Jeremiah ~ The 1st In Line

June is always a bit of a weird month for our family. In 2004 on Father's Day of all days, our second son Jeremiah went home to be with Jesus.

 He was born while we were living in India and trying to plant a church. We knew throughout the pregnancy that something wasn't quite right with him but we didn't know what it was exactly. It wasn't until he was born that we learned he had Down Syndrome and a rare condition called esophageal atrasea (simply meaning he had no food tube and needed to eat from a tube placed in his stomach).

We had a whirlwind of thoughts surrounding his birth. I was actually way more stressed about the esophageal issue than anything knowing that would require surgical attention. As the days went on we spent a lot of time praying for his healing and a lot of time falling in love with him. I have learned that it doesn't really matter what obstacles arrive surrounding a babies birth, once you bring that baby home and start cuddling, the love will grow!
During his 7th month we ended up in Minnesota to visit a world famous surgeon who had discovered an amazing way to re-connect the esophagus through a procedure that is very successful.
Jeremiah didn't respond to any treatments they were giving him, but somehow I still felt that God would heal him, one way or another.
On June 19th I sat in our Ronald McDonald room and these words and a tune came to my heart.

Your ways- they are not
They are not like mine
Your times are different
So different than mine
I see in part
But you Lord, you see the whole
I'm never certain
But you, you're always sure...always sure

That's why
Wisdom is yours
Understanding is yours Lord
I can not see, so lead me, lead me
I will follow
Wisdom is yours
Understanding is yours Lord
I can not see so lead me, lead me
I will follow.
Lead me, lead me, lead me, I will follow

Within 24 hours of this song coming to me, we held Jeremiah's hand as he slipped away from us and into his heavenly Father's arms, on Father's day. 

The 3 years following that day my heart learned many things as it slowly healed from that loss (and still is). I have taken much comfort in the fact that the Lord was not surprised at all by Jeremiah's death. I was shocked but He wasn't and the song He gave me was one way that He was reminding me that we see through a glass dimly but He sees it all. Wisdom is His, I would do things very differently than He does, so I have to trust that He has everything under control. I don't have to understand everything to be sure He is in control. I will die with many unanswered questions, but my confidence in Him doesn't come from the answers He provides me, it comes from me trusting His character and He is good.
Another thing I felt the Lord show me at one point when I was asking Him why Jeremiah's life with us was "taken" and I felt like he said "You're looking at this as if I have taken His life, but I see it as having given you 8 months with him". This truth really changed my heart and I started to become more thankful for the time we did have and grieved less over the time that we didn't have.
No matter how long we have "our" kids they are actually borrowed. My kids have the same Father I do.

I also took great comfort in Hebrews 12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
I felt certain that if Jeremiah could tell me one thing it would be "Don't cry for me mom, this place is more wonderful than you can imagine, I am cheering you on, keep on running the race our Father has put before you, in time, He will make all things beautiful and you will join me here, I was just the 1st in line from our family, the 1st to see Jesus".

I can not imagine living without the ever present assurance that heaven is our home!
This life is so empty on it's own, but we can rest assured that our destination is not a great house, or a job that thrills us, or a picture perfect marriage, our ultimate goal is Jesus, simply Jesus, face to face, arms wide open, welcoming us home, to the home that he has been eagerly preparing for us. To think of all the joy and hard work we put into preparing our home for a new baby and multiply that a thousand times over. He must be so giddy with joy when he welcomes one of His children home!
Psalms 116 says- Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.  
I also had to come to terms with the Lord not healing Jeremiah. I had my mind wrapped around a healing on this earth and felt that He didn't love me enough to give me that. But my thinking was wrong. Jeremiah's death was not God telling me "no" at all, as I type these words He is perfectly whole.
The Lord can most certainly heal people and He still does this, but many times He chooses to work in other ways. The decision is His alone. As believers our hope is not wrapped up in healing, it's temporal. Our hope is in Jesus and that takes all the sting out of death because "death" in this life is really just the beginning of eternity with our Father in our real home.

Knowing who we are

On Thursday nights here we have a Bible study that was started with the intention of encouraging people to read through the Bible in one year. We simply choose a book to read each week, then gather on Thursday nights to talk about things like the author, the theme etc. By far, my favorite part is hearing what verses stuck out to the other readers. I always knew there were things to be learned from other believers, but I guess I thought we had more to learn from those who have been believers for a long time. While it's true that they have gained much wisdom from walking with the Lord many years, I am seeing new believers as a source of fresh energy and I LOVE hearing how they are gaining so much from reading things for the 1st time. It's like watching my little Felicity eat with a fork for the first time, or pop a bubble in mid-air for the first time. There is something beautiful about the "firsts".

This weeks reading was on Matthew. One of my favorite things in the whole Bible is found in Matthew where Jesus asks the disciples "Who or what are people saying about me?" They go on to tell him some of the titles that people are giving him. Then he gets to the heart of the matter by asking "But what about you? Who do you say that I am?"
This is where Peter steps up and says what his heart is prompting him to say "You are the Christ, the son of the living God".
This question wasn't only for the disciples at that point in time.
This question is one that each heart must answer for all of time.
 Who exactly is Jesus?
 People have always said things about him, lots of things!
Some say he was a great teacher like Confucius, some say he was an interesting historical figure that we know existed, but other than that we can't be sure exactly who He was. 

C.S Lewis summed up the possibilities best when he said Jesus is either "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord",  or we could say "Mad, Bad, or God".
Peter had already wrestled with this question and had firmly concluded that Jesus was indeed the Song of God. He didn't come to this conclusion because someone "talked" him into believing it. If you can be "talked" into believing you can be "talked" right back out. He didn't answer an alter call and come to Jesus that way either. He had a revelation of the truth in his heart and he was changed by that.
I love asking new friends this question "What do you think about Jesus?" Living in China isn't like living in America. People aren't confronted with Jesus everywhere they go here. There aren't Christian radio stations, there is no Christian TV, there aren't churches on every block, people aren't sporting Jesus t-shirts or have little fish stickers on their car bumpers.

 People can go about their lives here for years without hearing the name of Jesus and this isn't even "the middle of nowhere". This city has 10 million plus people!
But the truth is, if we don't know the truth about Jesus then we don't know the truth about ourselves! Before Jesus came along to shake things up, Peter was just doing what was in front of him, and that was fishing. If you asked him who he was he would have answered "a fisherman", but he would have been wrong!
      Jesus told Peter who he was when he said “And I tell you that you are Peter. On this rock I will build My church. The powers of hell will not be able to have power over My church. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the holy nation of heaven. Whatever you do not allow on earth will not have been allowed in heaven. Whatever you allow on earth will have been allowed in heaven.” 
Without knowing the truth about Jesus, Peter could not know the truth about himself!
God created Peter to be a fisher of men, but Peter was just going from day to day without even knowing his purpose. Oh he was busy, but he wasn't being eternally productive. Maybe he was a fishermen because his dad was, or it was good money, he might have even liked it, maybe he was very good at it  but it wasn't what he was born to do. Peter is no different than us! We all must go through the same process of -
1. Discovering Jesus.
2. Deciding what we believe about Him.
3. Declaring it - Peter said with his mouth out loud "You are the Christ".
4. Discovering who Jesus says we are.
5. Walking out that calling.

My current thoughts on homeschooling

The reason I say my "current" thoughts is simply because my thoughts on the subject have changed over time, hopefully for the better ;-) More than likely they will change again.

This year marks our 5th year of homeschooling (I can hardly believe that!!) and it has been an interesting ride to say the least. It has not always been easy and in many ways it has been a love-hate relationship!

Over the years I have done so much stressing over this entire subject, too much stressing! I think I may have lost 3.2 years off my life with all the stressing I have done about schooling. Are we doing the right thing? Are the kids learning enough? Are they getting a balanced amount of attention? Are we meeting their needs? Are we using the right curriculum?
These questions and countless others would keep me awake for hours on end.
 My biggest concern of all is that we would somehow manage to make incredibly stupid children. Luckily I have met countless stupid adults who have been educated
in a variety of ways easing this fear quite a bit ;-)

While I don't feel like we have arrived by any means, I do find that I spend far less time worrying about these things now. I have also found that as I have worried less, the entire home school journey has become more pleasant.
I think when I stopped pushing so hard and started searching for more life lessons we all became more relaxed.
My current feeling on home-education is that the home is the most natural environment for a child to learn. It happens all the time, even if we aren't "schooling". I am also at a point where I feel more comfortable venturing away from boxed styled curriculums and trust that our family (when depending on the help of the Holy Spirit) is quite capable of gathering the right materials to insure our children get a well-balanced education.

Right now our family has a strong focus on reading. I would say that 75% of our schooling is done through reading. The kids have grown to be genuine book lovers and it isn't unusual for them to finish a chapter book in 1 or 2 days now. This makes me very happy! So much can be learned through simply reading good books. It amazes me how much they repeat from things they have learned through reading.

In the coming school year we are excited to move towards more of a family schooling model. Where we do read-alouds together, copy verses together and any do hands on projects together. The kids will work at their grade level for math and English.
In many ways homeschooling has been a joy.
 I am not saying we have not cried our bucket of tears on the hard days -
we have those days too, trust me!


 Still though I like the results I am seeing more and more and I wanted to be sure and note some of the reasons why we like homeschooling and why it's the right choice for us.
Here goes my list. I would love to see your list too.

• I like my kids! I can't imagine not having them around for the bulk of their young life.

• I would never want my children's main influence in thinking to come from other children (or another adult).
• We feel strongly that God has called us to this and we want nothing more than to obey Him.
• I want to see all of their "firsts". The first time they put sounds together, read a book, write their names. I want to be a part of that.
• I don't want to be concerned about negative habits my kids might be picking up at school.
• I don't want my kids to be "busy" with school for more than 40 hours a week. "Jobs" are for grown-ups. I want my kids to be kids for the time that they can.
• I want my children to be surrounded with people who love to learn and will encourage them to love learning. Most kids have a "get done quick" mentality and see school as a drag. I don't want that attitude around my kids.

• My children are able to use their free time in creative ways and not have 8+ hours of their day "structured" for them.
• I want to have mentally engaging conversations with my kids. Since they are home we have the opportunity for this to happen.
• We want lots of time for reading. When you're in school and busy "learning" headed from this class to that class, waiting for the teacher to get 30 students settled down there is a lot of wasted time.
• I want my children to be able to choose their friends, not end up with whatever kids are in their class.
• I don't want my kids limited to children who are the same age as them. I want them to be surrounded by variety. When they are with children younger than them this nurtures leadership skills, and when they are friends with children older than them they are able to learn.
• I want my children to be well prepared for life and this includes them being future parents. Spending time with their siblings is a great training school for this.

• If my children are weak in areas I want them to be able to move at their own pace without adopting a label like "slow" or "behind".
• If they are ahead I don't want them being limited to the grade level they "should" be learning at. I want them free to move ahead.
• They have extra hours for a part time job. Elijah is teaching English this year and learning things he could never get from a test.
• If something isn't working for them or they aren't learning anything I want the freedom to toss it and find what works best.
• They are able to go to work with their dad when he can take them.
• My little kids have learned SO much from having their older siblings around!!!
• We can take a field trip any old time we want.

• They can be involved in creating their schooling plan. Elijah came up with the idea of gathering pen pals from all 50 states. He is learning geography and letter writing skills in a fun way that he thought of.
• Homeschooling allows for all sorts of fun projects. We like to make videos.

• I like that my kids don't have oodles of homework each night.
• I like the encouraging statistics I see about homeschooling! It works!

http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/rudner1999/Rudner2.asp

• We can choose our schedule.
• We can move to China in March and don't have to drop out of school ;-)

Bottom line, it isn't always easy but we are finding great satisfaction in our choice to homeschool. We are so thankful for those who have encouraged us along the way. You were right!