Yep, we’ve become “one of those”, we are Home schooler’s!! Believe us, no one is more surprised than we are. Homeschooling was something we never would’ve dreamed could be possible for our family. We’ve always placed homeschooling on a high pedestal, something that was completely unachievable. However, a year ago God began working in our hearts to prepare us for the homeschooling journey.
Last year we decided to home school Mason for preschool. We had initially enrolled him into preschool but he wasn’t ready to leave the comforts of home and we thought not a problem, we’ll home school!! Mason and I really began to enjoy the time together and found ourselves looking forward to it everyday. It became such a bonding time for us, too!! Also, during this time of home schooling Mason our church began a Sunday School curriculum called D6. The D6 curriculum follows the biblical principles found in Deuteronomy 6: 5-7, which reads:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 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.
The D6 curriculum began to teach, and most importantly, direct us in how to develop a D6 home for ourselves. God began to speak to our hearts, through slight whispers and nudges into the possibility of home schooling. It’s so amazing looking back, we can see God’s guiding hand towards home schooling all along the way!!
Back in 2003 God directed me back to college into the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program. Following graduation of the OTA program I took a job being a traveling COTA and served several Preschools, Elementary, Middle and High Schools in the Piketon and Chillicothe areas. During the two years of working never would I have dreamed it was preparing the way for me to one day home school my own children.
Well, we are into our third week of home schooling and it’s going much better than we could have ever expected, but that’s not to say that we haven’t had stressful days and times of meltdowns!! We’ve had them!! But God has been there to remind us of the reason we are home schooling, it’s ultimately to bring glory to Him!!! Home schooling is also enabling us to “capture simple moments and create extraordinary memories” with our kids!! We allow ourselves to capture a simple moment, such as finding a baby snake, cicada shell, and the katydid, and creating a learning moment and an extraordinary memory. We try to live in the moment with them in order to create an environment and a love for lifelong learning.
But most importantly home schooling has led us into a deeper more intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. We lean on him daily for guidance and instruction in educating our children and we are always comforted by his reminders that we are only a vessel He is using to mold our children into the woman and man He desires them to become. For example one day as we were totally freaking out about home school, God impressed upon us to create a name for our “academy”. The name given by God is” Jeremiah Academy,” and ironically is Mason’s middle name. The name Jeremiah being interpreted means “exalted of the Lord”, and the simple meaning of exalted is “to raise in rank, power, character or dignity”. That God moment was just one of those reminders that it’s Him who is guiding the home schooling and we are only the vessels in which to accomplish His goals in the education and molding of our children.
Wow, what comfort, Uh!!! Yep, it’s a huge comfort to know that the Creator of the Universe and the Giver and Maker of all Knowledge is the One teaching our children. Trusting in that promise opens up room for us to create a more relaxed environment of learning and to fulfill God’s plan for our lives, which is to live a life of “Joyful Living” and know that He’s taking the “simple moments” and creating “extraordinary memories” that will last for all eternity.
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