My First Post - Part II

A continuation of My First Post.

The Father & Son Retreat greatly affected my husband in a wonderful way. At the retreat my husband was charged to be the spiritual leader of his home and his understanding of this God given responsibility of training his children was renewed. Gathered together with other fathers and sons he observed their relationships and his heart was kindled towards our son. He began to understand that his role in our son's life was critical to his growth in becoming a man. A new vision was imparted to him and he was excited about it. Another blessing of the retreat was that my husband became friends with the director of the retreat and his friendship was a great help to us in the future.

My husband's excitement, upon returning home and sharing what God had spoken to his heart, was contagious. We both felt affirmed in the road we were now walking. As a result, my husband began to gather our family each evening to read the bible, pray and sing together. We also began concentrating our efforts on character training, discipline, family unity, and gaining our children's hearts.

Our first year of home school ended with a new knowledge that home schooling was not just an educational choice, but a life style. A life style of disciplining and walking alongside our children while teaching them God's ways.

To make a long story short, we continued our homeschooling journey for several years, gaining insights from websites, books and blogs. Two years ago we were blessed to make some wonderful friends at a family integrated church that my husband's friend (director of the father and son retreat who I mentioned earlier in My First Post) recommended to us. We began to make frequent trips to visit our new friends at this church and attended many get-togethers. What a blessing our new friends were to us! For the first time, I began to connect with other home schooling moms. It was a joyous learning experience for my husband and I to observe the interactions between parents and children. My children were happy to meet friends belonging to families with the same vision. I thank the Lord many times over for leading us to these beautiful families who encouraged us with their love and personal examples. We remain friends even after moving thousands of miles away.

Now to bring us to the present, several months ago we moved. After a job loss, the Lord provided my husband with a job opportunity across the country. We are now situated in a family integrated church with a loving spiritual family that the Lord has blessed us with.

During our first years of change, I had no experienced home schooling mothers to ask questions to or learn from. The writers of my favorite blogs and websites (see sidebar) became very valuable to me as they were a constant source of inspiration, encouragement, conviction and motivation through their writings and photos. It is true that words are powerful and as they say, "a photo is worth a thousand words." It is with this knowledge and personal reality that I have started my own blog; first of all to have a permanent record of my family life and thoughts for my own children to refer to, and secondly, in hopes of being a blessing and encouragement to others.

My family and I are still at the beginning of our journey. We have SO MUCH to learn and we must daily cry out to God for wisdom and run to his Word for direction. We've made mistakes and have insisted in following our own ways too many times. This so being, I thank God for his active grace in my life, for the moment by moment work of sanctification in a heart that is tainted by sin. His strength is made perfect in our weakness and His Word lights our path in the course of turning our hearts toward Him.