The Danger of Presuming Weakness of our Children

 

In January of 2011, Harvard grad and Yale law professor Amy Chua published her now-famous book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  She was promptly eviscerated in the press for her “harsh” treatment of Western parenting.  Having read the book, I don’t think Mrs. Chua was asking anyone to embrace the Asian model, which seems to lack grace.  But we do well to consider Mrs. Chua’s reproach of our soft Western model.  The author makes a poignant observation that Western  parents “presume weakness of their children.”  That intrigues me.  I hope that these few points, stemming from that simple observation, will be thought-provoking to parents and sharpen us all in our efforts. 

 

1.  Presuming weakness means training our children in the art of “victim-hood.”   The purpose of understanding our quirks and idiosyncrasies ought to be to enable us to overcome, not avoid, hardship.  I once corrected a student at church for behaving wildly, and she responded, “That’s because I forgot to take my medicine.”  Instead of enabling her be a stronger person, her knowledge of all her ailments (and she was well-versed) only enabled her to supply an excuse whenever she behaved poorly.  It was always the medication’s fault, or her lack of sleep, or the busy schedule, or the way a teacher at school was treating her.  This casting off of responsibility tends to follow people into adulthood.  While it is beneficial to understand how our minds and bodies work and how we can help one another, maybe it isn’t serving our children so well to remind them of their “list” of disorders.     

 

2.  Presuming weakness trains our children in a lie.  By intervening too quickly when life throws curveballs to our kids, we communicate to them, “You can’t do this without me.”  Many times our children really could reach higher and surprise us, but being handled with “kid gloves” leaves its mark on a child’s mindset. 

 

 Do you join your child’s side too quickly when they complain of being “mistreated,” or do you encourage them to face their offenders with courage and charity?  The motto for young children is, “Never do for a child what he can do for himself.”  Maybe a good motto for parents of older children would be, “Never do for an older child what you once did for yourself.”   Wading through the inconveniences, hardships, and waiting-periods of life is more than just a “cross we all must bear.”  It’s a strength-building process.  Don’t rob your kids of their life lessons—no matter how old they are. 

 

3.  Presuming weakness sets expectations for adult life that are unrealistic.  Kids who grow up being defended grow up expecting to be pitied.  It’s always the boss’s fault—or the unfair policeman, or the “system.”  Victims crave assistance; leaders crave autonomy.  “The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.”  (Prov. 26:13)  Sluggards think they have uniquely hard lives and impossible challenges; leaders accept their lot in life and work through the trials patiently.  We ought to listen to our children:  Do they think they have a harder life than most people?   Are they presuming that they are weaker than the challenges that lie before them, or do they accept the inequities of life and convey an “I can do all things through Christ!” attitude?  (Philippians 4:13)

 

4.  Presuming weakness is our temptation toward the baby of the family.   Let me be transparent:  It’s a bit uncomfortable for me to review the way I parented my older children vs. the way I find myself parenting the “baby” these days.  When Jonathan and Jessica were four, they were the oldest of four children.  I had a toddler and a newborn, and there simply wasn’t time to spoil the twins.  Although they were not perfect, they learned how to dress themselves, put on their own shoes, and sit with a book and wait for me to get the babies ready.  They ran errands around the house, answered the phone, cleaned up their own messes, kept an eye on the baby while I got ready, and were expected to behave in church.  Thirteen years later, it’s easy for me to forget that Josh should be doing those things as well.  Instead, I’ve changed a few of my own rules and bent in favor of Josh’s weaknesses.  It’s just easier to ask one of the older kids to “help him pick up his train set” or to get his shoes and jacket on.  I suspect that he really believes these are hard jobs that can only be accomplished by teenagers!  And why shouldn’t he believe that way?  Now we have the unpleasant task of “un-brainwashing” him.  It would have been easier if I had presumed strength of him (and of myself!) early on instead of taking the easier road. 

 

So thanks to Mrs. Chua for pointing out an unpleasant truth that we would not likely have admitted without her help.  Now to fix the problem! 

Say That Again?

OK, homeschoolers—Listen up!  Not to me, but to your kids.  Are your kids (and mine) settling in to poor speech patterns because we just do not hear them?  Many times we parents are the last to hear mispronunciation or sloppy grammar because we get used to hearing it every day.  Here are a few difficulties that I have observed, in our own family as well as from a few others I have heard.   

 

                   

1.  Have you seen a Valentin lately?  We SPECIALIZE in malocclusion (that’s “buck teeth”, for you lay people).  Six kids with overcrowding and overbites?  We are an orthodontist’s dream and a speech therapist’s nightmare!   

 

At first I was puzzled why all my kids suddenly began mumbling in the fourth grade.  Early home videos showed perfect diction, and then suddenly, I had no idea what my kids were saying.  Besides the fact that they all talk faster than an auctioneer, we had another issue:  They were using their teeth to substitute for their upper lips for certain consonants (b, p, and m).  Say “Mike Mulligan misses Maryanne,” but use your front teeth instead of your upper lip.  Ah-ha.  If your kids are candidates for orthodontic work, maybe you are hearing this bad habit too.  Kids with buck teeth have a harder time reaching around their teeth, and without even meaning to, they use their lips.  (They also start chewing with their mouths open.  Yuck.  Braces are a blessing—and not just to the patient!) 

 

2.  Phonics is our friend.  More and more children are being taught sight-reading, which is basically just memorizing certain spelling words without having to sound them out.  One of my first clues that a child is being taught “sight reading” is the introduction of very advanced words in kindergarten.  For example, if your kindergartener is spelling “kingdom,” I can almost guarantee they are getting sight-reading and spelling.  The actual phonics rules that indicate how to sound out “kingdom” are beyond kindergarten level.  That’s second semester first grade, or even second grade.  Your child just memorized the word, which is certainly handy if your child is a fantastic memorizer. 

 

But remember:  The English language has over one million words, with new words being coined every day, thanks to the influence of technology and immigration.  Wouldn’t it just be easier to learn the simple rules, rather than memorize one million words?  Usually by third grade, the chickens some home to roost.  Kids who were quoting “kingdom” in kindergarten are struggling with “being” and “through”, substituting other words in their places. And here’s where speech comes in:  People who think phonetically will pronounce phonetically.  Have you ever heard someone talk about calling for an “am-blance,” instead of an “am-bu-lance”?  If you’ve read the word phonetically, you will never be tempted to remove that “u.”  The same is true with “breftest” for “breakfast,” “samwich” for “sandwich,” and “birfday” for “birthday.” 

 

Additionally, our internal dialogue is reinforced by good reading.  Kids who are digesting a steady diet of casual, easy reading will never expand their mental dictionary.  What our kids read eventually comes out of their mouths (another good reason to screen the books our kids read!).  When our older kids went through their Bobbsey Twins stage (not necessarily classical literature, but wholesome books anyway), we suddenly started hearing archaic  terms like “keen” and “swell” come out of their mouths!  Their books were 1959 editions, discarded from a public library, and their language was reflecting their reading.  When our daughter read Winston Churchill’s The Gathering Storm for an eighth grade book report last year, I noticed a marked difference in her writing skills.  Good writers stretch us. 

 

3.  “I’d like to buy a vowel!”   . . . or a consonant.  Or a blend.  We need to listen for the missing letters.  One of our kids struggled for a while with the “th” blend, and I’ve noticed this common mistake in other kids also.  Beware of “dat” instead of “that,” “duh” instead of “the”, and we already noted “birfday” instead of “birthday.”  Remind your kids to stick their tongues out a little.  J  Sloppy tongues remind me of dull pencils.  They produce mushy, smudgy sounds rather than distinct letters. 

 

4.  Childhood is so cute, with all of its little mispronunciations.  Who hasn’t chuckled over “pasghetti” or “smashed potatoes”?  Because Josh still says “w” instead of “l,” we have “yewow wegos” instead of “yellow legos.”  When it was cold last spring, he shuddered and said, “It’s weewy cheewy outside. “  It was “really chilly,” but we all had a good laugh.  If Josh were eight, though, we would not be laughing so hard.  We need to be careful of allowing childish cuteness to find its way into big kids’ mouths.  If our children do not have an actual speech impediment, we might need to do a little nagging. Homeschool moms, I’m afraid we might be some of the worst culprits here because we have gotten so used to hearing our kids talk like this that we no longer hear it.  Traditional teachers catch these errors because they have higher expectations.  Maybe we need to raise the bar a little as well.  If a Sunday school teacher or relative constantly has to have an interpretation, we may need to zone in on some areas that need work. 

 

5.  “ARRRRRRRRR!”  Tony the Tiger thinks Frosted Flakes are “GRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!”, but that’s harder than it sounds sometimes.  There are people who honestly cannot say “r”, due to the shape of their pharynx.  If your child is one of them, a speech therapist has much more to offer you than what my little blog can do, and this is not meant to burden you with undue guilt or embarrassment.  But if your child is just sliding into speech patterns that he brought into adolescence from infancy, this may be an area to work on. 

 

6.  Slow. Down.  Maybe our kids are talking too fast, or maybe we aren’t really listening.  Either way, we all could use some air brakes.  As I already confessed, my kids all talk like I do:  Faster than a speeding bullet, but it doesn’t always come out sounding like “Superman.”  Listening to our kids read aloud at family devotions or in school time reveals some of the bad habits they might be developing, and reading out loud to our children reveals pronunciations to them.  More than once, we have come across a word and heard one of our kids exclaim, “Oh—THAT’S how you say it!  I always thought it was a different way!” 

 

The ability to develop complex language is the gift that God gave to man and withheld from the animal kingdom.  Parrots have given it their best shot, but original language is unique to the only creature God gave a soul—because He had a message for that creature.  Salvation is offered to us, and God teaches us about that magnificent gift through His Word.  It matters how our kids talk—not just so they can pass a spelling test or recite a poem.  God has entrusted us to share this message of salvation with our own generation.    

 

“How shall they hear, without a preacher?”  (Romans 10:14)

Five Fears Our Kids Need to Overcome in Childhood

Did you ever take swim lessons?  This year marks the 34^th anniversary of my swim lessons—and if you had taken them with me, you would be celebrating that passage of time as well.  It was the summer of 1979, and apparently global warming had not yet been invented.  That rainy August, the average high was around 68 degrees in Ohio.   The Red Cross offered to give free swim lessons to children at our local outdoor swimming pool, early in the morning before the pool heaters were turned on for the paying customers.  I remember hiding underneath my covers as my mom came to wake me up for swimming lessons.  Jumping into freezing water at 8:00 in the morning (or was it 7:30?  My memory gets more severe with each passing year) was the last thing I wanted to do.  But Mom insisted, despite my tears and vigorous protests. So off we went.

 

I can still mentally recreate the clammy feeling of wet cement under my bare feet as we stood in line outside the pool, glumly watching the deceptively pretty water and thinking of the shock we would be experiencing very shortly.  It wasn’t hard to imagine how death row inmates felt, as they swallowed their final meal.  The diving boards frozen in mid-air; the sadly silent concession stand; the pool furniture empty of mothers and babies—it all looked so punishing and ominous.  Our instructor was a tiny, formidable lady who seemed oblivious to the temperatures.  I now applaud her willingness to volunteer for that torture, but at the time, she seemed more Nazi than Red Cross volunteer to us as we shivered under the awning.  She would bravely jump into the pool and then beckon with more intimidation than cheer, “Hop in!  Heads under!  Today we are going to learn the crawl stroke!”  I was used to stepping into water gingerly, getting used to it one toe at a time.  This business of jumping into a frigid, unheated pool first thing in the morning was terrifying--but not as terrifying as my little drill instructor.  And so I jumped.  It was one of the most important things I ever did—not just because I learned to love swimming, but mostly because I learned how to make myself do something I absolutely did not want to do.    

 

Courage is about overcoming yourself.  Not all courageous people have overcome their foes—Joan of Arc went to the stake.  Childhood is a boot-camp obstacle course, rigged with challenges to teach our children how to overcome their number one hindrance:  Self.   Teaching our kids to overcome these fears before age twelve is certainly not the only way to get the job done, but it is by far the easiest.   People have learned how to swim as adults, but by then they had usually developed deep fears.  Parents have the privilege of controlling the environment when their children are very young. After age twelve, the whole process is complicated by self-consciousness and peer pressure. 

 

Dealing with these five fears before the teen years is a great goal for every parent to have: 

 

1.  Fear of new foods.  Self-control often begins at the dinner table.  While it’s not necessary to deliberately make our food taste terrible (some of us wouldn’t have to try very hard), it is good for children to discover different textures and tastes.  Left to their own choices, most small children naturally gravitate toward simple sugars—crackers, bread, juice, and fruity snacks.  I will differ with those who say it is not a battle worth fighting.  This is not about nutrition.  This is about making your body do something it doesn’t want to do.  Tasting cooked asparagus or brussel sprouts, without drama, is a good skill to learn.  With due consideration to allergies,  food sensitivities, and rare swallowing disorders, the vast majority of kids need to learn to eat unusual foods without turning up their noses. We have attended camp and youth activities with young people who were literally afraid to go away from home because they might not like the food!  They were handicapped by this irrational fear. 

 

2.  Fear of water.  Not all kids are natural-born “fish,” and we have had to teach our kids how to dunk their heads under water and learn to swim.  Between the ages of 6 – 10, this becomes a real priority.   We do not have an in-ground swimming pool, and we are not comfortable taking our kids to swimming areas where people are dressed provocatively.  As you can imagine, it has taken some effort and creativity over the years to find places to teach our kids how to swim. Yet, helping our children to overcome their fear of water is a necessity.  God created the human body to float, and with just a little skill and information, we are designed to be able to save our own lives in the event of a tipped canoe,  a ripped life jacket, or an unexpected flood. 

 

3.  Fear of public performance.  While most of us will always get quite nervous to speak publically (even pastors admit to being nervous each time they stand behind a pulpit), there is a difference between nervousness and panic.  One of the nicest things you can do for your kids is to get them in front of people when they are still very young, before they have time to develop a real phobia about it.  Join that kids’ choir at church!  Let them join a team, where they are playing a sport in front of other people.  Let them sing or say a Bible verse at the nursing home.  Sign them up for 4-H, where they have to give public presentations and talk with judges.  And while you are at it, teach them that failure is a part of life—a reason to get back up, not a reason to retreat. 

 

4.  Fear of new things and new people.  Do your kids ever get to try new things?  Do they ever have to make a friend without your presence to strengthen them?  Risking rejection or failure helps children to overcome the inertia that paralyzes us from reaching out to others. When our daughter Jessica was ten years old, we signed her up for Little League softball.  She wasn’t really interested in softball at the time, and as a homeschooler, she was very nervous about meeting a whole new group of girls.  She now says that was a turning point for her life in teaching her how to talk to new people and try something she had never done before. She was relieved to discover that making friends was easier than her fears had told her it would be.   

 

5.  Fear of hard work.  When we have game time at the end of our kids’ class at church, I make everyone participate.  I have observed that whether we are working with teenagers or small children, there always seems to be a cluster of young people who want to sit and watch.  Sometimes, even adults are afraid of hard work.  They fear the responsibility of arriving on time and facing the demands of a supervisor.  Kids who fear hard work tend to resist challenges and never really discover what they are capable of.  God gave them talents, but they don’t even know what those talents are.  Talents alone, without hours of hard work, are invisible.  Without exception, the most productive people I know are individuals who worked hard physically as children.   I suspect that hard work early in life does more for the mind than it even does for the body. 

 

Fear is not of God.  It is a part of our fleshly nature that must be brought into captivity if we will glorify God effectively.  May our lives reflect our Savior, Who offers us the spirit “of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”  (II Timothy 1:7)

The Rock

Marriage is a mountain climb. 

 

We start off at the bottom of this impressive, majestic mountain, back-packs fully-equipped with “everything we need.”  Friends and family wave us on, and we embark on our new adventure.  We’re young; we’re healthy; we’re strong.  Whatever this mountain holds, we are ready.  Everyone has told us as much. 

 

But after a while, the climbing takes its toll.  We discover there may have been a few items we neglected to put into our back-packs—either out of ignorance, or haste, or a little of both.  Our traveling partner gets grumpy on occasion, tired from the climb, homesick for those we left at the bottom of the mountain, and hurting from sore feet and back.  We don’t look quite as glamorous now as we did at the bottom of the mountain when we were wearing our finest climbing gear and posing for pictures with our friends and family.  Now, the hair is pulled back into a choppy pony-tail, and we both smell like sweat.  We are panting so hard we barely have the energy or the oxygen left to talk or enjoy the scenery together.  And just when we feel too tired to climb another step, our climbing partner complains of being weary and asks us to shoulder part of his burden!  The mountain looks so much more rugged and harsh up close than it did in the magazines and travel books we studied before we embarked.  Up close, this is nothing to brag about.  Jagged rocks, jutting out just far enough apart to make us stretch until our muscles ache;  impossibly steep cliffs that seem designed to send us reeling backwards; and the summit still so very far away.  What were we thinking? 

 

For the first half of the climb, we console ourselves that things will change.  The scenery, the grade of the mountain, the aching muscles—things will get better.  We’ll adjust, and we’ll finally find a pretty ridge somewhere to catch our breath and take a break. 

 

But things don’t change, except to get harder.  A subtle transformation threatens to overtake us on this trek:  We slowly are tempted to view our climbing partner as the force to be overcome, rather than the forces of the mountain.  "If it weren’t for his demands or his negligence . . ." "If not for her forgetfulness or her fragile emotions . . ."  If only our climbing partner didn’t come with so many liabilities, this trip wouldn’t be costing us so much time, energy, and enjoyment.  We would be so much farther up the mountain by now. 

 

 Along the way, we meet other travelers—some of them coming back down the mountain, telling us it is too hard of a climb to attempt, that the risks only increase the higher up you go.  Other travelers come along behind us who seem to have it so easy.  They jaunt merrily past us, and we secretly wonder if their trip is simplified because their climbing partner is more prepared for this trip, or if their climbing gear makes them more efficient and comfortable.   

 

And then the storms come—unexpected, scary, and demoralizing.  We search for an overhanging Rock to hide in, and in our search, the storm seems to take away everything but our very lives.  Our back-packs and our clothes are drenched, and some of our most valuable supplies were lost in the effort to find a place to hide.  The bravado of our send-off at the bottom of the mountain seems so far away, so long ago.  Shivering under that Rock, we evaluate our ambition and reckon with the frightening prospect ahead:  Will we continue to forge ahead, or do we just count our losses and turn back? 

 

But we press on. 

 

Not because the journey is easy, or always fun, or because there is anyone to cheer us on now. Mountain climbing can be lonely.  There are no stadiums for mountaineers.  We press on because this is a sacred mountain, designed to be climbed only up, never down.  We press on because our climbing partner needs us.  We press on because we promised God we would, and we never break a vow.

 

Ultimately, we press on because it’s the Rock Who keeps us going.  Our supplies are of no real use now, and our strength is small.  And that’s when we discover the real joy of this mountain:  The Rock is enough.  It wasn’t our own strength, or our supplies, or the send-off that made this mountain attainable.  It was that Rock. 

 

 

“From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee,

when my heart is overwhelmed: 

lead me to the Rock that is higher than I. 

For thou hast been a shelter for me . . .” 

(Psalm 61:2,3)

Five Things to Remember When Money Is Tight

Quite a few years ago, a lady called our church asking for food for her family.  She explained that because they had hardly any food left in her house, her children were going hungry.  With the permission of our deacon and my husband, I hurried to the store to buy her $70.00 worth of food, and I even copied out recipe cards to accompany the groceries.  Imagine my surprise later that day when this lady met me in her kitchen and said, “I’m glad you caught us at home!  We just got back from Walmart because we needed to buy early birthday presents for both of our children!”  While I had been out spending church tithes on rice and chicken so her family could eat for another day, they had been out spending their cash on toys and games! 

I wish I could say that this lady is rare.  Unfortunately, many people are ignorant of how to handle money or how to appreciate the money others give them.  As a result of conversations like the one I had with this lady, many churches—including ours-- have had to develop careful policies about financial assistance.  Here are just a few thoughts to help those who may find themselves confused about how to handle their money. 

 

1.  Pinch the pennies.

Imagine standing on the top of a mountain.  As you look at the bottom, there is a heap of trash:   McDonald’s sandwich wrappers, tickets from rides at the county fair, pizza boxes, hotel receipts, chips bags—and sadly, maybe even cigarette butts, tobacco canisters, and beer cans.  For too many people, that trash heap represents where their money went last year.  Christmas came, and they worried that they would not be able to buy presents for their children.  They struggled to pay another electric bill in January, and their children don’t stand a chance of getting braces.  Amazingly, the money had actually come in—but they didn’t recognize it because it was copper, not green.   Remember:  Pennies are money too.  Just because your money is showing up in the form of nickels and dimes instead of crispy “Ben Franklins” doesn’t mean you have no money.  Are the reading glasses your child needs “dressed up” as last year’s Six Flags tickets in disguise?  

 

“ . . .Take heed, and beware of covetousness:  for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”  (Luke 12:15)

 

2.  Avoid discretionary spending if others are footing your bills. 

Like the lady who let us pay for chicken while she paid for video games, many people are comfortable asking their family, the church,  or the government to pay for their necessities (food, medical, utilities, and gas) while they finance their hobbies, birthdays, and junk food.  Are you purchasing luxury items that others are not able to afford because they are paying for your necessities—either through their taxes, their tithes, their kindness, or even because you owe them money through unpaid bills?   If you find, after receiving benefits from others, that you have money leftover—don’t buy the Wii or the electric piano or the bike.  Instead, pay off all debts and then pray about how much you can reduce your dependence on others.  You may be surprised that you might even have enough money to pay for your own groceries after all.    

 

“But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”  (Philippians 4:19)

 

3.  Give anyway. 

If the widow with two mites (Mark 12:42) had enough to give, you and I have enough to give.  The Bible says that God asks for a tithe (10%)--regardless of our income level.  To neglect to tithe is to rob God (Malachi 3:8).  Giving back to God increases our faith because it brings us face to face with the reality that our money was never “ours” in the first place.  God blesses a cheerful giver in ways that we cannot guess—sometimes with cold cash, and sometimes with good health and a car that still runs.    

 

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”  (Acts 20:35)

 

4.  Expand your skills.

Tight budgets make great teachers.  Hair cutting, cooking “from scratch”, mending, gardening, home maintenance, car repair—What we would miss if we had a million dollars!   If “knowledge is power,” then tight budgets are “power boosters.”  Learn how to “DIY”:  do-it-yourself.  And as long as libraries have free internet—what’s not to know?  I remember when I discovered how to puree our meals into baby food and then freeze them in ice cube trays for later.  Voila! We just put a few of those oddly-colored cubes into the microwave and served up three-course meals to our babies whenever they were hungry.   

 

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” (James 1:5)    

 

5.  Chop, chop, chop!

Cable TV, a second car, dining out as a family, almost all beef, crackers, chips, cookies, lunch meat, juice (of any kind), cereal, candy, pre-packaged dinners, frozen pizza--These are just a few of the things that we simply do not buy on a regular basis.  Little by little over the years, we learned that we did not need them.  What can you shave away and still be happy?  While coupons and credit card rewards tend to get the most publicity when it comes to cutting a weekly grocery bill, the single most effective way to trim a budget is to permanently eliminate unnecessary items.   Make it a challenge to skip the “inner sections” of your grocery store—where bright boxes and pretty packaging make up a large percentage of the grocery bill.  Our grandparents grew up on ketchup sandwiches to survive the depression, but we are a generation that longs for “creature comforts.”  We really can do without and not feel deprived—with a little adjustment, of course! 

 

“And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”  (I Timothy 6:8)

 

*********************************************************

 

Jesus said it best:

 

“Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,

neither do they reap, nor gather into barns;

yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. 

Are ye not much better than they?”  (Matt. 6:26)

                           

 

 

 

Four Job Hazards of Homeschooling

Oh, to be a lineman!  Those guys got paid $1000.00 a day to drive up to Detroit this winter and repair electric lines over the Christmas holiday—and double on the holiday itself!  To be able to stand up there in a bucket-truck, repairing electric lines in the sub-freezing temps while the wind whistles and the tree branches groan overhead, while ice crystals form on your hard-hat and gloves and mustache.  Or maybe not . . .

 
Every job has its rewards and hazards.   Linemen deserve every penny (or hundred dollar bill) they earn living away from family over special holidays so that our Christmas tree lights and furnaces can run.  But their paychecks tell only half the story.  Being a lineman comes with enormous job hazards.  I spent three summers working with the grounds crew for our local electric department, and the bulletin board had a black-and-white photo of the electric department crew of 1968.  The photo had never been taken down because that small group included a man who died shortly afterward from electrocution while working on a line.   The hazards of linework had cost him his life. 

 

Homeschooling is an incredibly rewarding experience.  But this job has its hazards too.   I share these thoughts as a homeschool mom—one who has, at times, noticed these same hazards creeping into our own homeschool.  I’ve lost sleep over Algebra and Spanish, but the real enemies of good homeschooling are not about academics at all, but about attitudes.

 

Here are four biggies to watch out for—put on your hard hat.  It’s a tough job out there! 

 

1.  Pride.       “Pride goeth before destruction . . “  Proverbs 16:18

 

If we are not judicious with our encouragement, our children run the risk of thinking “more highly of themselves than they ought to think” (Romans 12:3). 

 

Here are some symptoms of pride:

             *Resentment when corrected—especially by someone outside the immediate family, such as a Sunday school teacher, coach, or grandparent

             *Critical spirit--viewing the world with an "us vs. them" mentality instead of charity

             *Difficulty accepting blame or responsibility

             *Comparison to others—particularly those who don’t homeschool or go to church

             *Inability to socialize, even on a surface level, with other children

 

Yes--children.  Many homeschoolers pride themselves that their children can talk well with adults—which is certainly commendable and refreshing.  But let’s be honest:  Adults are almost always easier to converse with than children.  They don’t usually interrupt.  They listen more than they talk.  They don’t argue about petty details, or try to “one-up” the other speaker.  They are quick to praise and agree, as much as possible, in order to encourage their young friend.  They don’t lie or tell wildly exaggerated stories to puff themselves up.   In a word:  Children demand more humility and unselfishness of each other than adults do.  When given the choice, proud children will seek out adult conversation and ignore the opportunity to be a leader among children their own age.  They tend to view other children as a threat, not potential friends who have real needs. 

 

2.  Selfishness.                "Look not every man on his own things . . ."  Philippians 2:4

 

Sandpaper is an important little tool for a carpenter.  My computer lap desk is hand-crafted, and I would hate to think of carrying it around or setting it on my lap if it had not been sanded before it was stained! 

 

By nature, homeschool tends to be a very comfortable environment.  Homeschoolers don’t have to get up early to wait in the cold for a bus in January.  They don’t have to walk to school in the rain, or wait in line to use a restroom, or feel “starved” by 5^th hour lunch.  They don’t have to deal with broken locker locks, or lost homework, or missing mittens at recess.   “Sandpaper” situations are what make children strong, and many homeschoolers have never been sanded.   This is not good . . .

We ought to deliberately create “hard” situations for our children, in order to challenge and stretch them.  Lack of flexibility is a red-flag, warning us that our children have been allowed to get a little too comfortable.  We mothers need to be careful that we don’t allow our “mothering mission” to overtake our greater “teaching mission.”  It’s not a crime for our sons to experience a little cold while feeding animals outside on a snowy morning.  It is a crime to raise a wimp.  J 

 

3.  Laziness.      “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”  Lamentations 3:27

 

Some tell-tale signs of this hazard—

 *Inability to observe specific parameters (assignment dates and requirements; being on time to events)

*Sloppy work

*Repeated warnings to no avail

*Lack of engagement in the learning process

*Elongated homework times

*Working below grade level, despite being average intelligence

*Constantly asking for help instead of thinking through the directions independently

*Constant silliness

*Babyish words and mispronunciations that are not age-appropriate

*Sleeping in regularly

*Avoiding attainable challenges because it's too much trouble

 

But since Mother knows how to read hieroglyphics, and she wants us to pass spelling even more than we do—why bother to write legibly, or put a name at the top of the page, or turn it in on time? This hazard comes because homeschooling is generally a mother-centered environment.  The Bible commands wives to submit to their husbands (Eph. 5), but that may be the most disobeyed Biblical command among homeschoolers!  Most homeschooling mothers view the homeschool as their own little kingdom, and any suggestions by the father are treated as “too harsh” or “too unrealistic."  Remember what your grandma once said:

                             “Mothers make boys.  Fathers make men.”  J  Listen to Dad. 

 

4.  Fear.            “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear  . . .“  II Timothy 1:7

 

Our overall goal must reach beyond the immediate mission of keeping our children out of the world.   Our higher purpose is to send them right back into the world someday—not as participants in sin, but to make a difference for Christ!  When our kids seek jobs someday as police officers,  pastors, nurses, teachers, accountants, and yes—even homeschool mothers, they will be grateful we prepared them for that moment and did not simply try to spend 18 years hiding from it.      

 

May I share with you one of my greatest burdens for today’s homeschoolers?  Among many homeschooled teenagers that I have seen, there is a strong sense of fear:  Fear of leaving home, fear of the world we live in, fear of failure.   In our zeal to shield our children from sin, how is the preparation process for their futures going?  Are our children open to the thought of going far away to a mission field—or does the thought of leaving our home town scare them too much?  Do our children have any goals beyond high school graduation?  Are our children excited about seeking God’s will for their lives, or are they content rather to wait for us to tell them what they will be doing next?  Are our children willing to share their faith in Christ with others—even strangers—or do they hide behind shyness and reluctance?  Are they academically prepared to seek higher education, or are they intimidated by the thought of being critiqued by a teacher other than their own parents?  Are our teenagers beginning to see the gifts God has entrusted them with, and are they eager to use those gifts for His glory? 

 

The rewards of homeschooling far outweigh these few hazards.  But wear your hard-hat anyway.  Let’s have a “No Casualties” policy!  Our kids are counting on us. 

Did Jesus Really Die on Good Friday? And Why Does It Matter?

Do television commercials really work?  Why do companies spend millions of dollars a year for their 30-second spots---silly jingles and skits that we often mock or try to avoid?  You can be sure that I have never deliberately referenced a commercial while I was shopping, or been deceived enough to say, “I will buy THIS soup, because the lady on TV once said that it was better for me!”  Yet, advertisers know that their job is not to appeal to us on a conscious, decision-making level, but rather simply to create trust and believability.  The commercial is not a mandate for me;  it’s a brainwashing of me.  If the commercial leaves me with the “feeling”, vague and undiscerned, that McDonald’s is “fun” or “clever” or “cool,” then the writers have accomplished their mission.  The issue is credibility, not intelligence. 

 

And Satan knows that, too.  His war on the Bible is generally not waged on the conscious, decision-making level either.  While at times he has employed the use of obvious assault, he is also famously subtle (Gen. 3:1).  Like a commercial writer who knows better than to think I will race out to buy a McRib today just because someone told me to, he is not trying to have a logical, academic discussion with me.  Satan just wants me to doubt God.  We can read our Bibles and go to church, but if Satan can leave us with a vague and undiscerned “feeling” of doubt--that somehow the dots are not being logically connected-- then his mission is accomplished.  He’s good at his game:  He’s been playing it for 6000 years, ever since he first questioned Eve, “Yea, hath God said?”

 

 The credibility of God depends on Scripture.  After all, what do we have of God without the Bible?  Have we seen Him?  People have tried to find God outside the Bible, through mystic experiences and phenomena, but we can argue that those “events” only point to a power.  They don’t identify a source.  If God’s Word is found faulty, the apostle Paul reminds Christians that we are “of all men most miserable.” (I Cor. 15:19) We have staked our eternity on this Book.  It must be right, or misery is indeed ours. 

 

When Jesus was on this earth, He spoke freely of His coming death and resurrection.  He referred to His body as a “Temple.”  He constantly warned his disciples that this “Temple” would be torn down, but that in three days He would “raise it up again.” (Jn. 2:19) Yet, despite all those warnings, John admits that he and his fellow disciples “knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.”  (Jn. 20:9)  When the disciples went home on that dark afternoon, leaving the battered body of Jesus in a borrowed grave, they were not waiting for a resurrection. 

 

The credibility and deity of Christ depended then—and still depends today—on the resurrection:  Not just the reality that it took place at all, but also that it took place exactly as Jesus said it would.  And here is where tradition becomes a tool of Satan to dismantle the credibility of Christ. 

For centuries, every denomination (including the Baptists—and I speak as a Baptist), has celebrated Good Friday as the day Jesus was crucified, and Easter Sunday as the day He rose from the dead. 

 

Several Scriptures help to frame the context for this discussion: 

 

Colossians 2:8, “Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” 

 

John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures.” 

 

II Timothy 2:15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God.” 

It is our responsibility to question tradition, and to search the Scripture.  Everything we believe and practice must be found in Scripture, or it is merely “tradition of men.”     

 

What does the Bible say about the crucifixion of Christ? 

 

1.  Jesus promised, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”  (Matt. 12:40) 

 

The trouble with our tradition comes with the “three nights.”  Good Friday allows for three partial days, but three nights (even partial nights) would place Jesus’ resurrection on a Monday morning!  Yet, we know that the ladies went to the tomb as soon as dawn broke, “on the first day of the week” (Mark 16:2) to anoint Jesus’ body with spices  (Jn. 20:1), only to discover an angel at the entrance of an empty tomb.  

 

2.  What about the “Sabbath”? 

 

The tradition of Good Friday is the result of misunderstanding the Sabbath.  While most people understand that the Jews celebrated a weekly Sabbath on which rest and holy observance was mandated (Exodus 20:8), John explains what kind of Sabbath the Jews were really preparing to observe as Jesus died on the cross: 

 

“The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.”  (Jn. 19:31) 

                            
John points out that “that Sabbath” was specifically a High (Holy) Day.  This was not the weekly Sabbath, and it was not on a Saturday.   To confuse these two “Sabbaths” is to change the whole story.  The Jews were not allowed to work on either Sabbath, and the story of the crucifixion ironically finds these religious liars orchestrating the execution of an innocent Man and then scurrying to take Him off the cross in time to keep their “Sabbath”. 

The week of the crucifixion there were two Sabbaths.  The observance of the High Sabbath—not a Saturday rest, but the annual celebration of the Passover (when the death angel had “passed over” the believing Hebrew homes)—began at sundown, three hours after Jesus declared, “It is finished!” and died.   Once Jesus was taken to His grave, the Jews hurried home to begin recognizing the annual Passover Sabbath at sundown.  The following day, no one could go anoint Jesus’ body (due to Sabbath restrictions).  The next day, Saturday, they again could not anoint Him because it was now the weekly Sabbath. Did you ever wonder why the ladies did not try to anoint Jesus’ body until He had been in the tomb for three days?  They had to observe two separate Sabbath rests before they could “work”.   The break of dawn, on Sunday morning, was the earliest time they were permitted to arrive at the tomb with their spices. 

 

Equally compelling, though, is what exactly this High Sabbath signifies.  The story of the slavery and exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt culminates with the death of the Passover Lamb.  (See Exodus 12.)  God provided a way for the Hebrews to be spared the final plague (the death of the firstborn child), for anyone who would paint the doorpost of his house with the blood of an innocent lamb—following these specific qualifications for the lamb:   “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year:   . . . And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it . . . And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are:  and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.”   

 

That night, when the “great cry” rang throughout Egypt as each household made the grim discovery of the death of the firstborn child, the believing Hebrews were spared.  Someone else had died—that spotless lamb, whose blood was still shining in brutal reminder from their door posts, had died in their places that they might live. 

 

Why does it matter?  While it’s unproductive to debate just for the cause of arguing, there is good reason to study this issue out.  Simply:  Because Jesus doesn’t lie.  Either He was in the tomb for three nights, or He wasn’t. Either we can take the Bible literally and seriously, or we can’t.  Opponents of Scripture aren’t afraid to scrutinize the Bible and test its words against themselves, and we ought not to be afraid either.  When people want to attack the credibility of Scripture, what story do they often question?  How many times have we heard people say, “I can believe the ‘God is love’ parts, but I have trouble with stories like ‘Jonah and the whale.’”   Jonah and the great fish, besides being a true and important story in the Old Testament, has an even greater purpose:  It’s where we get the math for the resurrection!  Satan craftily chips away at these “small” details in order to leave us vulnerable to  the greater error of doubt.    

 

And secondly, what does the High Sabbath mean to me?  Two thousand years later, I can look back on that day and see that the High Sabbath was when Someone died for me. While hypocritical priests and cruel Roman soldiers committed the greatest crime in history, God deliberately allowed His Son to be spit on, mocked, scourged, and then savagely hanged on a Roman cross . . . for my crimes.  I should have had to pay for my own sin.  Like all those Egyptian firstborn, I should have died in my own sin, paid my own debt, and suffered in hell forever. 

But there was a Lamb. 

 

When I called on Christ to be my Savior, His blood was painted over the door posts of my own heart.  He covered me in His own blood.  I cannot produce my own righteousness and save myself; only the blood of that perfect Lamb could wash my sin away.  Just as the Hebrews were not instructed to do good works, or perform religious rituals, or demonstrate piety in order to preserve themselves, I also had only one option:  to be covered under the blood of the Lamb. 

 

While it would be proud and foolish to judge others who celebrate Good Friday, or to create a silly debate that detracts from a larger cause, I hope to encourage us all not to allow religious tradition to rob us of the reality of the resurrection, or to cast doubt upon the literal truth of Scripture. 

 

Jesus told it exactly as it came to pass:  He was buried for three days and three nights, and then He rose again, just as He said He would. 

 

“Let God be true, but every man a liar.”  (Romans 3:4)