So excited to hear from Rebekah Hawk this week! Stop by the contributors page to learn more about her.
I love back to school time. I love getting back into a routine, and I love teaching, so it means that my little cup is going to get filled every day doing what I love with the people I love the most. I love buying school supplies, setting up reading schedules, planning out the school year, going to the library to stock up on books for the unit we are beginning, and I love the feeling of organization when all the papers are in their folders ready to go.
Friend, that is not how it went down when we started our homeschool year last week. Somehow, we had major activities scheduled for every single day, my ten-month-old woke up in a rage because getting more teeth is an excruciating experience, and though I had intentions of having an organized system in place for all the papers, it did not happen.
Three days in, and I had to apologize to my students (ahem-my children) all three days for being impatient with their slow obedience and application to their work. Three days in, and I am so tired I’m falling asleep sitting up.
But in the quiet of the morning, when I creep out to spend a stolen moment with my Bible and the Lord, I know everything is going to be okay. More than okay—we are having an amazing school year, and will continue to do so as long as I remember that the only purpose I have in teaching is to help my children to know and love God. That’s it!
Reminding my English-obsessed brain that the purpose of math, science, history, geography, and reading is to point my children to their awesome Creator frees something in me. When I see them create art, have discussions, play and sing music, physically move, and write to communicate what they have been learning about God, I find myself letting go of the performance-based tests and quizzes I tend to use as the measuring stick of whether I am a good teacher or not.
The truth is, if my children were straight A students, but did not know the God of the Bible, I would have utterly failed as an educator. In Deuteronomy, parents are commanded to teach their children what God has taught them about Himself. So, not only am I to teach my children the content of the Bible, but I am to share what I have learned personally about God. I need to share testimonies of what God has done for me with them.
What good will it do my children if they gain all the knowledge the world has to offer, but don’t know Christ? Friend, whether you educate your children at home or send them to school, you can rest if you put the focus of education on knowing God. We can filter every resource, extra-curricular, every field trip, every lesson in math and language through this lens—Will this help our children know God better?
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