Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Treasuring a Word in My Heart...

      I'm really enjoying my new Bible study app "She Reads Truth". Right now I'm doing their "Women of the New Testament" study. This morning I read about Jesus's mother who I love to think about what she must have felt and thought with everything she went through. Today's reading contained what's always been one of my favorite phrases in the Bible "Mary treasured all these things in her heart". I just love that phrase as it makes Mary seem like a mom just like me. Of course, knowing me I usually grab my camera as my version of "treasuring in my heart". 

Things like snuggling with a new kitten:
A rare dinner date with my two wild and crazy guys:
Seeing my oldest patiently read with one of my youngers (believe me, as much as they fight I was definitely treasuring THIS moment up in my heart!):
But sometimes, I will pause in a moment and tell myself that I need to soak a great moment in and commit to never forget. I understand Mary and her need to treasure moments.
But today, my Bible study pointed out that she treasured these things, these promises of God, so she could pull them out when she wasn't so confident:

When she was being reviled for her pregnancy.
When she was giving birth in a stable.
When she had to flee to a foreign land amid the cries of other mothers whose babies were being slaughtered.
While she searched for THREE days for her 12 year old.
While she watched Him be rejected in their own home town.

And finally, as she stood at the foot of the cross upon which hung her baby boy. If ever a woman needed a treasure it had to be in that moment. So she pulled out those promises as an assurance to her that even this was part of God's plan and would work out as it should in the end.

When I have talks with my stressing self, a lot, I have to tell myself the saying "don't doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light". Mary is a shining example of that because there hasn't been a darker time than the cross when God turned His face away from Jesus- and even more so if that was your child hanging there. I'm not saying that Mary didn't doubt or didn't fear then, but the fact that she didn't curl in the dust and die herself, as I might have done if it were one of my boys, shows me that she was holding tight to her "treasure"!

I've had some "foot of the cross moments" this summer at the hospice bedside of my precious mother-in-law. Those faith-trying moments when you see someone you love suffer so much that you believe in God's promises of life after death and beg Him to come get her. Yeah, I was squeezing onto some treasure for dear life in those moments. Perhaps, a little like Mary, His promises were the only thing keeping me from completely curling into a ball and giving into complete despare.

I love thinking about scripture, the thoughts and feelings of these heroes of the faith. But I also am asking myself what this means for my life. Right now my days and hours are revolving around homeschool planning. So, today my thoughts went immediately to how treasuring relates to that. I know without a doubt that God called our family to homeschooling because I certainly would never have dreamed up something so crazy- heehee (here's my post about the first confirmation he gave me). 
But then there are those days. The ones where the enemy tells me I'm screwing up my children's entire lives because I'm not doing enough. Yeah, I hate those days. So, I've always repeated my dark and light saying to talk myself off that cliff. But now I'm going to be more like Mary. I'm going to stop and pull out the promises God made to me and hold them up to my current struggle to show myself (and silence the voice of the enemy) that even though things may seem hard right now that God's got this and it will work out in the end. 
What could be a greater treasure?

Reasons I Love CC #16......Essentials Chart Copying- EXTREME Version....

An important part of Classical Conversation's Essentials program (and classical education in general) is copying to learn. Our Essentials notebook has these great charts which break down all the Essentials (hence the name) of grammar. They are encouraged to copy at least one chart a day.

Our awesome Essentials tutor came up with a great idea to challenge the class to set a goal of how many charts they could copy. Their class of 12 was up to 450 in less than a month! It was so impressive!

She also had a mom chart copying contest. It was so hard for me to find time to copy charts, but it was well worth it. I have learned so much in Essentials class and I'm an English major! Once I started copying charts myself I really learned what an effective way to learn that was. I have to confess I may have had doubts about if simple copying was an effective method to learn.

Why do I keep doubting? 

I truly learned everything at a deeper level by chart copying! I'm determined to incorporate copying into other areas of things we need to learn which right now is Latin declensions!!!
The best part of the contest was it motivated my daughter to copy charts
We had some intense competitors in her class who copied more than I ever could've imagined possible (they have to have carpal tunnel!) which discouraged my daughter who struggles with writing.
Enter the "Extreme Chart Copying" part of the competition! They had to copy charts in weird places and text the pictures to their tutor. The kids L.O.V.E.D. it. Our Essential's tutor (being the genius that she is) awarded that prize to kids who weren't able to copy massive amounts for different reasons so everyone ended up being recognized and celebrated.

We had fun thinking of places to copy charts, and it helped me feel less guilty about running errands during school hours :)
to the phone store:
to Walmart:
watching Dr. Who, cough, cough....
We both couldn't wait to go find some extreme places at my grandmother's farm.
Like the roof:
where she was a little nervous :)
and then, of course, my dad had to lock her out and she became a LOT nervous!
The roof might have won her the contest, but the outhouse sealed the deal!
Yes, my dad has an outhouse, but luckily for her it's more for a conversation piece than use!
She was doing all of this with my dad who was loving it as much as she did (I get my "grab the camera" instinct from him!).
It was nice to not have to nag her about chart copying and to see her get so into it! Of course, with the moms competing too she nagged me quite a bit, but it was so cool to do it together. I still stand amazed that I learned so much from copying, and feel old that my hand hurt so much after copying just one chart!