 by Katharine

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

The 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…

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Home School, Inspiring, Wisdom

All Children Home School: The Rest of the Story

Posted on August 7, 2012August 8, 2012 by Katharine

My friend’s teen children were tired.

I had always thought they were shy children because they hardly said much in church. I learned though: If anyone spoke first, these children politely carried on an adequate conversation. Then they would drop back into their tired mode, like a trance.

My friend, their mother, was tired, too. I had noticed signs of it: late (or absent), hastily coiffed, testy—all out of character for her and all beginning when school began each year. I understood it more after we had the “school” conversation.

I think she was just using me for a sounding board, not realizing that I have feelings, too. Most people in a State school need to verbalize their convictions to home educators. They subconsciously need our quiet endurance of these conversations, I think, to help them go on.

Since I believe that, I usually do not listen altogether mutely. Usually I say things like, “I am so sorry,” or “I know it must be a real burden,” or “Perhaps a different teacher (grade, school, district, etc.) would make a big difference?”

I am not being sarcastic when I say these things, although the temptation is sometimes there. No, I truly am sorry to see my friends suffer so because of their State education choices. Too, because of my own mistakes in the State systems, I know it truly is a burden.

Of course, I know a different spot within the State school system does not usually make much difference, but I also desire to help them see something: To me, their situation sounds burdensome. I hope to cause them to have second thoughts, if possible, within the context of friendship.

Therefore, I tried to listen gently to my friend’s tiring tedium of tasks. I am sure my eyes widened.

She wound up with, “but I just don’t see any other way to make sure they are doing well . . .”

I said, “Sandra, I know you are tired; anyone could see it in your eyes.” She dabbed at tears. “I don’t know what to tell you. If the teachers and the coaches will not do it, I guess you must—someone must.”

I hesitated, then went on, “The reason your children excel and the reason you are tired is that you are homeschooling.

“For most home educators, it is not so tiring, though, because they homeschool from 8:00 a.m. until early afternoon. You are homeschooling a lot, during those hours, but also during the hours from 3:00 until midnight and beyond. Add to that the fact that you are worrying, and you could not HELP but be tired. You are volunteering at the State schools, and then conducting your own homeschool afterwards.”

The things I said did not help her. She was convinced hers was the only way to send her children into law school.

The entire conversation did help me, though.

It gave me several more reasons that I would never go back into the State institutionalized education program.

You can learn from it, too, perhaps. Perhaps you can see why people should stay out of that system.

Failing that, at least you will have a list of things you must do (should you decide to quit home schooling) to cause success in State-educated children.

Believe it or not!, Homemaking, Photos, Scripture, Womanhood

FIRE!

Posted on June 28, 2012June 28, 2012 by Katharine

Friends, we may think we have troubles.

But not like Colorado Springs, right now.

For an eye-witness report, from a sweet blogging lady, go here.

She speaks of her love for her friends and neighbors.

She is doing her best to help them.

Because she can. Because she is home.

She also says, on a subsequent post:

For once, I don’t feel much like I need to add anything to this glorious reassurance. Maybe I will sometime, but not this morning. This morning, this is my prayer – over my city, my life, and the lives of my loved ones.

“But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long, though I know not its measure.

I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign LORD; I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone. Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.

Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God, you who have done great things.

Who, O God, is like you?

Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.”

~Psalm 71:14-21 (NIV)

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Photo credit: David Shankbone

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture

Sunday Scriptures – Close

Posted on June 17, 2012June 16, 2012 by Katharine

Tag: help