Not Just For Today, But For Eternity

What do you do when you get woken up at 3 am and then can't fall back asleep until 5 am, right when your alarm is supposed to go off?  You turn off the alarm and sleep in, that's what you do and trust me, I did it.  Thank goodness for homeschooling....an extremely wonderful side benefit if it's a bad night.

This week my husband and I have two amazing opportunities to talk to two different groups of folks about homeschooling.  Tonight we'll be speaking to our homeschool support group about having a vision for your family and homeschooling.  My husband will be trying to encourage the people who come out to not just think about homeschooling with a "let's just get through the week" type of attitude, but "let's think about the end goal - keeping our children's hearts for today and for eternity". Normally we have only a handful of guys that come out, the rest are women, but this week we sent out an email appealing to the men to be there, too.

Our family will be what we call the "feature family" where we will discuss how we vision as a couple for our family.  It is not just a one-time deal once a year.  We constantly are visioning, almost nightly, but we do set aside a more intentional time as well for this.  Once again, I can thank my parents for modeling that for us.  They would take what they called "Planning Weekends".  They would get us cared for by friends and then go away somewhere.  Even then I knew it wasn't just about planning for us.  I knew they probably needed a getaway and just wanted to be together alone, but still, it always stuck with me and I sure hoped I could do that when I got married.  Now I do!  We go away every anniversary for at least one night.  We certainly enjoy going away, eating out, being at a hotel somewhere, but we do talk...and talk and talk....we are always thinking of our future and the kids future.

We also vision for our family when we go away to the annual homeschool conference in the Spring. That's another two day event that we get mostly to ourselves (now our 3 older children will join us). It is another fantastic time to think, "Why do we pick that curriculum?  Will it benefit my child in any way or would a different one be more suited to him or her?"  We'll ask each other tons of questions that really get us thinking about each child specifically, their needs, and truly, how will that curriculum help them to be a better wife or father?  It's true!  We're thinking that far into the future. We always go with the normative thinking in that we assume, most likely, they will get married, so we have to plan for that.  The boys will definitely need to be able to provide for their families, so it most likely we will avoid subjects that will not waste their time.  For the girls, we always plan on them being wives and helpmeets, so we pick subjects that will allow them to be able to learn those skills as well as assisting in their husbands' ventures.  We encourage all of our children to be entrepreneurial in their thinking.  We'd be thrilled if each one of them had their own business of some kind.

So we are definitely deliberate in our thinking and talking, not to mention the time away that is required. It is always a sacrifice of time and money for my husband as these weekends never seem to fall at a time when he isn't as busy.  But he knows if he doesn't take the time our children will suffer in some way in their future.  Plus, I have no peace.  I need these times away to talk about all my concerns.  I always have concerns!  I'll see something in a child I don't like or the past two years, it's been, "Help!  I have kids in highschool!  Now what???!!"  If we didn't take those times to debrief, I would be in a constant panic all the time.

On Friday, along with 2 other couples,  we'll be speaking to a completely different group of people. We've found in the circles we run in that there are a lot of questions from many about homeschooling? Why do you do it?  How do you start?  What about (the classic question....) socialization?  What about being salt and light?  Etc., etc.   A friend of mine was taken aside one Sunday by another friend and explained she really needed to talk to her about homeschooling once and for all.  Things were not going well with her daughter in the public system.  Her daughter, who was only 6, came home and told her, "You don't make the rules, the teacher does."  The mom was not happy.  My friend decided there were probably enough people with questions about homeschooling to organize a panel of homeschooling parents and their kids and have a Q & A type of night.  So, that's what we've been invited to be on.  The interesting thing about that night is there will be quite a few skeptics, mostly the husbands.  They are only going because their wives want to go.  That's where our husbands come in.  They'll hopefully be able to address all their concerns from a man's perspective.  Even our children will be there as a testimony to homeschooling and its benefits. They'll be on the panel, too, at one point offering their unique perspective.

So, a full week, but again, my kind of week!  I love being out there talking with people!  I love talking about homeschooling and its benefits.  I love being alongside my husband as he talks with other men convincingly about these types of things, too. I pray we'll be used this week to encourage parents to think... it is not just about today, it's for eternity.