I recently read a poem by Shel Silverstein, I would like to share it with you here:
No Difference
Small a a peanut,
Big as a giant,
We're all the same size
When we turn off the light.
Rich as a sultan,
Poor as a mite,
We're worth all the same
When we turn off the light,
Red, black or orange,
Yellow or white,
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.
So, maybe the way
To make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!
I don't consider myself one to the devil in the details, but . . . There are a few problems with this poem.
1. God is light, he is in the business of illuminating. He and his word show is how bad we are: "all our righteousness is as filthy rags..." But God and his word also show us how much we are worth: "For God so loved the world..." "I know the thoughts I think toward you saith The Lord, thoughts of peace..to give you an expected end..." "Are you not worth much more than many sparrows...." (I think I paraphrased that last one really badly!) to ask God to do something completely against who he is is ridiculous. God is light and then you ask Him to turn off the light so you can feel better about yourself. What's also really wrong with this is, these poems are what most of our children are learning and memorizing in government schools!
2. The next thing wrong with this poem is that things that are different are not the same. Just because you turn off the light doesn't make them the same. People want to go around blinding themselves to the truth. They walk around thinking if they ignore he problem it will somehow get better or go away. This very rarely happens. If you are poor, not able to pay the bills, turning off the light is not going to make you the money you need. If we turn off the light it won't change if you are ugly, (although a good set of Mary Kay makeup might help!) turning off the light won't change your skin color, it won't make everything right, actually it might make things worse. Darkness is scary. Darkness brings with it all kinds of creepy sounds. Darkness makes you internalize and not be able to process things as well. Darkness makes the scarier more scary. Also the bible says men love darkness rather than light because their works are evil. Food, Christian, activities don't usually happen after night. People don't build houses in the dark, we don't do charitable acts after dark, typically. The bible also tells of the strange woman who comes out at tight light, as it was getting dark. Turning off the lights makes things bad.
As I read this poem I was sad for our young people. They are in government schools learning this and now you see grown people have problems so they walk in their houses, turn off the lights, curl up in bed and go into depression, they turn off the lights and hope everything will just go awa, but it doesn't. We need to deal with our problems. Actually God says, we need to cast, fling, chuck, our cares upon God. God wants to help us fix our problems and ourself. He wants to be there for us. He doesn't want us to turn off the lights, he wants us to go to his illuminating word and seek his face, trust his word and his way and our life will be so much better than we could ever imagine!
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Disciplining 101
So I grew up in a family where honestly my mom was the disciplinarian. Dad did discipline us, but more than likely it was Mom who was gonna give it to us! One time I had smarted off to my Mom and she was too angry to spank me. She told my dad to, "take that child back in the room and spank her!" I knew it was coming but I have a secret weapon, Big Brown Eyes. These beauties started in the minute we got in the room. They welled up with tears and blinked widely as just the right heart tugging moments. I expressed my sorrow at having smarted off to my dear sweet mother. My father bought it, but he also knew my mom would be irate if he didn't spank me. So he told me to cry loudly and he would spank the bed. I walked out of the room holding my daddy's hand my mother in her rage looked from sniffling child to man and back again and asked, "You didn't sank her?!" It was really more of a statement than a question and my dad just kinda grunted. We both knew we had been caught. To which I responded to my mom, "HA!" We had a rule in the house that even though my mom might have been the disciplinarian, mom never went against him, at least not in front of the children. But my mom looked me dead in the eye and said, "Young lady, next time you need a spanking, I will never ask your dad again!"
Now I'm a parent. My husband also grew up in a home where corporal punishment was instated. But that's not why we spank our children. We spank them because the bible tells us that if we don't we literally hate our children. I am always amazed that after I get done spanking, the joy that returns to my children. Just now, I told my children to go clean their rooms. They were fighting and it was time. So we went into the room and took care of business. For the sake of some who might now know how to discipline I would like to share with you our most recent experience.
1. We talked about the offense. The child (which shall remain unnamed) was asked if what he/she had done was wrong. They admitted their guilt. They don't always admit their guilt at that point as their parent and as a picture of Christ to my child I have to tell them that whether they choose to see it as wrong or not it is still wrong.
2. Then the punishment is set, usually according to age, i.e. six years old gets six swats. They are controlled, even swats. If the child kicks, squirms, screams, etc, the spanking is stopped and we start over. At this point it really is up to the child how many swats they will receive.
3. After we get through the spanking the child is sat up and we ask them what they are supposed to say. We have trained them to say they are sorry, and not just sorry but what exactly they are sorry for, i.e. I'm sorry I hit my brother. Then they say to the one offended, if it was other than the parent I am sorry.
4. If there is a hint of a bad attitude they get another spanking, usually only three swats. Then they are up again and asked if they are going to change their attitude. If the answer is no, and sometimes it has been that, or the answer is I don't know, they get three more swats. We do this because there are three parts to obedience: right away, all the way and with. A good attitude! If even one part is missing, it was not obedience.
NOTE: the swats actually have to hurt, this little light pat thing doesn't cut it and doesn't change attitudes.
After this I am always amazed at the sweet spirit that permeates from the child. I am amazed and humbled when they willingly run up to me and hug or kiss me and for no reason at all and say I love you mom. It makes me think, when a God spanks me, do I make him keep going? Do I have a sweet spirit afterwards that brings such peace and joy? I hope I can be more like my children in this. I sometimes will put off dealing with my children becaus ei think, oh this is going to take forever. Just now, it took a little less than 5 minutes for two and there is sweet tones and joy returning as they sweetly clean their rooms.
Another thing I have noticed is that if I do put it off I end up yelling. I have to apologize afterwards because the look on my children's face when I yell at them is one of horror and then hate for me. It breaks me up inside. When we calmly spank, it is a world of difference. Honestly I wouldn't have set it up this way if I wrote the bible. I would have set up time out or something of a penance program, but God reminds us that Hos ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. I may not fully understand it, and maybe Even a little part of me disagrees with it (if I were to be truly honest), but this one thing I know, it works. When done right, with love from the parent to the child. I hate spanking my children, this why I will try other things first but that never ends the way I desire and doesn't being peace to our home. I will sometimes, with a tear in my eye look at my children and say, I love you, and I love God. I have to obey God and he tells me I have to spank you.
Now I'm a parent. My husband also grew up in a home where corporal punishment was instated. But that's not why we spank our children. We spank them because the bible tells us that if we don't we literally hate our children. I am always amazed that after I get done spanking, the joy that returns to my children. Just now, I told my children to go clean their rooms. They were fighting and it was time. So we went into the room and took care of business. For the sake of some who might now know how to discipline I would like to share with you our most recent experience.
1. We talked about the offense. The child (which shall remain unnamed) was asked if what he/she had done was wrong. They admitted their guilt. They don't always admit their guilt at that point as their parent and as a picture of Christ to my child I have to tell them that whether they choose to see it as wrong or not it is still wrong.
2. Then the punishment is set, usually according to age, i.e. six years old gets six swats. They are controlled, even swats. If the child kicks, squirms, screams, etc, the spanking is stopped and we start over. At this point it really is up to the child how many swats they will receive.
3. After we get through the spanking the child is sat up and we ask them what they are supposed to say. We have trained them to say they are sorry, and not just sorry but what exactly they are sorry for, i.e. I'm sorry I hit my brother. Then they say to the one offended, if it was other than the parent I am sorry.
4. If there is a hint of a bad attitude they get another spanking, usually only three swats. Then they are up again and asked if they are going to change their attitude. If the answer is no, and sometimes it has been that, or the answer is I don't know, they get three more swats. We do this because there are three parts to obedience: right away, all the way and with. A good attitude! If even one part is missing, it was not obedience.
NOTE: the swats actually have to hurt, this little light pat thing doesn't cut it and doesn't change attitudes.
After this I am always amazed at the sweet spirit that permeates from the child. I am amazed and humbled when they willingly run up to me and hug or kiss me and for no reason at all and say I love you mom. It makes me think, when a God spanks me, do I make him keep going? Do I have a sweet spirit afterwards that brings such peace and joy? I hope I can be more like my children in this. I sometimes will put off dealing with my children becaus ei think, oh this is going to take forever. Just now, it took a little less than 5 minutes for two and there is sweet tones and joy returning as they sweetly clean their rooms.
Another thing I have noticed is that if I do put it off I end up yelling. I have to apologize afterwards because the look on my children's face when I yell at them is one of horror and then hate for me. It breaks me up inside. When we calmly spank, it is a world of difference. Honestly I wouldn't have set it up this way if I wrote the bible. I would have set up time out or something of a penance program, but God reminds us that Hos ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. I may not fully understand it, and maybe Even a little part of me disagrees with it (if I were to be truly honest), but this one thing I know, it works. When done right, with love from the parent to the child. I hate spanking my children, this why I will try other things first but that never ends the way I desire and doesn't being peace to our home. I will sometimes, with a tear in my eye look at my children and say, I love you, and I love God. I have to obey God and he tells me I have to spank you.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Good music vs. Godly music
We have started the Patch the Pirate club at our church. God gave me a passion for this and I didn't really know why because honestly I was trying to faze myself out of the children's ministry and more into the ladies' ministry. We had several wonderful people step up to the plate and pay the $30 for each child. I was amazed and then scared. Now it's real. Now I have a responsibility. I am captain and pianist. I'd really like to have a consistent co-captain and am praying God provides one. There were some bumps in the road, there was a little opposition to the price per child, but after last night, it was all worth it! I was praying for 15 children, God gave us 16!
I have been wondering if this program is the best, quite honestly it's not as fun as other programs. It has two main objectives, getting kids reading their bible every day and learning to minister to their church once a month through song and skits and memory verses. When my kids came home after church Wednesday and asked if we could read the bible to them I knew we had made the right choice. As the leader I have been singing the songs a lot. I knew that if we can get these kids singing in their homes that I might never know how great the results are this side of heaven! The kids were excited! For which I am thankful!
Godly music. That is something that is lacking in our homes. We listen to the oldies, boy bands, and often so much worse. I hope it goes without saying that country music and any kind of rock n roll is wrong, sinful, and very harmful to us but unfortunately I know it doesn'tgo without saying, so let me say it! Country music is sinful, there is nothing, pure, of good report, lovely, just, or honest in country music. We live in a world where we are bombarded with sadness and problems, tv used to be about making people laugh, now it's about drama and death and despair! Music used to be about happiness and love and good things, now it is about anger and broken hearts and lust. Country music falls in that category. Then there's rock, rap, pop, etc. that is its own huge demon. Rock n roll is about sex, plain and simple and anyone who says otherwise is deceiving their self. Why then would we take the world's music and try to put godly words to it? That's like saying there are Christian prostitutes,or Christian drugs (oh wait, there is, it's called pharmaceuticals!). It is ridiculous to take something so ungodly and try to wash it up and make it godly! While I'm on this, it's the same for country, why do we try to take country music and put pathetic godly second rate words to it? Isn't God worth more than that? Isn't God more holy than that? Why do we try to bring Him down to our level? Sure it's hard to sometimes want to be like Christ, and living the Holy Spirit filled life sometimes makes us do things we wouldn't normally do or really be comfortable doing, but it is worth it!
I'm excited about the Patch club because I am excited to raise up a generation of children who value good, godly, high quality Christian music. I'm excited to see our children fall in love with God's songs and learn to despise the world's songs. My prayer is that the parents of these dear children will get on board and really support godly Christian music, not just good music and certainly not bad music! I pray their lives will be enriched as they hear these songs from their children. I'm excited to see children in just a few short years growing up to be teenagers that love God, love His music, are involved in church, and telling others about Christ. I'm excited for the future of our great church, Jackson Park Baptist Church!
I have been wondering if this program is the best, quite honestly it's not as fun as other programs. It has two main objectives, getting kids reading their bible every day and learning to minister to their church once a month through song and skits and memory verses. When my kids came home after church Wednesday and asked if we could read the bible to them I knew we had made the right choice. As the leader I have been singing the songs a lot. I knew that if we can get these kids singing in their homes that I might never know how great the results are this side of heaven! The kids were excited! For which I am thankful!
Godly music. That is something that is lacking in our homes. We listen to the oldies, boy bands, and often so much worse. I hope it goes without saying that country music and any kind of rock n roll is wrong, sinful, and very harmful to us but unfortunately I know it doesn'tgo without saying, so let me say it! Country music is sinful, there is nothing, pure, of good report, lovely, just, or honest in country music. We live in a world where we are bombarded with sadness and problems, tv used to be about making people laugh, now it's about drama and death and despair! Music used to be about happiness and love and good things, now it is about anger and broken hearts and lust. Country music falls in that category. Then there's rock, rap, pop, etc. that is its own huge demon. Rock n roll is about sex, plain and simple and anyone who says otherwise is deceiving their self. Why then would we take the world's music and try to put godly words to it? That's like saying there are Christian prostitutes,or Christian drugs (oh wait, there is, it's called pharmaceuticals!). It is ridiculous to take something so ungodly and try to wash it up and make it godly! While I'm on this, it's the same for country, why do we try to take country music and put pathetic godly second rate words to it? Isn't God worth more than that? Isn't God more holy than that? Why do we try to bring Him down to our level? Sure it's hard to sometimes want to be like Christ, and living the Holy Spirit filled life sometimes makes us do things we wouldn't normally do or really be comfortable doing, but it is worth it!
I'm excited about the Patch club because I am excited to raise up a generation of children who value good, godly, high quality Christian music. I'm excited to see our children fall in love with God's songs and learn to despise the world's songs. My prayer is that the parents of these dear children will get on board and really support godly Christian music, not just good music and certainly not bad music! I pray their lives will be enriched as they hear these songs from their children. I'm excited to see children in just a few short years growing up to be teenagers that love God, love His music, are involved in church, and telling others about Christ. I'm excited for the future of our great church, Jackson Park Baptist Church!
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Week three - why I'm still homeschooling!
I'm about to get real honest here. Do you see the title of this blog, Pondering of a Preachers wife. I almost started another blog called confessions of a reluctant homeschooler but I LOVE being a preachers wife. I love helping ladies spiritually, emotionally, physically. I love being there when there are problems and trying to fix things. I love planning events. I LOVE discipleship. I love seeing baby Christians grow and become more like Christ. I love teaching. I like playing the piano (although someone if someone who is talented with a good Christlike attitude would join our church I would give that up in a heart beat!) my heart is in being a pastors wife. I love it. I love my children as well, but I was looking forward to sending them off to school and being that much more involved in the ministry. But God had other plans for our family. God led my husband down this homeschooling path. Now the work I would have spent in families in our church is being spent in my family. The time I would be teaching ladies is spent in teaching my dear sweet children. The time I would be preparing yummy things to serve to ladies is spent in throwing together a lunch for my cute little ones. And I hate it. I thought my want-to would have been here by this third week but it couldn't be farther away. I despise the extra work. I feel unprepared. I am always behind. (I need a printer here at my house!) my house seems worse than ever. But one thing keeps playing in my mind, my relationship with my children has never been this good. But then I squash that little ray of hope and give ten things that are going wrong instead. I have been very negative lately, (Hey, I told you I was fessing)! I have not really liked myself. Several times I go to my piano to play something to remind myself I'm still good at something and I see three pieces if music I am struggling to learn for church and walk away even more frustrated, stressed, and crunched for my lack of time! It all finally came pouring out of me this past Monday. It was like throwing up poison. It hurt, it stank, it was gross, and my poor husband had to bear it all. I told him I homeschool for only one reason, Love of God and that love spurs me to love and obey my husband. I may not want to homeschool but God has led my husband this direction and if I have learned one thing from counseling ladies it is to Not go against your husband when God is leading. For the past few weeks I have put on this happy exterior and I'm dying inside. I decided I could no longer love this way. I have 37 1/2 weeks to go, this is not a good place to be this early in the game. I started an assignment I've given to several ladies and seen great success with them. I think it is called the Stroke Method. Every day three times a day, you take a 3x5 card. On one side you write something you are thankful for in general, on the other you write something you are thankful for about the situation or person you are unhappy about, i.e. it could be about your job you hate, your spouse or child you don't get along with, etc. I got my 3x5 cards, I think God knew I was gonna need a little help because he provided a clearance gold sparkly one spiral bound set of 3x5 cards. I was really nervous and honestly not really looking forward to writing my first one. But I finally gave in and wrote my general thank you. And my specific about homeschooling thankful. When I get to a hundred I might share them on here. You know, something changed yesterday. It was a glimmer of hope that it might be ok. I finished school, took a nap, pulled out fall/winter clothes and fall decorations, made a wonderful dinner, made chocolate chip cookies, and was calmer than I have been in awhile.
When I broke my foot this past summer I immediately started praising God for breaking my foot. Days when the pain would be great, or my house seemed to fall apart, I was ok because I had spent so much time praising God for the very thing that was bad. I could see God working in my life and knew He had a plan for me. But with the homeschooling I started off asking God why, I had a bad attitude, I was critical, I was angry. I kept hearing my husband pleading with me to not let this get me bitter, and I kept hearing an old college professor, James Zinker asking me if this was what is finally going to be what it takes to make me stop loving and serving God. As I consciously spent time thanking God yesterday, I opened my heart to the possibility that God may have something great through this thing of homeschooling He has asked me to do and I felt peace, calm, and even hope. I had a great relaxing day. I even had time for a lady in our church who is sick. I had time to look at Patch stuff for the start tonight! I watched a Dick van Dyke show and even went out for ice cream! Isn't god so good to be so patient with us? Seriously, I mean he could have struck me dead for my bad attitude and as holy and righteous as He is no one would have thought Him bad for doing it, yet instead, He lovingly, and gently kept working with me. he gently kept calling me to himself reminding me despite my protests that indeed His burden was light and His yoke is easy. He reminded me that He has a plan and if I will only trust Him He is going to do great things in and through me. I don't deserve such a great God and I don't deserve to have a personal relationship with Him, but, boy am I thankful I do! You know, I think that just might be what I put on my thankful card today!
When I broke my foot this past summer I immediately started praising God for breaking my foot. Days when the pain would be great, or my house seemed to fall apart, I was ok because I had spent so much time praising God for the very thing that was bad. I could see God working in my life and knew He had a plan for me. But with the homeschooling I started off asking God why, I had a bad attitude, I was critical, I was angry. I kept hearing my husband pleading with me to not let this get me bitter, and I kept hearing an old college professor, James Zinker asking me if this was what is finally going to be what it takes to make me stop loving and serving God. As I consciously spent time thanking God yesterday, I opened my heart to the possibility that God may have something great through this thing of homeschooling He has asked me to do and I felt peace, calm, and even hope. I had a great relaxing day. I even had time for a lady in our church who is sick. I had time to look at Patch stuff for the start tonight! I watched a Dick van Dyke show and even went out for ice cream! Isn't god so good to be so patient with us? Seriously, I mean he could have struck me dead for my bad attitude and as holy and righteous as He is no one would have thought Him bad for doing it, yet instead, He lovingly, and gently kept working with me. he gently kept calling me to himself reminding me despite my protests that indeed His burden was light and His yoke is easy. He reminded me that He has a plan and if I will only trust Him He is going to do great things in and through me. I don't deserve such a great God and I don't deserve to have a personal relationship with Him, but, boy am I thankful I do! You know, I think that just might be what I put on my thankful card today!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Confessions of a Reluctant Homeschooling Mom Post #1
Most people who find themselves homeschooling their children have a passion for it. They have high ideals. They have weird quirky mannerisms that get them dubbed as "homeschoolERS" as apposed to those who homeschool their children. Yes there is a difference, and there is a very educational video on youtube supporting this idea. I might post it on here one day. But not today. I'm too tired to post it today.
First I want to start off with a few of my credentials (as I LITERALLY tried three times to spell that word right and finally resorted to looking it up!). My CREDENTIALS are as follows. I went to college for 4 years, 4 different colleges, all consecutive years. I eventually got my teaching certificate in early ed (meaning I have been told I know how to teach through k-5, the only problem is I have a 1st grader!) I have taught children in various aspects for years, ever since I was old enough to. I was helping in a class when I was 12 and was very upset when our church started a youth group because that pulled me out of being a helper with children. I know how to tie balloon animals. ( I don't know why that is so impressive, but the people at my church seemed to be slightly impressed at my hidden talent, so I thought I'd list it here.) I have successfully potty trained two children! I take full credit for that (the first only took OVER a year and a trip to Hawaii and the second too about 6 failed attempts, a promise of a new bike, and a little talk about how I really didn't know what I was doing and when he was ready to get potty trained he knew where the bathroom was, but that I was done!) So maybe I don't get very much credit for those. The point is, I am comfortable around children and have been for awhile. I took the spiritual gifts test and scored highest in Administration and then scored a few points below with the same score in both encouragement and teaching. God has given me the gift of teaching. But and if I could make the font bigger it would be a great big BUT, I did NOT want to teach my own children. I did not want to homeschool.
Now, before you think I'm some horrible person or before you go away, hear me out, the name of this blog is Ponderings of a Preacher's Wife. My husband is a pastor. I am . . . . da, Da, da, DA, a PASTOR'S wife! I love being a pastor's wife. I am currently discipling 6 ladies, I run the ladies' ministry at our church, I am blessed to have the best Ladies' Bible Class IN THE WORLD! I HELP, yes only HELP with various children's ministries, but that is not where my passion is anymore. I love helping ladies and their families and I love helping ladies to help their families. I had a goal, this year, both kids were going off to school. Then that school took a turn we didn't quite agree with and whereas it is "OK" this year, it won't be if they continue down the road. The other school was too expensive and here's the real reason, my kids are pastor's kids. Pastor's kids, don't get a break. Saturday and Sunday are their mom and dad's BIGGEST days, (although contrary to popular belief the preacher AND his wife do work A LOT during the week. Wednesday is another BIG day, late night, like 11 pm or later. You know, I can send my kids to school, and then come home and take a nap . . . but they don't have that luxury if they are exhausted after a Wednesday. Throw in the mix we only have one vehicle so if 1 goes usually all 4 go for the entire time! This year I envisioned both children going to school, Me having ladies over for bible studies and serving muffins and coffee in the morning, me starting lots of other ministries, working at the church a couple days a week to do paper work and other things, I did not envision having a desk in our back room made school room surrounded by letters and numbers and art projects. You know, quite honestly it's hard when you have a dream and it gets KILLED, murdered, popped, destroyed.
My husband came to me and to be quite honest pulled the Command Man out and ordered me to homeschool and to like it and to not get bitter. That's a fine thing for him, he doesn't do much cleaning around the house, because he's a command man and I'm ok with that (most of the time). I told you, I'm really fessing here. Now I'm faced with homeschooling about 25 to 30 hours a week, housecleaning about 15 to 20. WOW! Wait on the LOW end we are already up to 40 hours a week, I quit! Then you throw church ministries into it. I play the piano, I teach piano, I have disciples I disciple and I . . . and you have read some of the rest. I'm a busy pastor's wife. Please don't think I'm tooting my own horn, it's just the truth and I LOVE IT! Church ministries realistically add another 20 to 25 hours a week. Then there's cooking, I like to cook, that's a minimum of 3 hours a day, so because we do eat out once or twice a week, because of our crazy schedule we will say 20 hours a week. On the low end I am not up to 80 hours a week, more like 90 to 95 and when am I supposed to sleep? Actually if you want to know the real truth, I was asking myself "When am I supposed to have time for myself?"
I sat in our backyard about a month ago, give or take a week and I sat with a couple and she wanted to homeschool and he didn't. Here I am trying to advocate for homeschooling, not really wanting to do it myself. I believe homeschooling is a VERY good thing and I believe in CHRISTIAN education. He said No and I finally had to look at her and tell her that she HAD to give in to her husband. She did and he surprisingly said yes to Christian school! Praise the Lord! As I'm telling her this, I was thinking, Yeah and I have to give in to. I have bucked, I have squawked, I have pleaded, I have tried to work out another way and TODAY, I found myself doing what I was dreading. And you know what?! I had a great day. YES, there were struggles and there were tears of frustration but am I glad I did this? I don't know I have another 139 days to go, ask me on my 140th day.
I want to share with you some things we did for school today:
First I want to start off with a few of my credentials (as I LITERALLY tried three times to spell that word right and finally resorted to looking it up!). My CREDENTIALS are as follows. I went to college for 4 years, 4 different colleges, all consecutive years. I eventually got my teaching certificate in early ed (meaning I have been told I know how to teach through k-5, the only problem is I have a 1st grader!) I have taught children in various aspects for years, ever since I was old enough to. I was helping in a class when I was 12 and was very upset when our church started a youth group because that pulled me out of being a helper with children. I know how to tie balloon animals. ( I don't know why that is so impressive, but the people at my church seemed to be slightly impressed at my hidden talent, so I thought I'd list it here.) I have successfully potty trained two children! I take full credit for that (the first only took OVER a year and a trip to Hawaii and the second too about 6 failed attempts, a promise of a new bike, and a little talk about how I really didn't know what I was doing and when he was ready to get potty trained he knew where the bathroom was, but that I was done!) So maybe I don't get very much credit for those. The point is, I am comfortable around children and have been for awhile. I took the spiritual gifts test and scored highest in Administration and then scored a few points below with the same score in both encouragement and teaching. God has given me the gift of teaching. But and if I could make the font bigger it would be a great big BUT, I did NOT want to teach my own children. I did not want to homeschool.
Now, before you think I'm some horrible person or before you go away, hear me out, the name of this blog is Ponderings of a Preacher's Wife. My husband is a pastor. I am . . . . da, Da, da, DA, a PASTOR'S wife! I love being a pastor's wife. I am currently discipling 6 ladies, I run the ladies' ministry at our church, I am blessed to have the best Ladies' Bible Class IN THE WORLD! I HELP, yes only HELP with various children's ministries, but that is not where my passion is anymore. I love helping ladies and their families and I love helping ladies to help their families. I had a goal, this year, both kids were going off to school. Then that school took a turn we didn't quite agree with and whereas it is "OK" this year, it won't be if they continue down the road. The other school was too expensive and here's the real reason, my kids are pastor's kids. Pastor's kids, don't get a break. Saturday and Sunday are their mom and dad's BIGGEST days, (although contrary to popular belief the preacher AND his wife do work A LOT during the week. Wednesday is another BIG day, late night, like 11 pm or later. You know, I can send my kids to school, and then come home and take a nap . . . but they don't have that luxury if they are exhausted after a Wednesday. Throw in the mix we only have one vehicle so if 1 goes usually all 4 go for the entire time! This year I envisioned both children going to school, Me having ladies over for bible studies and serving muffins and coffee in the morning, me starting lots of other ministries, working at the church a couple days a week to do paper work and other things, I did not envision having a desk in our back room made school room surrounded by letters and numbers and art projects. You know, quite honestly it's hard when you have a dream and it gets KILLED, murdered, popped, destroyed.
My husband came to me and to be quite honest pulled the Command Man out and ordered me to homeschool and to like it and to not get bitter. That's a fine thing for him, he doesn't do much cleaning around the house, because he's a command man and I'm ok with that (most of the time). I told you, I'm really fessing here. Now I'm faced with homeschooling about 25 to 30 hours a week, housecleaning about 15 to 20. WOW! Wait on the LOW end we are already up to 40 hours a week, I quit! Then you throw church ministries into it. I play the piano, I teach piano, I have disciples I disciple and I . . . and you have read some of the rest. I'm a busy pastor's wife. Please don't think I'm tooting my own horn, it's just the truth and I LOVE IT! Church ministries realistically add another 20 to 25 hours a week. Then there's cooking, I like to cook, that's a minimum of 3 hours a day, so because we do eat out once or twice a week, because of our crazy schedule we will say 20 hours a week. On the low end I am not up to 80 hours a week, more like 90 to 95 and when am I supposed to sleep? Actually if you want to know the real truth, I was asking myself "When am I supposed to have time for myself?"
I sat in our backyard about a month ago, give or take a week and I sat with a couple and she wanted to homeschool and he didn't. Here I am trying to advocate for homeschooling, not really wanting to do it myself. I believe homeschooling is a VERY good thing and I believe in CHRISTIAN education. He said No and I finally had to look at her and tell her that she HAD to give in to her husband. She did and he surprisingly said yes to Christian school! Praise the Lord! As I'm telling her this, I was thinking, Yeah and I have to give in to. I have bucked, I have squawked, I have pleaded, I have tried to work out another way and TODAY, I found myself doing what I was dreading. And you know what?! I had a great day. YES, there were struggles and there were tears of frustration but am I glad I did this? I don't know I have another 139 days to go, ask me on my 140th day.
I want to share with you some things we did for school today:
I wrote this message as an afterthought yesterday.
This is my bulletin board. We will put projects to display up here.
Pictures of the tops of their desks.
Of course, Abby has already girlied hers up!
My desk, typical me, how much can I put on one little desk.
I am quite pleased with how these turned out.
Our numbers and their chalk board.
This car sits on my desk to remind me to not go on empty spiritually, but to fill up at God's pump every day . . . else I WON'T make it through this year! AKA a daily walk with God!
He was so thrilled to be starting school today, he bounced around and was a general ham, which if you know him, is not usually him, He is generally a quiet serious kind of kid!
She was thrilled when she found out she could wear flip-flops!
Bad pic, sorry, the sun.
She was tired of pictures by this time and wanted to get started!
Remember my credentials, I was a preschool teacher for years. The fun of doing hands on, large motor activities has never quite left me. We learned the letter I and i today so of course we had to make a track for our cars to race around! He loved it. Of course, in the mood he was in I think I could have done just about anything and as long as I called it school he would have loved it!
This was "reading group"
Drew was so funny. His was more about quantity than quality. As many papers as he could get done as quickly as he could. He did not care what color the elephant should be and he did not care how it looked, he accomplished it not what could he learn next.
These next set of pictures were probably my favorite part of the day. Partly because I felt that true, fun learning happened today. We are reading about history and how can we know history, from historians, people who read documents, but what about people who didn't know how to write? We can learn from them by archeology. I painted stones with different things and hid them in the sand. Then the children used paint brushes to gently brush away the stuff so they could see and find the "artifacts" carefully. Then they took their "story stones" and told a story about what might have been with those stories. As I write this blog tonight, they are STILL in here playing with those stones, covering them up, uncovering them and telling a different story using the story stones they have uncovered.
Being archeologist.
Drew's discovery. A boy, a tree, a cat, a well (he begged to call a spider), a teepee (it was late when I was making these), a mountain, a chick, a basket. He told a story about a boy who liked to pet his cat, squash spiders, climb trees, and put his chick in a basket because he had to move because his village didn't have enough rain.
Abby's "discovery". A girl, a horse and cart, rain, sunshine, night sky, rainbow (which she asked if it could be dishes), a pig, and a butterfly. Her story was about a girl, who had a "borrowed brother" from Drew, who liked to wash rainbow dishes. She liked to catch butterflies. She had to take care of the pig with her brother's help. The sun was shining really hard and everything was dying. They ordered the rain to come but it didn't. They went to sleep and the next day the rain still didn't come and they had to move away.
So school was fun! We are all of us looking forward to tomorrow! I "interviewed" my children today as part of "their history". They both said the same thing they wanted to learn, About God. We have purpose statement for our school: To develop the mind of Christ, in the life of product and well educated students. I have this in the front my Lesson Plan book as a daily reminder of why I am doing what I am doing!
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