Me? A Teacher? Me?

Whew, it's been a while.  Haven't had much to write about lately...or at least nothing I'd consider worthy enough to take the time to write.  On the other hand, that's never stopped me before.  Hmmm...  Well anyway, I finally decided to crawl out of my hole to give an update on what's going on around here. Sitting on the edge of your seat, weren't you?  I know.

Well, it's official.  This past week was the grand opening of the Schmidt Academy for Boys (a borrowed, adapted title from a friend - thanks!).  Yup.  We did it.  We took Will out of the school he was in and started homeschooling.  Did I just write that?  Now it's really official if it wasn't before.  **Gulp.**  Me.  A teacher.  Me.  Ummmm...did we really think this through?

Truth is we've been praying a long time about Will's school situation. Public school?  Private school?  Home....school......?  Me?  A teacher?  Me?  What were the other options again? 

Well, after a lot of praying and anxiety and considering Will and his needs (that I'm sure I've blogged about...check the archives), we decided to go with public school.  With his special needs, we felt that would probably be best for him because of the access to services like speech and such.  So after a lot of worrying...a lot...he started kindergarten and guess what...he did just fine.  But as the year went on I started to recognize some things about both he and I.  Things that weren't completely apparent before we started the year.  Woah, woah.  Wait.  Let me back up a little bit.  Back to the beginning...to the only parenting manual we have.  Back to the Bible.

What does God tell us about how we are to raise our children?  About how we are to teach our children?  What is our role as "parent" supposed to look like?  You don't have to do a deep and thorough study of the Bible to figure out that God thinks it's important to teach His Word to our children.

Proverbs 22:6 says: Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. 

Or from the new testament: Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

Okay, so teach the Word of the Lord to your children.  When?  Sunday morning?  At Wednesday night Awana?  Well, that would make things a whole lot easier, but I don't think that's really what He had in mind.  Right after Moses finished presenting the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, he gives further instruction on what are to be done with them.

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them upon your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6: 6-7)

So not just Sunday morning, Lord?  This looks like...well, all the time.  Hmmmm.  This is going to take some intentionality.

Intentionality.  Do you know Gregg and I?  We can be passive.  Procrastinators.  Uh....lazy.  We've had to do a lot of backpedaling in the area of intentional parenting.  Because of this, the significance of this role has weighed on our hearts with seemingly greater intensity.  Our eyes were opened and we were given a burden for the hearts of our children.  Sound stupid?  Are you asking yourself, "How can you not have this burden the day you become a parent?"  Did I also mention we're selfish?

So back to the present...Will...public school.  Fine.  We'll just continue to teach him the ways of the Lord around that time.  No big deal.  Or so I thought.  Here's where I began to learn a little more about my first born.  Will in all day kindergarten = mentally exhausted every evening.  No time for math games.  No time for reading, and that includes the Bible, folks.  And here's where I begin to learn a little more about me.  Martha with a wiped kid who doesn't want to do anything at night = okay, we don't do anything at night.  The Bible is saved for Sunday and Wednesday.

Over the past few months, the Lord has laid this on my heart with increasing measure to the point where there wasn't a day that went by without me thinking about it.  In fact it was coming to mind several times a day.  Lord, what do I do?  The answer seemed so clear...homeschool.  This was such a foreign thought to me because anytime it had ever come up before I immediately dismissed the notion.  Me?  A teacher?  Me?  Uh, no.  But nonetheless, here I was considering it.  I brought this to Gregg really without knowing what he'd think about it.  We'd never been die-hard homeschool-minded.  Both of us went to public school...there's nothing wrong with us. (Keep your comments to yourselves.)  To my slight surprise he wasn't outright opposed.  So we prayed about it and decided at this point in time we should give it a try.

So that's where we're at.  Me.  A teacher.  Me.  We have one week under our belts and we haven't killed each other yet.  We did come close the other night when he told me I was a bad teacher because I made him write his "4's" over and over to get the correct formation down (I wrote it like 10 times...geesh, mom!!!).  One thing I've learned this past week is you ask for patience before your feet hit the floor in the morning, and then several (hundred?) times throughout the day.  But we're also learning about Jesus and how He's the center of our lives.  And not only of our lives, but of all of history.  We're learning that "Bible Time" isn't the only time you can learn about God.  He's all around you and everything can be used to point back to Him.  Take it from this girl who always said "never" when it came to homeschooling, it's pretty stinkin' cool to see the lightbulb come on in your kid's head.  It's even cooler when that lightbulb reflects him learning a truth about Jesus.  And I get to be there for that!  I'm completely overwhelmed with gratitude (that's another post)!

The nice thing about homeschooling is little bro can get in on some of the fun. The other nice thing?  You don't have to wear pants.

I feel I do need to say that I don't necessarily think homeschooling is the only way to go.  Kids are wired differently.  Mommies and daddies are wired differently.  A Christian family may well be able to bring their kids up in the ways of the Lord while sending their kids to public school.  We have just come to the conclusion that this is the best way we can carry out our God-given task of Biblical parenting at this point in time.  This may change in a few years as we all grow.  We're just doing what we can to make sure the direction of that growth is closer to Jesus.

Learning Through Trials

I love making sugar cookies...especially decorating sugar cookies.  More to the point, I love making and decorating sugar cookies with my boys.  I love to run (jog really), and scrapbook, and take walks with my boys.  I love to hike and run after my little men - unless they're in trouble and running away from me...that's a different story!  So when my future as a jogging, scrapbooking, sugar cookie-making momma became jeopardized and uncertain, I almost reverted back to my anxiety-stricken ways that were oh, so familiar to me as a non-believer.

I guess I should start at the beginning.  A few months ago (after all the soul searching I talked about in the previous post), I finally told God I was ready for Him to do whatever He had planned for my life.  Not that I thought He'd wait on me, but it was more of a final submission on my part.  Finally really ready to give everything over no matter WHAT that meant.  This was actually a pretty scary thing on my part given the events of the past year with the death of Gregg's brother.  Was I...am I really ready for something like that?

Kinda crazy, but within a month of me asking for His will to be fulfilled in my life I got some life-altering news.  For a few weeks I had been having pain in my feet...both feet that was worse in the morning, but lasted all day.  Pain to the point it was affecting my daily activities and I decided it was time to get it checked out.  Now I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, but rarely do I ever get my "what if's" checked out...but this was different.  I went to the doctor telling him that I thought I have rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  He did a physical - normal.  He took xrays - normal.  He took blood tests - all normal...except one.  My anti-CCP was positive...a highly specific test for RA.  To be completely honest, I was expecting everything to come back normal and I'd go on feeling like this for a while with no answers and eventually it would just go away.  I wasn't expecting my suspicions to be true.

Will loves to decorate cookies with me...

Now I know what you're probably saying..."You said you had exciting things going on!"  Yes, yes. I know...let me finish!  Believe me, "excitement" wasn't the first emotion that came over me.  It was fear.  Having a medical background, my mind skipped over all the joint-related symptoms and went straight to the more serious...the potentially life-threatening complications of this disease...pericarditis, pulmonary fibrosis, vasculitis.  I almost lost it when Gregg brushed it off as no big deal.  "You don't understand!!!  It's not normal arthritis!!!"

Fear continued to grip me as weeks went by and I realized I'm going to be limited by this disease.  My hands and wrists were starting to hurt.  Making gift tags for Christmas presents, frosting and decorating sugar cookies, learning to sew...these activities became difficult as I often lacked the dexterity and strength needed to do them.  I'm only 31!!!  What is it going to be like when I'm 45?  It was scary how quickly things seemed to be progressing and I extrapolated this to mean I had an aggressive form of the disease.  I couldn't run anymore...I couldn't even go on walks with my boys.  Holding Micah for extended periods of time became painful...you can altogether forget about holding Will.  I was downing ibuprofen like candy just to get through my day.  Lord, why is this happening!?!?!?

...and Micah likes to eat them!

Oh. Wait. I asked for this, didn't I?  Am I saying God gave this to me as a punishment?  No.  Am I saying this was part of His will or plan for my life?  Absolutely.  The timing is a little peculiar, don't you think?  You can argue semantics about whether God causes or allows things like this to happen...I don't know the answer to that.  I don't know if it matters.  I do know that God gives (or allows) things like this to His people to deepen dependency on Him.  Take Job of the Old Testament or Paul in the New.  Paul asked three times for the thorn in his flesh to be taken away.  God's answer?  “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9)  Wow.  God has this covered.  He has my best interest in mind, whether it's obvious or not from my immediate circumstances.  

So this is why it's exciting...God is working through this.  He knows exactly what I need when I need it.  His will is perfect.  Paul's response to God's decision not to take his weakness away is the attitude I pray for as I navigate through this new and unfamiliar part of my life.  He says, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."  That sounds good...I'll take that.

The rare occasion when I got to limp along with my boys...Happiness!