Thanks for Listening for the Last 10 Years

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In April 2013, our son John encouraged me to begin a blog, saying that he thought I had something to say to homeschooling mamas. When I sat down to write my first post for April 29, 2013, I had no idea how God would use this tool to encourage me. It is a blessing I never expected. Tomorrow marks ten years of those blessings. I look forward to God continuing to use you to nourish my heart through our daily visits.

I love to hear from you. I love to meet you. And simply knowing that you read and listen, even if we have never connected directly except through these posts, has been a blessing. Thank you.

This photo of Ray and me was taken in April 2013
in front of the hotel in Burr Oak, Iowa,
where the Ingalls family lived and worked
when Laura was 9 and 10 years old.

Here we are ten years later sitting on our side porch in April 2023.

Ten years ago, I wrote about how I feel about you homeschooling mamas. My opinion hasn’t changed. My feelings have only deepened. First, read these excerpts from my post on April 29, 2013. Then, I invite you to continue reading as we look forward to the future.

I love homeschooling mothers. You are my heroines. I know you don’t feel like a heroine every day, maybe not most days, maybe not ever, but you are. You could be spending your life in many different ways, but you have embraced your role as mother. You are devoting your days, weeks, months, and years to nurturing the precious human beings God has entrusted to you. . . . I am so proud of you.

Your children need you so much and you are responding just as you should. When Paul spoke in 1 Thessalonians 2:7 about the way he, Silvanus, and Timothy had served the Thessalonians, he said that they had been:

gentle, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.

That’s you–a mother who tenderly cares for her own children. In Proverbs Solomon told his son to hear his father’s instruction and not to forsake his mother’s teaching. He said that those instructions and teachings were graceful wreaths around his head and ornaments about his neck. I hope you will be kind to yourself and notice those graceful wreaths and ornaments that you are creating for your children. DIY wreaths and ornaments on Pinterest can be made in a few hours. Remember that the wreaths and ornaments you are making take a long time–but they last a lifetime.

Now I encourage you to look in the mirror and be grateful for the heroine God has made you

Today is the last weekday in April. By this time of year, many homeschooling mamas are weary. Maybe you are asking questions such as, “Can we finish x, y, or z? Have we done enough? What should we do next fall?”

Perhaps these verses from “The Rock That Is Higher Than I” by Erastus Johnson describe how you feel today.

O sometimes the shadows are deep,
And rough seems the path to the goal,
And sorrows, sometimes how they sweep
Like tempests down over the soul!

O sometimes how long seems the day,
And sometimes how weary my feet;
But toiling in life’s dusty way,
The Rock’s blessed shadow, how sweet!

Of course, you get weary from the sheer workload of what you do every day, but other weariness is harder than that physical kind. It is the weariness of uncertainty and fear.

I encourage you to sweep the world’s expectations out the door and lock the door behind them, so that inside your home, your children can grow up to become who God made them to be, and not something the world has said that they should become. The details of what God wants them to be vary from child to child, but the core of what God wants is the same for every child. He wants them to be His.

The best thing you can do for your children next fall is something you can continue (or begin) today. You can make them disciples. You can lead them to the Rock that is higher than you.

Hear my cry, O God;
Give heed to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
Psalm 61:1-2

 

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