Yippee!! America the Beautiful Is Here!

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I was on the phone with my dear friend and our wonderful proofreader, Dena, yesterday afternoon, when I noticed a truck beside our warehouse. I hurried to the loading dock and asked, “Is it America the Beautiful?” It was.

Our videographer, Titus, was pulling double duty in the warehouse at this super-busy time of the year, so I asked Ray to use my phone to record my response. Here it is and this is what I said:

The paper came. The cover materials came! The workers took the jobs! The workers came to work! And the truck delivered it this afternoon. You’ve heard of hot off the press—this is hot off the truck! Praise God! Thank you, everybody, who has waited so patiently. I hope you have a wonderful time taking your children on a tour through the history of America the Beautiful.

And then we did another video of my happy dance. We’re among friends, right? So, I’ll show that to you, too.

Watch video.

While working on the history of America from before 1492 to early 2021, I became convicted that 2020-2021 was one of the most important times in American history for me to write its history for children in their middle school years. I want those children to:

  • Know the truth about our past.
  • Learn from our triumphs and mistakes.
  • Make their future decisions about our country with knowledge of its past.
  • Be grateful for the Americans who have lived well in the past.
  • Look at everything through a Christian view of the world and America.
  • Be grateful for what God has created here and for the good things that people who are created in His image have done here.

During the curriculum writing process:

  • I felt joy.
  • I felt pain.
  • I felt exhilaration.
  • I felt despair.
  • I felt empathy.
  • I felt fear.
  • I felt wonder.
  • I felt gratitude.
  • I felt hope.
  • I felt confident that God is working.

At the end of the writing, proofing, and correcting and the difficult printing process, I was able to see the finished product in my hands. Your homeschooling job is different. On your journey, you too experience joy, pain, exhilaration, despair, empathy, fear, wonder, gratitude, hope, and confidence that God is working. However, even if one or more of your children has already graduated, you can’t yet hold the finished “product” all wrapped up in your hands because you aren’t working with only words and ideas and paper. You are blessed to work with real human beings made in God’s image.

Pray. Enjoy. Cherish. Be grateful. And remember that you are not alone in your work.

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed,
not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 
for it is God who is at work in you,
both to desire and to work for His good pleasure.
Philippians 2:12-13

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