Sunday, June 24, 2012

Keeping It Real



This one might rock the boat.

Until Africa, I was a homeschooling mom.  I loved it.  We were free to study anything and everything.  We were free to talk about gorillas over breakfast and then be so intrigued that we'd go online and watch them on a webcam only to get so excited that we would jump in a car and drive to the zoo to see them... all in the same day---even though gorillas weren't on the lesson plan.   We could study about the ocean and then go down to the beach and discover its wonders for ourselves.  The best part was that when My Man had a day off from work, we were all there to enjoy it with him and take whatever adventure he had for us: forest treks, bike rides, fishing.
Before you get the idea that we lived in wonderland, the reality is that most of our days were spent at a short little table in the school room, poring over books and worksheets.

Some of my friends got it.  Some of my friends didn't.  Some of my family thought it was great. Many of them thought we were a little weird. I've been all right with that.

I love a lot of die hard homeschoolers who think non-homeschoolers just aren't as godly (they don't say it..but they believe it).
I love a lot of "normal" parents who send their kids off to school and think homeschoolers are trying to shelter their kids from the world and are going to end up with wildly intelligent social morons.
My mantra to both was that I am not loyal to homeschooling, I am loyal to JESUS. I would put them in school in an instant if that's how GOD led us.  That's what I told everyone.

I believed that.  I thought I believed that.
I didn't.

When we got to Africa, we began to sense the LORD leading us to place our kids in the local French school.  It was confirmed when My Man declared that it would be so.
I was bothered.  I felt ungodly.  I wrestled and worried and struggled.  There was no way this could be what HE wanted. And yet, I knew that it was.
Over the months in their school GOD worked amazing things.  HE revealed HIMSELF and showed me that HE had positioned my girls there as intercessors.
It was not without opposition.  The enemy turned up the heat, too.  When I finally set my heart at rest in JESUS and the enemy's good religious arguments no longer worked, he tried other ways to discourage....and I began to doubt.

Then one morning Curly girl woke and told me she had just had a very good dream.
She was in her classroom and another student, a boy, approached her and asked her why she was so nice.  She said it was because she belongs to JESUS.  He wanted to know how to belong to JESUS.  She told him. Then she told me that he came to JESUS and then everyone in her class came to JESUS.  They all sat down around a table---it was a special table for making crafts to the LORD she told me.  And everyone was around the table making crafts for the LORD JESUS.  the boy was there and he had written many times all over his paper, "I love the LORD very much. I love the LORD very much" 

Something changed in me when she told me the dream.  I was renewed and clear in my mind.  Of course! This is why we're here. Since before their birth I have prayed that GOD would set my kids apart, that HE would anoint them to go and do and speak whatever HE commands, that HIS word would be in their mouth and would not depart, that all the nations would know that they belong to the LORD. For this and much more I pray for them. I don't care if they are rich or important or successful.  In some ways, I am not even concerned that their lives are necessarily happy.  Not that I want them to be unhappy, of course.  I just want them to know and enjoy JESUS.  I want HIM to have HIS way for them, whatever it means for their future. I want them to profit and prosper in HIS KINGdom even if it leaves them poor and nameless in this one.  I don't know all that GOD is accomplishing for HIS NAME with their lives in that school...but I know that HE is at work.


The seasons are about to change again.  School will soon let out and GOD has led my Man to bring our kids back to homeschool for next year.  
I can't wait!
I am grateful.
Grateful not just that I get to teach them and spend school days tromping the streets of Africa, studying bugs and kissing orphans.
I am grateful that HE made it true!  You know, that thing I used to say...that I am loyal to JESUS and not homeschooling. Now, it IS true!  HE made it true!
HE saw this thing in me that, although well-intentioned, was religious...not holy...and HE purified it.
Talk about school!! I just got schooled by the TEACHER!  Woohoo!


"for HE is rightly instructed, his GOD teaches HIM" Isaiah 28:26


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