Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool

Most of you are familiar with the famous story of Job from the Bible. He was the wealthiest man of the East in his time. He also had seven sons and three daughters. And although he feared God and stayed away from evil, there was something else he feared.

Job 1:5 …Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts.” Job did so continually.

Job was afraid his children would sin and die and so he acted as mediator between God and his children and made offerings to God on their behalf, wanting to justify them before God. He was trying to save his kids.

Are you homeschooling out of fear? Are you trying to save your kids? Whether you are wanting to save their souls or save them from the school system, fear should never be the motivator, and saving your kids is not your job.

We feel the heavy weight of homeschooling because we take on a burden that isn’t ours. Your child’s future is not in your hands. You don’t know the plan. Someone else does, though.

Don’t carry the weight of a burden that you were never intended to carry. You aren’t the primary teacher, provider, protector, comforter, rescuer, and savior to your kids. Those are words that describe God. You are not God. Taking on a role that’s way too big for you will crush you. Even if you are a “Pintrest perfect” mom and seem to be crushing it today, you will never have the ability to see into the future to know what your children need today to be prepared for tomorrow.

There is Someone who can work it all out for the best, who can meet every need, and who gives you a specific job to do: love your children. Enjoy them. Enjoy being with your kids.

Fear is not the motivation to homeschool; love is. Do it out of love.

Job loses all of his children. He loses all his possessions. He gains an understanding that God is awesome, bigger than we can imagine, in control, all-knowing, all-powerful, only good and always loving. Job learns that he isn’t God.

I will not encourage you to self-empowerment; I will encourage you to truth. The truth declarations I remind myself of are that I know nothing, can do nothing, and have nothing. Jesus is my all in all. In Christ I have everything, can do everything, and in trusting Jesus, I know that I don’t need to know everything; I just need to know Him.

If you are carrying a burden too big for you, give it over to God. Just pray. Tell Him you are giving it to Him to carry. Thank Him for taking it and for doing a better job than you could. If you don’t know God, tell Him you want to get to know Him. Who wouldn’t want to know an always good, always loving God? And to start getting to know God or to get to know Him better, I would suggest to you the Bible study on our site, “This Is Eternal Life.”

Maybe you’ve heard it said, “God is never in a hurry.” I was thinking this morning that applies more broadly than it may seem at first.

Jesus stops on the way to heal someone’s dying daughter. She ends up dying before He gets there. He still goes, unhurried. He raises her from the dead. But you know when else Jesus didn’t make haste? Before He overturns tables and drives the merchants out of the temple courts, he makes a whip.

You can get the idea that Jesus sees the temple marketplace and in His zeal for His Father’s house starts scattering coins. But He doesn’t fly off in a rage. He stops. He stops and makes a whip first.

How often are you reactionary?

Do you ever make homeschooling decisions as a reaction? Things don’t go well one day and you jump ship and try something else without considering maybe there’s a miracle up ahead if you stay the course.

Do you ever make a decision in a moment of zeal without first looking over what’s needed?

I can remind myself even in the kitchen, “Don’t make haste,” if I start hurrying about. It will get done. Things get done if you just keep moving, no need for the hurry.

There’s the busy kind of haste, where everything seems to be hurry up and go. I determine not to be busy. I keep well ahead of things so it doesn’t come down to, “I HAVE TO do this now.” If something’s on the calendar, it’s because we chose to have it there, not because we HAVE TO do something. There are choices. We can choose to not be rushed about. We can choose to not make haste.

I live a slow life. I learned it several years back. I asked the Lord to teach me to live in His strength. The result of that prayer was a slow life. I don’t make haste. I stay the course. I wait on the Lord and trust Him. I’m not here and there and back again. I do what’s in front of me to do right now without feeling the weight of all that’s still left to do.

And I stop and pause and pray because I don’t want to make decisions as a reaction and I don’t want words to come out as a reaction.

I don’t want to make haste. I want to make peace in my life and in my home.

I started cooking on Tuesday for our Thursday feast. I’m hosting in Pennsylvania and will have guests from North Carolina and Georgia. As I’m standing at the stove, I’m working on giving thanks for the chance to serve and show love and praying for all the others standing at the stove stirring pots. So, maybe I prayed for you 🙂

I do pray for my EP family regularly. That’s all of you and your kids and your families. Whenever I’m bagging up our groceries at the store, I pray especially for any EP families struggling with the budget. I pray all sorts of things for you all. I pray for your kids for the schooling. I pray for relationships in the home. I pray for things like the fruit of the Spirit to grow in orchards in your homes 🙂 I pray for prodigals to return. I pray for the Lord to raise up laborers from our EP kids.

I am thankful you are part of our EP family. That is how I refer to you all, my EP family. I hope you are full of thanks. The sun rose each day this year. You are alive and reading this. Always find the place of thanks giving in each day.

 

Below is Psalm 145 written out as a prayer.

We exalt you, our God and King. We praise your name forever and ever. We praise you every day; we will praise you forever.

Great are you Lord! You are most worthy of praise! No one can measure Your greatness.

May we tell of your mighty acts and proclaim your power.

May we meditate on your majestic, glorious splendor and your wonderful miracles and awe-inspiring deeds.

May we proclaim your greatness and share the story of your wonderful goodness. May we sing with joy about your righteousness.

Lord you are merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are good to everyone. You shower compassion on all your creation.

May all of your works thank you, Lord, and your faithful followers praise you.

May we speak of the glory of your kingdom and be examples of your power.

May we share the good news of your mighty deeds and the majesty and glory of your reign.

For your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and you will rule throughout all generations.

Lord, you always keep your promises. You are gracious in all you do.

Lord, you help those who have fallen and those bent under a heavy load.

May we always look to you in hope. You will always supply what we need. You open your hand to us and satisfy our hunger and thirst.

Lord, you are righteous in all you do; you are filled with kindness.

You are close to all you call on you in truth and you grant the desires of those who fear you. You hear our cries and rescue us. You protect us who love you.

We will praise the Lord. May everyone on earth bless your holy name forever and ever.

I never got around to writing a life update in January of this year. Well, here we go. We’ve had a different kind of year. My husband and I will have been away from each other around 80 days this year. That’s extremely unusual. We’re together a lot, like all the time. The majority of that time apart was helping his dad after surgery. Being a few hours away and in the same time zone is very different than when he was on the other side of the world doing ministry, though. While he was in Maryland and I was in Pennsylvania, we had five phone dates daily and he could come home each weekend, and so we made the best of it. Our parents are in their eighties and needing more help these days.

My husband, Dave, affectionately known as Mr. G by our Easy Peasy family, has a gift of encouragement. While he is gifted in languages which he uses in Bible translation, and he is a teacher, which he uses for EP and also in creating teaching materials in the Bible translation language, one other way in which the Lord really uses him is in a ministry of encouragement. Mr. G has relationships with pastors and Christian leaders all over the world. He meets with them online, prays with them, and occasionally visits them. On his recent trip to India, they kept Mr. G busy. They had him speak in gatherings up to three times a day, baptized dozens of people, and prayed for who knows how many people individually. At first I was frustrated that they had him doing those things that Dave and I would both say are best done by the locals, but then I realized how encouraging it was to the whole church instead of just the two leaders he went to see. Some people walked long distances to meet Mr. G, hear him preach, have him pray for them. He was the first foreigner to visit some of these churches. It means a lot to them that someone knows they exist and cares about them and is praying for them.

My daughter has started her Master’s degree. She’s in fine art, a painter. The program is full scholarship. She also won a $50,000+ stipend from the school over the two-year program. It’s to cover living expenses, but the Lord provided a $200-a-month apartment with free food! So, she is saving up all she can. She’s already looking into PhD programs. She’s a great student. She loves all that reading!

My oldest son moved to Florida a year ago. He goes to the beach daily and has taken up roller blading. He loves the lifestyle. He has his own online company and is doing well. He’s found a church he really likes and some people he really likes. One of the Lord’s provisions for him was that he met someone from his Discord group for his business who lived in Florida. They got together when my son moved down there and it turns out this guy had lived in Turkey and Macedonia too, just like my son. What are the odds of finding someone his age with that shared life experience? They became fast friends.

My youngest is in fifth grade. There aren’t any little kids around the house any more. Dave and I enjoy daily dates when he’s home, though that includes grocery shopping and errands!

I have added new courses on the site, including math, though Bible courses have been a focus of late. I am continually writing devotionals for the Good Morning, Lord! series. I have been putting out short books of Christian teaching as well. I have recent books on the word of faith doctrine, sin, and faith. My latest, which is still in editing, is called Becoming Nothing That Christ May Be All. I added more miracle videos to the site as we experienced more miracles! I’ve done interviews. The most recent was with a student researcher doing a project on social entrepreneurship. I also recently talked with a volunteer looking to use EP in a ministry to help adults get their high school diploma. EP’s gone around the world. Now it looks like we’re going into prison!

EP is a gift to all of us. It’s a testament to the goodness of God.

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