Relationship = Resources

Businesses call it networking; churches call it fellowship; the Bible calls it “bearing one another’s burdens”; and home schoolers call it Co-op. As you probably do, I frequently get the question: “If you don’t know it, how can you teach it?” After the obvious answer (“I like to learn, too.”), my second answer is: Co-op.

When we first moved to this little west Texas town in the middle of nowhere, we were the only home schooling family for 40 miles. However, after the first year, and after people got over the initial shock, I started getting questions about what we did for school and how we did it. I found myself sitting down with several families and talking to them about home education, the laws in Texas and how they could get started. By year two, we were one of 3 families who home schooled.

Our little Co-op started in our house on Friday’s when I started doing “classes” in various subjects to which the other home schooling families were invited. My first and simple rule was: “A parent must accompany their children and learn, too.” Because they were all just starting out, I did most of the teaching, but as we went along I encouraged the other parents to share their knowledge and talents with our group as well. We went on several field trips together and did a little “program” at the local Baptist Church. By the next year, we had grown to 5 families.

Due to the relationships our group had built in the community, the local Methodist Church offered us its empty classrooms to use for our Co-op. Now we meet there every Monday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Each parent offers something to the group. One parent teaches Geography to the younger ones; one helps prepare our potluck lunch and cleans up afterward; one is teaching spelling and vocabulary because she loves words and I teach writing and geometry. Over the last 2 years, our kids have had opportunities to learn Ballroom Dancing, Biology, Football, Grass Identification, Horseback Riding, and Music. All this because we came together to “bear one another’s burdens.”

Opportunities to learn new things don’t just stop at our Monday Co-op. Because of the friendships we have made there, my girls have been blessed with opportunities beyond anything that I could have provided. My daughter, Deanna, is very interested in training horses; and because of our relationship with the Kinford family (www.2lazy4u.us) in our group, she is able to pursue that every day. She was even given a horse because of her faithfulness in helping Bob with his horses. Now she thinks that working with horses is something that she wants to pursue as a career.

During our years here, we have been active in our church and community. Due to the friendships we have made and the people we have met, our kids have been able to discover some of their God given talents and develop them more fully. Another local church, Pueblo del Familia Christiana, offered our group and opportunity to learn to play musical instruments and form a Worship team. We took them up on their offer and go to their church every Monday evening so that we can learn the keyboard, drums, guitar and bass guitar. Sometimes we have so much fun just making music, that it will be 9 p.m. before we realize it. An added bonus is that we get to practice a little of our Spanish while we work with them.

We don’t have to know it to teach it, folks. We just have to be faithful to share our knowledge and talents with others. In doing so, we realize a great spiritual truth: what goes around comes around. All we have to do is open our eyes and take the opportunities as we find them. The first step is joining or starting a Co-op. Pray about how you can help bear each other’s burdens. Then the next time someone asks “How can you teach that?”, you can confidently reply “I don’t.”

Lord, help us to see the resources that you bring to us because of relationship. Help us to know how to encourage and help others and be a resource in their efforts to educate their children.

Gal 6:2
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.


Mat 7:12
Therefore, all things, whatever you desire that men should do to you, so also you should do to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Gal 6:7
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever a man may sow, that he also will reap.

Mat 22:37 - 39
And Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." Deut. 6:5
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Lev. 19:18

The Darkness in Me

(My son, Aaron, has written a 'tune' to go with my words. I wrote this while thinking about how easy it is to fall into the trap of thinking that we have to be perfect in order to be forgiven. But God's Word says, "..while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.")



I smiled and said “hello”,
And shook her hand…again.
We sat and talked for hours
About how our days are spent.
But the deeper I don’t go
‘Cause I don’t want to show.
She must never see
The darkness … in me.

I listen to the sermon,
And not my head…again.
Sitting taking notes,
Letting it sink in.
The invitation comes and I don’t go
‘Cause I don’t want them to know.
They’ll never see
The darkness … in me.

(Chorus)
I wanna be great.
I wanna dream.
I wanna do something for eternity.
I keep pressing on
Hitting brick walls.
It’s the turmoil inside
That I’m trying to hide…
What keeps me from being free
Is the darkness … in me.

I kneel next to my bed,
Crying out in prayer…again.
Today’s the day
There will be no more pretend!
I pour out my heart to You,
‘Cause I know the Truth.
You alone can see
The darkness … in me.

(Chorus)

(Bridge)
Pretending…
Pretending…
It’s never ending!
Lying…
Crying…
How can I keep on dying…inside?

(Chorus2)
I wanna be great.
I wanna dream.
I wanna do something for eternity.
I wanna press on.
Break thru the wall.
Calm the turmoil inside
So I no longer hide.
Lord, please set me free
From the darkness … in me.

The Gift of Your Presence

Yesterday I was having a great conversation with one of my clients. We were talking about our children and how fast they grow up. She is a young parent with one child and I was the older parent with three high schoolers and three grown children. One of the things that she said to me was: “I’m afraid that if it’s always just him and me, he will be so tired of me that he will not be able to wait to leave.” For a moment I was floored! Then I realized that I have a totally different perspective.

We’ve all heard the old adage: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder!” This may sound cute in relation to a couple who has been around each other so much that they are beginning to take each other for granted. Other than that, it is really the opposite that is true. The more time we spend with each other, the fonder of each other we become.
……………………………………………
We sat in my bedroom at the beginning of the day. We try to start the day with devotions and prayer, but today we were moving in slow motion. Deanna, my oldest daughter, asked me what my schedule was and I told her that I had to be at work by one o’clock.

“Mom,” Mikayla was whining a little, “you’re never home! And when you are at home, you’re not here!” She was really upset. “I want you to spend more time with us. I want to do something fun with you!”

“Honey, I am home a lot of the time.” My first instinct was to defend myself. “What do you mean, ‘when you’re home you’re not here’?”

“You’re on the computer or on the phone making appointments or something.” I knew that she was exaggerating a little and the word “never” was inserted in order to express her feelings – which were valid. So I tried to hear her heart.

For a few minutes I thought over the last couple of weeks. She was right in that I had been really busy with work, the coffee shop and the regular home management. We had been trying to catch up on laundry after our machine had been broken for a couple of weeks. We had also been making up for lost income and higher bills due to the “big freeze” recently. In other words, life had been happening.

“I have an idea.” I announced to all three girls. “Why don’t we all do something fun today. Let’s get our cowboy hats and boots on and go out to the overlook and just take some fun pictures.”

Suddenly the room lit up. All three of my daughters were suddenly excited. They rushed around upstairs for a few minutes getting the necessary props and putting on the “costumes” and then we were off. We spent the next hour and a half at the overlook just outside of town. The weather was perfect and the breeze was just enough to make some really cool pictures for our Facebook pages.

At the end of our photography session, we took the camera to the Cornerstone Coffee Shop where the girls proudly showed Dad. Our “girls day out” became the focus of conversation and comment amongst the family and several customers during the course of the day.

I had also realized something really important: my daughters needed and wanted my presence in their lives more often; that they needed my attention, my real presence, not just my body located at home. They really just wanted to spend time with me…doing something together. You’d think that in home educating, stuff like this would happen all of the time. Unfortunately, we get caught up in life, tasks and schoolwork; forgetting the time. We forget that only in quantity will we get quality.

I praise God every day that my children are fond of me. I’m so ecstatic that they want to spend time with me and think it is cool to hang out with mom. I’m glad that they tell me when they are missing that time with me and that they want more of it. I wish I could split myself into three sometimes so that that I could make sure that their time with me was enough.

Lord, give me the time I need for my kids. Show me how to spend more time with them. Help me to recognize when to set life aside and “gather my chicks” for a time of fellowship with them.

“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Eph 5:15, 16 (KJV)