Tag: wisdom

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

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring

No Such Thing as a Single Income Family!

Posted on by Katharine

saving and spending

Someone’s gotta stay home with the kids if we homeschool. Right?

Right.

We may quibble about which parent must stay, but no doubt one simply must.

Lots of people think keeping a parent at home precludes being a two income family, but it does not. The act of staying home saves so much, we  sometimes wonder how those who work outside make any money at all.

Let’s look at how it adds up:

  1. Clothing. Stay-home clothes bought on sale cost far less than suits or uniforms bought under duress. The same is true for shoes, bags, coats, etc.
  2. Transportation. If only one parent is going out to work, only one car is necessary. Same for gas.
  3. Work. Someone has to do it. Either you clean the house or someone else gets about $1000 per year to do it. You can do your own laundry, yard work, repairs, etc., and save the prices of hiring them done. Or the price of a counselor trying to fix your brain after you try to do it all yourself . . .
  4. Cooking. A rib-eye steak costs about $5 on sale at the grocery, about $18 at a restaurant. Spaghetti dinner for 6 costs the same at home as for 1 at a restaurant. Maybe less. A homemade birthday cake costs about $7, compared to $20 from the store, and you know which tastes better! Hearty, homemade bread costs half or less of insipid store-bought. However, if you make these yummy foods to sell, you get the store price!
  5. Shopping. What? Isn’t shopping how we lose money? No, that’s random spending. Shopping is comparing prices, waiting for sales, and squeezing all the value you can from every penny. It is sticking to your list, buying in bulk, and always being ready for the surprise bargain for someone’s gift for the future. It is what you don’t have time for if you’re on your way home from the office.
  6. Sewing. While it is true, fabric prices have gone up, it is also true you can make new, lovely curtains with hardly any sewing instructions, covering that window in sale fabric for about $25 instead of $125. With only a bit more knowledge, you could make yourself a skirt or cape. Learn a tiny bit more and make simple dresses for your girls. All with the same savings rate. But if you sell, it . . .
  7. Gardening. A pint of home-canned green beans costs about ten cents for the lid and bit more for energy to run the stove. There is an initial investment, but you can re-coup the cost once you’ve canned for a year or two. And store-bought vegetables are nearly $1 per can.
  8. Crafts. A bit of yarn, a drop of glue, how surprising the fun and savings in making gifts! And the savings is phenomenal. You could develop a reputation for a certain type of gift and become known as “the afghan lady” or the “soap lady”, turning it into a business. Astronomical savings in greeting cards, alone!
  9. Last, but not least, Child Care. It’s about $18 per day per child. That does not factor in the cost of medical care for all the diseases they will pick up.

This list could go on forever, but you get the idea. If, when you are at home, you actually WORK, you are a working mom, and your rewards are good.

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

For Home Educators, Only, Please. Part 2

Posted on by Katharine

Homeschooling - Gustoff family in Des Moines 011Should All Families Homeschool?

State educational institutions are often wonderful for adults.

For children, we have homes.

When it comes to children, God says parents should train them, bring them up, teach them. With the return to home learning of the past quarter century, we are discovering that Father knows best and that the brave new world of mandatory public schooling for all children is not the way for civilized cultures.

Maybe it is the best way to germinate Communism or raise up a nation of soldiers, but it is not the best way to grow children who turn into the type of adults we really want managing our finances or our country when we are old.

Various excuses float around for those who do not home school and these excuses need redefining, too.

For instance, I often have heard that some people are unable to home school.

I agree, but for most, it is to their shame and not something to boast about, as they do.

Some people have disqualified themselves from being the ones who raise their children. Perhaps they attack or neglect their children and perhaps they have lost custody. (Perhaps not, too often.)

Sometimes they prefer misleading their children into sports injuries or demonic teachings, and so must drop them off where these things happen.

Many prefer making a show of wealth that requires abandoning the children for two incomes, rather than doing the right thing, as Moses did. (Hebrews 11:24-27)

The fact that these people are extremely poor parenting examples does not mean that home schooling is bad. It only means that some homes are bad and morality is taking a new plunge.

Sometimes we hear of children who do not want to home school. Surely, we do not think the parents ought to home school them!

Well, yes, we do.

Usually these sadly mixed-up children are the products of the above-mentioned types of parents. Attacked, neglected, misled offspring of unfounded and deceiving displays of affluence usually lack ideals, morals, discipline, and even discernible personalities.

If we further define “personality” as “mind, will, and emotion”, we realize that these children are losing their souls.

True, these children sometimes do not work out well in the normal home school setting, especially at first. Neither do they always perform very well in the public setting, but it is not their fault.

And their parents should quit boasting about it.

What ought to happen is that the parents should “die trying” to fix the mess they have made of their children’s attitudes, but they do not.

Some go as far as laughing about it. If there is any hope for these children at all, the remedy, still, exists only in the home. These parents should have home schooled and still should home school.

The alternatives, correctional and psychiatric institutions—as if we would prefer these to the home—usually control or mollify, only, and do not apply true, known remediation, as parents can, if only they have not disqualified themselves.

“Harsh words!” you say?

I say the words are hardly as harsh as the reality. The prisons of the godless school generation are overflowing, as are the mental institutions.

These human wrecks were America’s children, just one generation ago.

More tomorrow.

Related articles

____________________

photo credit: Iowa politics.com

Posted in Home School, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

For Home Educators, Only, Please.

Posted on by Katharine
"Negro mother teaching children numbers a...
Homeschooling– the magnet school for share croppers in Transylvania, Louisiana, 1939. How times have changed!

Note: Please do not read this if you are against home schooling. Thanks.

Should All Families Homeschool?

Our family once celebrated a quarter century of home schooling. I could hardly believe it. The time had sped by so fast – where was it?

I thought about the huge blessing the Lord had given us – He had been so gracious to us, taking us by the hand and leading us in a way that we did not know. We believe that the Lord made all the difference in how our children might have grown up.

Any child’s education is partly dependent upon his micro-culture. For instance, if our children had remained in our public schools, they would have learned things like chewing tobacco, as appropriate behavior for second-graders. I know the tobacco manufacturers would have agreed with me: Giving it to second graders is completely unacceptable. I know it was unacceptable to me, along with many similar ideas. Our home clearly was the best place for our children.

I gave my children the best possible education available to them at that time. If they’d been educated in England, how different their speech would have been! If they’d been educated in a wealthy neighborhood, how different their science courses would have been!

I happen to believe that the home is where all children belong.

Yes, I am one of those who believe that all families should homeschool. I hear you gasping but after I define terms, you might agree.

(There is still time to NOT read this.)

Please understand I have nothing against the idea of schools existing.

I just have problems with detaining helpless Americans against their will in a gun-free microcosm that cannot defend them, indeed refuses to attempt defending them, from physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual attack, and that both proscribes their religious beliefs (but only if they are Christian) and prescribes the superstitions of others upon them.

It just does not fit the American purpose and does not set well with this American.

Participating in such a micro-community should be an act that an informed adult freely chooses. He should be free to attend or to escape, as the need arises. The course content should please him and an appropriate level of autonomy should prevail.

Of course, I define a college or university. Amazing how a little free enterprise can elevate the quality of the goods offered for sale! Paying your own way or earning a scholarship can motivate you to behave and study hard, too.

Although there are degrees of excellence in the public and private colleges and universities, there also is freedom to go where we want, when we want, or to skip it altogether, if we want. That is how it should be.

If you are thinking that is fine for adults but it would be folly to burden children with such decisions, you are right.

That is why schools should be only for adults.

More tomorrow.

Posted in Good ol' days, Inspiring, Scripture, Womanhood

Sunday Scriptures – Purple

Posted on by Katharine
The Discovery of Purple by Peter Paul Rubens, ...
The Discovery of Purple by Peter Paul Rubens

On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, ” come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.  –Acts 16:13-15

Lydia was probably a wealthy woman, a dealer in goods sold only to the wealthy. Usually only royalty wore purple cloth because it was so expensive, good purple dye being difficult to make.

Perhaps she was a widow, necessitating her working outside the home, and if so, perhaps she was older than Paul and Silas.

It seems she owned a house and personally kept a household staff.

Probably she was a pleasant person, given to hospitality, and motivating her household enough that they followed her in her beliefs.

She seems intelligent and rather bold, in her conversation, inviting and persuading men to stay at her house, but if she was older and the house was well-staffed, it would not seem out of place for her to do so.

We know women like Lydia and she inspires us to work harder, with more cheer, and to reach out more

____________________

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Posted in Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring

What Is it Like to Homeschool? – part 2

Posted on by Katharine
Example of unschooling (home-based, interesed-...
These children are trying to dig out insects from tree bark.

Sneaky changes you WON’T know about!

You will hardly realize your mind is clearing and new direction is sneaking into your lives, but others will notice.

Homemaking

As you welcome the idea of being a maker of a real home for your family, you will realize that washing dishes is not such a horrible chore, after all. You may remind yourself of a powdered cleanser commercial as you clean the bathtub, but you will like it.

Gentler rewards.

The exercise will give a glow to your cheeks, too. In fact, with new work going on, you may actually begin needing small breaks. What’s more, you will find quiet for enjoying your reading during these breaks, and in your favorite comfy chair instead of a sterile “break room”.

Simplicity

As you discover the truer beauty of new, simpler recreations, you will realize it is a good thing, because your costs will shrink, too. You will become quite satisfied with less.

The children

The best change, though, will come over your children. Your heart will sing as your see competitiveness and the resulting nervousness falling off your children.

As you discover their true personalities, you will delight in re-making their acquaintances. As they discover the real you, in return, they will cooperate with you more. You will hardly believe your eyes as you watch your children simply being a family, together. No amount of running around would give this joy, and as there is less running around, there will be much more time for family.

More time

As this newfound time applies to all of life, the educational level and possibilities for your children will greatly increase. It will not be all book learning, either, as you give life to their understanding of the joys of industry and simplicity.

Last, you will find yourself face to face with a new self. It will be great. Old priorities will go out the window and new ones will jump in the front door just as fast. Your amazement at yourself will know no bounds, at first. Things you once shrugged off will take on great proportions and things that once bothered you greatly will seem insignificant.

For instance, instead of fixating on finding the best school supplies for your child, you may discover packing school supplies for Somalian orphans seems somehow more important.

You may acquire a new hobby of crochet or gardening or baking. You could sell your product or teach classes. You could bring joy to those around you.

Most importantly, though, you will never again wonder if you should home school your children. You will finally know. The knowing will bring such peace in knowing you are finally giving your children the best you can, finally doing what you were made to do.

Finally home.

Posted in Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring

What Is it Like to Homeschool?

Posted on by Katharine

"Doing school" under a shade tree."

The parent who hopes or plans on home schooling probably wonders about it, what it must be like to be a homeschooler.

There are as many answers to this question as there are folks asking it, but the answer we all want, at first, is universal.

Entering the world of homeschooling is entering a whole new world.

It is a new world because immediately, the family realizes new freedom. Since the home school is YOUR school, the sense of liberty is immediate. You realize that you can do whatever you want, and you really like it.

You may choose to do everything just like a little school, but it will be your choice, not something forced upon you.

New Liberty

This new liberty will include the choice of curriculum and subjects. You will have freedom to choose a God-honoring curriculum. You will find yourself free to believe the entire Bible, if you choose, which will be a wonderful new freedom for you.

Along with the freedom to believe and study as you choose will come all sorts of other new possibilities. You could find yourself teaching your children all they need to become a missionaries, Creation scientists, midwives, herbalists, or any other of the fields that are off limits in the public arena.

New society.

As your new world makes these radical changes, your gladness will grow as you discover you also dwell within a new society. You will have new friends who will be happy to help you. You may need help, but it will be ever ready with these new friends.

As you learn to enjoy them, you will join them in their activities, new activities to you. Where you once had to chase ball games, you may find that you have more time to chase Frisbees or butterflies. Instead of hanging out at the school parking lot, you will find yourself hanging out at the observatory or park. You will like these new activities, and as you spend more and more time with these friends, your loving concern for them will grow.

Your concern will grow so much, in fact, that you may find yourself in a car full of folks riding to your State Capital to express those concerns. You may also find yourself enchanted at having the time for expressing such concerns.

You will enjoy these new friends because you will realize that they are a different sort of people. They smile a lot and their smiles are genuine. They reach out to you and you catch yourself looking forward to the next time you see them. You ask them questions because you like the differences you see in their families.

What you will not realize is that the same differences will be gradually appearing in your own family.

Read part two here!