God Knows What He Is Doing
In 2000 I drove to the local Mailboxes Etc. with 672 pages we had printed on our little office printer. Taped to the pages were black and white line drawings . . .
. . . we had cut out of reproducible books of illustrations from Dover Books.
I stood at the copy machines at Mailboxes Etc. making photocopies of those pages on three-hole punch paper. At home our family put the pages into huge white binders and slipped in a cover. The first copies of a Notgrass history curriculum were born.
On page 383 was the story of General Motors bringing the Saturn plant to Tennessee.
As Ray and I drove on a city street in Nashville, Tennessee, last week, we followed a Saturn car. The Saturn plant coming to Tennessee was still a big deal in 2000. I don’t know how the engine of the car in front of us was running, but the body was in great shape—not bad for a car that has been on the road since at least 2010 when General Motors scrapped the brand.
As Ray and I followed along, we remembered writing about the Saturn plant back in 2000. It was of special interest to us since GM built the plant in Maury County where Ray grew up. I thought about how that Saturn car fit into the history of Notgrass History and marveled at what God has been doing in our lives.
In 1999 our family began a homeschool business with the purpose of selling Bible curriculum and a variety of resources we thought would be helpful to homeschooling families. We were in our booth at a homeschool convention in Nashville when a homeschooling mama stopped by. She mentioned wishing that someone would write a Tennessee history. That afternoon I naively said, “We could do that.” A year later, we were literally making Exploring Tennessee with our own hands. One history curriculum after another followed. All have the basic format of that first curriculum, though the way they are printed changed a lot over the years.
As we followed that Saturn car, I thought about what God had done with that one mama’s wish. I am confident that God used that wish to launch what Ray and I and our family are doing today.
When Ray and I look back, we see how God was leading us in the years before we heard that mama’s wish. Ray grew up with a mother from England and a daddy who encouraged him to read great literature and a grandfather who collected historic artifacts. I grew up with a mama who taught me that can’t never can do anything and a daddy who took us to visit historic places and God’s wonders. Ray studied history in college. I studied political science. We met in the political science department at school. The list of ways God was leading us goes on.
We had no idea what God was doing at that convention in 1999, but He did. He knows what He is doing all the time.
As you homeschool your children, you can walk confidently, trusting He knows everything and that it is okay if you don’t.
The mind of man plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.
Proverbs 16:9