For Reasons Unknown (to me)

No - I am not referring to the song by the band The Killers.  😮  (Not that I know this song.  I just looked it up because I thought I recognized this phrase.  In fact, I have not listened to it and I cannot recommend it in any way.  LOL)

I am currently reading Walking From East to West - God in the Shadows, the autobiography of the late great Ravi Zacharias.  I am only a few chapters in, but it is apparent that Ravi looked back on his life and was able to identify specific people and events that God worked through in order to guide his life even as Ravi himself was not walking with God.  

As a Christian, I believe God is always working in my life and in the lives of those around me even though we have all been given a free will to choose our thoughts and actions.  It is an extremely complicated concept to think that God knows every single relationship and event in the world in minute detail.  He is outside of time itself and knows ALL things.  It is so easy to be blinded by the temporal physical world  - and have trouble seeing around or through it.  That is where the eternal and spiritual perspective lies.  There was a time in my life when a mentor kept reminding me to keep an "eternal perspective", and I am so thankful for the advice.  It is hard to remember, though, since my physical senses can only see, hear, feel, touch. and taste what is in the physical world.  

I say all of that to say this:  There is no way I could have foreseen the future in 2005.  That is the year we started homeschooling our oldest child.  What ideas would she and her brother have been exposed to if they had not been homeschooled?   Besides the proactive approach we took in teaching them why they should believe what they believe, we also taught them to be good skeptics.  A "good" skeptic gathers information and weighs the argument.  This includes knowing a good argument versus a fallacious one.  I have only recently been made aware of ideas being taught and promoted in our country's school system; ideas like Critical Race Theory, trans gender identity "options", and the 1619 Project, to name a few.  

It is a scary thought to think that my children could be extremely different if they believed these ideas were true - and good.  In fact, they could have ended up believing there was no such thing as absolute truth or that their Christian faith was an oppressive Western idea that is not really "loving" or "tolerant".   (Linguistic theft is a very effective way of making people question everything they thought they knew.  Listen here for a great explanation : Mama Bear Apologetics podcast #54)  

There is so much more I could go into about these ideas, but the more I learn about them the more and more thankful I am that we homeschooled - and still do. (I highly recommend Mama Bear Apologetics by Hillary Morgan Ferrer to learn more.)  It reminds me that God is in the shadows and he is watching over us.  We trusted Him when we felt the urge to homeschool, but had little to no knowledge on how to do so.  Remembering to trust Him every step of the way has not always been easy.  There is pressure and there are insecurities that rear their ugly heads all the time - just when you think, "I've got this."  Ultimately, He has been taking care of us this whole time, and I obviously believe He will continue to do so.  

An eternal perspective doesn't mean that we can see what God sees, it means we can trust that what He sees for us is the best for us.  

Blessings, 

Heidi

PS.  I also recommend Natasha Crain's books on teaching your children to know why they believe what they believe about their Christian faith - because, as apologist Frank Turek always says, "Kids are talked out of it [Christianity] because they have never been talked into it."  (One more book plug - I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Frank Turek)

To Love your Country or Not to Love your Country, that is the Question

Lately, I think I am more thankful than ever that in 2004 we took the bold, yet trepid step to start homeschooling our oldest daughter as she entered the year of Kindergarten.  The world has seemed to have gone nuts in the past few years, culminating in a culture that doesn't acknowledge Truth and rewrites history, among other scary ideas.  I shudder to think how my 21 and 19 year old kids would be at this point in time if they had been taught the ideas that are being permeated through our schools and universities.  

Would they respect their parents, or would they hate their parents, thinking we are bigots and transphobic because we are Bible-believing Christians?

Would they believe that America was founded on Christian-Judeo principles, or would they believe that we evolved from sludge and we need to overthrow the Constitution and the country it is based on?

Would they believe Marxist ideas like "atheistic collective guilt of oppressor groups" instead of an individual relationship with a God who loves you and forgives you if you believe His Son died and rose again to conquer all sin?  

Would they believe in free market capitalism or would they believe that socialism and communism are awesome ideas because they were not taught any history that refutes these ideas over and over again.?  

Would they believe America was founded in 1776 with a noble idea that had been growing and developing for centuries, or would they believe in the highly-refuted and inaccurate 1619 Project?  

Would they know they were wonderfully created by God to be exactly who they are, or would they be bobbing in a sea of uncertainty about who they are and what their purpose is?  

When we began this journey, I had absolutely no idea what was brewing in America's education system.  god's divine hand must have been guiding us.  And I am ever so thankful.

Until Next Time,

Blessings, 

Heidi

We Were Homeschooling When Homeschooling Wasn't Cool

I have been meaning to write again lately.  So - The Year 2020.  The Year of Covid-19 Lockdowns as well as protests and riots.  People think homeschoolers weren't affected by the closure of schools and events, but we actually participate in quite a bit of activities outside the home, so it has been a bummer to see our outgoing little girl stuck at home with her parents all the time.  She usually has at least a couple activities a week and time with friends.  Summer is when we really go crazy and sign up for drama camp, swimming lessons, VBS, etc.....

It has been interesting to be reminded that there is a HUGE difference between "doing school" at home and helping your child to love learning.  (The latter is actually less work, by the way.)  Most children are naturally curious and very smart.  They tend to remember everything they want to remember.  Every once in a while I will find a book about educating your own child and it will re-invigorate me in my mission.  The most recent one, which I am not finished with yet, is Unschooled by Kerry McDonald.  I heard her debate a Harvard professor online (via the CATO Institute) because this professor wrote a paper on how there should be more controls on homeschooling.  It is an interesting debate and it led me to pick up her book.  It makes me think that I should start referring to our education choice as "Unschooling" instead of "Homeschooling". :-)

Until Next time,

Blessings, 

Heidi