A Pop Quiz from God…

Cindy,

I wanted to share with you a couple of questions that God asked me one day, He gave me a pop quiz.  I know I am not alone in this because I see from posts on our local groups site and a few from your desktop that there are others who were (or still may be) under the same pressure.  I am posting this on our group’s site to confess and share with others as well.

I was stressing, things were not going according to schedule (ever try to put something God gave you on a schedule, boy does He like to throw a monkey wrench in my schedule), dh was working long hours (the bags under his eyes could hold a weeks worth of clothes), my second child was home from Iraq for 2 weeks, but not spending much time at home due to a strained relationship with his father, my oldest was in the middle of a bitter divorce and custody battle…….on and on and on and to top it off my younger 2 were “behind.”

First question from God-“Behind in what”  “Do you really think all public school kids are at exactly the grade level they should be?  Why do you think they had to pass a bill called No Child Left Behind?”

He took me back to when my 3rd son was learning to read, he fought me tooth and nail, and yes for about a week I stood my ground.  Then God told me to back off, just quit for 6 months.  All I did was read to him for 6 months and when that time had passed, we tried again, my son finished “Teach Your Child To Read” in record time, not only that he picked up a book on his own.  God showed my that my goal was not to teach my child to read, but to teach him to love to read, otherwise he may never have picked up the Bible on his own to read.  We were homeschooling our children so they could progress at their own level…..

Second question, and this one was a really hard one…. “If you walked into a public school (or even a Sunday school) classroom and saw a teacher, teaching your child the way you are teaching your children, would you give them a raise or fire them on the spot, (or maybe drag them out by their hair)?”

I was teaching Bible at the time, basically arguing with an 11 year old boy and although he was able to regurgitate the verse, I knew he had not hidden it in his heart.  What he had hidden in his heart was resentment and bitterness, yes directed at mom and God’s Word.  I reflected on some mistakes made with my older 2 children, and now there are days when we put the books away, and just clean house, or clean daddy’s work area before he gets home. Yesterday we made bread.  Today my son wants to make bread all by himself, I will have to double that recipe so my daughter can make her own too.  We don’t have a math “curriculum” right now, waiting on finances, but there are fractions in bread making, there is time in bread making, there is ministry in bread making, there is physical education in bread making (you knead for 5 min and see if there is not), there are also life skills in bread making.

So what did I learn from my “pop quiz” from God?

My husband and I decided long ago to educate our chldren at home, not in a “school” setting, so I need to quit comparing our school (Timothy Acadamy) to public and even christian schoools.  I hope that for the last time I have learned this lesson and hidden it in my heart that if God had wanted my children to be in public school and at the public school grade level, He would not have impressed schooling at home in our hearts so deeply and firmly.

I have fired that old teacher and hired a new one, a less stressed out one.  God in his infinite grace and wisdom led me to Cindy Rushton’s teachings and an audio on depression just before He gave me this pop quiz.  I had her teachings, and her wisdom, and her experience to fall on when I failed this quiz, but in God’s eye’s I passed because I learned from my mistakes, picked myself up with God’s help and started over.

For anyone looking for a great place to start, Homeschooling the Easy Way is it.  Get a free planner and a pencil (yes pencil, so you can erase and re-schedule), and work up to those planners that cost a little.  After HSEW work up to the LA the Easy Way and making History Fun, and then go where the spirit leads (don’t make Him drag you kicking and screaming).  You can organize as you go, get the kids involved, it is after all “their” school.

God bless,
Valerie Neal