To know is to..... DO

Yesterday, I received back the results from our yearly standardized testing. My children are brilliant. (yes I am completely biased)   I am not sure why I need a test result to tell me my kids are brilliant....  I know they are learning everyday....  I guess it is just nice to have an outside, independent source say so.

I got to thinking about this very need for outside confirmation of things we already know.....  and I was a little disturbed by how frequently I could see myself clamoring for it in my own life.   How often do I know I need to do something, yet we have to call three friends and discuss it with them first, before I decide to do it?  How often do I KNOW what God's word tells me to do, but I have to ask others for their advice before I decide to follow God's?

I believe that teaching and training my children at home is a non-negotiable directive from God.  Yet how many times do I get caught up in the little things of life and get lost there.  God tells me to talk to my children every day, all the time, about HIM.  He tells me that HE is the most important thing for them to know about.  That truth needs to be applied to ME as well.  How can I teach, what I do not live?  How can I make choices on what to teach my children, when I do not involve God?  We are quick to ask discussion groups, consult every web page that comes up on my search engine..... ask family members who don't even share our view of homeschooling.... what they think about what we should do for "school".... all before asking God, and frequently leaving God out of the process completely.

It is the time of the year when many of us are searching for what we will use next year during our school hours.  I encourage you to join me in purposing time to be alone with God before you begin the process, as you are looking, talk over your potential choices with HIM first, and then when you are done, thank Him for helping you make God honoring choices.  We as women, wives, mothers and teachers, need to build God into our own lives, so we may build Him into all the lives he has given us to care for.

I sit here desiring to write something light and witty about my time learning at The Schoolhouse Expo....  and I am feeling neither light nor witty.  Life has been rather chaotic, and overwhelming the last week.  I find myself counting the days until they will be releasing the MP3's of the conference so that I can slowly go over each morsel of information.  There was so much shared, on so many different topics, that I can not even connect the dots right now.

Last week, my oldest child turned 16.  I wrote to him that no matter what happens in life, he needed to remember that his GOD was bigger than it all.

These words, in conjunction with a devotion from Deborah Wheuler last week, at the Expo,  have been "rattling" around in my head.   Deborah talked about hungering and thirsting for our Lord, and being rooted daily in the Word, is where we need to be....

So.........  that is what I am telling myself.  Be hungry and thirsty for God..... read His word through the day.  Pray without ceasing, all the while remembering that my GOD is BIG!....  and now I am going to, in the words of Elizabeth Elliot,  "do the next thing on my list", and let God take care of the rest.

Expo moments part 1

Right now I am listening to Nancy Carter speak from my computer.... and I am typing in another screen. (multi-task much?)  I am attending Day 2 of the Schoolhouse Expo.  It has been so full of wonderful information.

Just a few highlights....  Yesterday I enjoyed the session on Phonics Road to Reading....  It looks like an amazing phonics based grammar curriculum.  This is an area I would like my kids to be strong in, and I am prayerfully considering purchasing it.  Also I enjoyed the session on Worldview... by Gary Bates.  My older kids listened in on that session with me, and we were blessed.

Today, so far, ( it is only half way done....) the WorkBox system by Sue Patrick.... might just change my life and the way school gets done around here.  I am praying about how to best implement that...

Right now is Deborah Wuehler's devotion......... got to go!