Church did NOT re-charge me yesterday. In fact when I left I was in a funk and stayed that way all day. We have been studying Mark....
""31 Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."
33 "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked.
34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.""
I get what the passage is saying, it refers to our spiritual family how His earthly family just didn't get how important his work was. That although they had good intensions, they were actually hindering Jesus work. Earlier in the passage Jesus had gone to a house and a crowd gathers...
""20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind.""
But all I could think while Pastor Jeff was talking, was what was His mother supposed to do? She hears that her Son (her baby) is not taking care of Himself, He is taking care of the needs of the crowds to the exception of Himself, He's not even getting time to eat! So she rounds up her other sons, and goes to give Him a good talking to! She's His mom! What else should she do? I understand the message (about our spiritual family) I do, but God gives mothers a job! Mary was doing her job. Our children don't stop being our children when they become adults (at least that is what my mom says!) Mothers never stop worrying about their children. I know that Jesus is the Son of God, but Mary was his MOTHER, she carried Him in her womb, felt him move,gave birth to him. She did all the things I do with my kids, changed His diapers, fixed His hurts, took care of Him when he was ill, taught him things he needed to know, and when she hears that her BABY (no matter that he is about 30 now) isn't eating and taking care of himself, she takes action. DON'T MESS WITH MAMA.
I had a hard time relating to His "rejection" of his earthly family.
Also Pastor Jeff was talking about how His family didn't get how important what He was doing yet. And about how sometimes it's hard to walk God's path, how we have to figure out is we are trying to go our own way or God's way. And how sometimes even our family is working against us (no matter how well intensioned). THAT is something I have been struggling with when it comes to our decision on weather or not to homeschool. Is it just me wanting to shield and protect my kids, or is it God's plan?
So ALL DAY yesterday I was in a FUNK. Really, I took a walk yesterday (in the rain!).
Finally at the end of the day, Dh and I sat up in bed and talked the whole thing out, Jesus' rejection and the kids. We hashed out the reasons to homeschool Thing 1 (reasons that won't go away in 2 months, such as his inability to focus on a task when here are alot of other things going on), and hashed out the reasons to send him to kindergarten (learning to work in a group, playing with kids his own age).
We talked about the possibilities of putting him in daytime art classes, possibly karate, and my ability to focus in on lessons just for him 2 day a week (while Thing 2 is in pre-school, which she will still go to)and joint classes the other days, and we made a final decision together.
Our little man will be better off at home with me as his teacher than in a group where he will have trouble concentrating and be worrying about being put in time out (something that I was able to get out of him as a fear of kindergarten).
So it's definite. We are a homeschooling family.
5 comments:
Sorry church didnt' do it for ya. I am glad that you and DH came to a consensus and agreement. That means it was the RIGHT choice for your family. And your kid. Good luck!
Aw Heather . Jesus wasn't rejecting His earthly family. He stuck with His mom to the end, even making provisions for her to be cared for by his beloved John. It just she had (again) shown she didn't understand the work he was sent to do. The first time Mary did this was at the wedding feast of Cana whene she insisted he perform his first miracle despite his saying his time had not come. Yesterday's study was perfect for you. You are exactly in the same situation he was in. You believe you are doing what God calls you to do but your family doesn't understand. Just because you don't follow your extended family's opinion doesn't mean you reject them, does it? Well either did Jesus. His brother James was so humbled by being Jesus's brother that he called himself a servant when he wrote the book of James. That sounds like a brother who finally figured out Jesus was right on with rejecting his family's insistence he stop preaching. Lift them eyes up to the mountain!
Not true - Luce , my family is ALL behind me. It's my own insecuirties that were at issue. My feeling with the sermon was that Pastor focused on the spritual family, which is fine and I get it (I really do) but lacked something on Mary's part. It lacked the side of understanding for Mary and her love and wanting the best for her Son.
It's so neat, though, that what you heard at church prompted a discussion that helped you make a definite decision. In that sense I think you may not have gotten what you wanted at church - but you got exactly what you needed. And that's pretty cool. :-)
Mothers never stop worrying, but I can tell you from experience that the hardest part of parenting is the part where you TRUST your past decisions and give them room to fly.
We get so bogged down in worrying after our children, that we even judge ourselves according to THEIR actions. We tend to forget that the Lord also gave them their agency, and to attempt to exercise dominion over them when it is no longer justified, is not a Christ-like action.
While the passage is talking in a literal sense about physical supplication, I am struck by the spiritual parallel in my own life.
Like I said before, the hardest part is trusting you've done your job teaching them right from wrong. Unless you are exceptionally lucky, your child, as a young adult or teenager, will make what you see as pretty big mistakes. They may not be big mistakes in the eyes of the world, but they will hurt you like you never imagined.
The most important spiritual progress I feel I have made in the last four years is finally listening to my husband and knowing he's right when he tells me, "It doesn't matter. We've done our job, they already know how you feel about it, just support what you can and don't worry about the rest of it." It sounded like CRAZY talk to me, but I've come to see how important it is to position yourself as the "soft place to land". You can't do that if you follow them around harping on them about their choices or trying to fix what you determine to be their problems.
So for me, the passage is comforting in that; even Mary felt like her child was making a mistake! Then, Christ teaches us to trust our children and by extension, ourselves in the job we've done as parents.
Off my soap box! :O)
Congrats on the homeschool thing! I started HS B with the idea that boys usually aren't *really* ready for K at 5, so, I'd do HS K, and if I messed it up, no big deal, I'd put him in at 6. He's going into 2 this year and we couldn't be more pleased with our decision. I hope you have as wonderful an experience as we've had. HS will be another area where you learn to "let go". The number one thing that amazed me about teaching my kids, was how if they weren't *getting* something, we'd leave it alone for a while, a week, a month, whatever, and when we came back to it, they got it with incredible ease. It is truely an amazing process.
And I think I'm going to steal my comment back from you to get my next post! LOL
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