Special Learners e-Newsletter, September 2006
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In This Issue
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Nurturing Mom by Christine Field
I don't know if it is advancing age (having turned 50 this year) or senile sentimentality, but there is so much I want to share to encourage you. I know how hard your life is. I know the challenges that press in on every side. But I also know that our God is faithful.
I want to share some notes from my journals this month. I am so glad that I took time to memorialize many instances of God's faithfulness in my life. I pray you will be encouraged at the start of a new school year.
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New beginnings, new opportunities, new challenges. Walk closely with Him, my friend.
Notes from several years ago:
I am unraveled. It is Friday at lunchtime. I've had it. One of the kids asks for another cracker and I fairly fling it across the table at her.
Now it's juice. They want more juice. Didn't I just give them juice? Didn't we just eat this meal a few minutes ago, or was that yesterday? Do I have to do this all over again and again and again?
I've had it with the feeding, the cleaning, the laundry, the homeschooling, the training, the whole enchilada. I'm sick of it all.
There is a meanness in my spirit. I don't want to give anything else--whether it's time, attention, food, affection, comfort, services, or encouragement. My well is dry. When a member of my precious family dips their bucket in for replenishment, the meanness flashes out, and sometimes lashes out at my children. I don't want to be nice, sweet and loving. I want to be left alone.
Or else I want chocolate.
My work is in the home: raising and teaching my children. There are many days when my husband comes home in the front door and I promptly leave by the back door. I'll brief him on the situation, like a warrior briefing her relief commander:
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"Clare has hit her sister twice in the last hour. She needs to memorize pages 26 and 27 for AWANA. Caitlin threw a doll at Clare's head and just missed her eye. She needs to read pages 39 to 44 in her reader aloud. Grace is cutting her back teeth and has been miserable all day. No nap either. I'll be back when I'm calmed down." No need to mention the fact that the house is a mess and dinner is a hastily prepared dish.
And so I leave my poor husband to feed them dinner, listen to their squabbles, wipe up after dinner and sooth some savage beasts. While I go out to--to what? To calm down, for one thing. To reconnect with some peaceful part of myself. To screw up my courage to come back for the rest of the evening's battles on those days that they seem to be battles.
Where is the joy of family life? Where is the haven of rest I sought to create in my home?
In my home, family life sometimes feels like a battlefield. In the midst of the fight, I have battle fatigue. I am tired to the bone, distracted with busy-ness, expecting my period, missing my quiet time and needing a good half an hour walk. If my battle fatigue is allowed to progress, I am miserable--psychologically, physically and spiritually.
My battle fatigue touches everyone around me. My children are starved for attention, my husband misses me and my house looks like a battleground. We are all needy at the same time and seek someone/something to replenish us.
If I can catch my battle fatigue early, however, the result is different. Mom can be back on duty after some shore leave and be ready for anything. The shore leave doesn't always have to involve my physical absence from the home. It is often a matter of attitude adjustment and spiritual replenishment, along with some fresh ideas for managing my busy life.
Family life is not always exciting and full of fun. It is often frustrating. What we focus on will determine the quality of our entire family's experience.
As a new mother, family life consisted of us hanging on by our fingernails. Our goal was to survive. We had no vision for our family beyond making it to the end of the day.
I believe we must develop a vision for our families. If we're tired, we must prop ourselves up and get to the root of our fatigue. If we are angry, we must discover and disarm the source. If we are disillusioned with the whole family scene, we must ask God to give us a new vision with fresh eyes.
When I was practicing law with two young children, I had similar attitude problems. I would become so exhausted and my emotional bank account so withdrawn that I was careless in my work at the office and at home. I had no vision for my work or my family. I needed to learn balance in that lifestyle, and now as a mother at home, I need to continue to keep my vision in sight and be aware of imbalances cropping up in my life.
That balance, I have learned, is to be found in doing whatever I do with all my energy and enthusiasm--doing it wholeheartedly. It is also found in being discerning as to what activities deserve my energy and enthusiasm.
I have had to learn to get my replenishment on the run. A lady in my church just returned from a cruise with a couple of other ladies. Their tan, relaxed faces were in sharp contrast to my baggy eyes, pinched expression and shallow complexion. For a fleeting moment, I felt envy.
Then came the guilt. I have chosen this lifestyle. For better or for worse, I have chosen this definition of Maternal Correctness (MC, not PC). I feel called to be a keeper at home and homeschooler. How dare I sometimes resent the blessings God has sent!
If I am not finding something to treasure about each day, I am squandering my time. At the end of the day, if I cannot reflect on the day's events with some satisfaction, I have wasted an opportunity. If I have not embraced my blessings, I am an ingrate. Each day can be a treasure, if we choose to view it as such.
It is in seeking out the treasures of each day and in offering heartfelt thanksgiving for them that we can begin to recapture enthusiasm in our family life and strive toward building a healthy, well-balanced family.
When I practiced law full time, I felt like I had a dozen dinner plates spinning in the air, like the old-time performer on The Ed Sullivan Show. He perched dishes atop tall sticks and kept them spinning without a hitch. I worked until my first two children were 2 years old and 6 months old. I can recall the feeling that my life was like a treadmill. Get up, get the babies ready, go to day care, go to work, pick up the babies, feed and bathe the babies, get them to bed and get ready to do it all over again the next day. There was little joy in that life for me or my family, and so we chose for mom to be at home. It involved a difficult process of discerning God's best for my life, not merely following my own ego-driven agenda.
Doing so has increased the love in my life as well as capacity for joy. One of my children turned to me in the car the other day and gushed, "Mommy, I love my life!" I can finally appreciate the sense my children have about seizing the moment. A surprise rainbow on the floor from some configuration of glass on the windowsill can captivate them for a half an hour. "I have the rainbow on my arm. Now it's on my forehead. Isn't it neat, Mommy?"
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Attention teens! College students! Christian leaders! Pastors!
Take your walk and witness to the next level - through Christian apologetics! At the National Conference on Christian Apologetics, November 10-11, hear experts such as Ravi Zacharias, Norman Geisler, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, Erwin Lutzer, and more! Teens need apologetics, too!
The conference features "Dare2DigDeeper," special apologetics instructional workshops just for teens, hosted in association with Focus On The Family.
Register today - space is limited, and filling up fast! For complete information, call (704) 847-5600, or visit their website
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At the last full moon, we bundled up the children and went in the yard to wonder at its beauty. Never mind that it was twenty below zero with the wind factor. We had to catch its splendor and recite, "God bless the moon and God bless me."
When I am fatigued and worn out, I could care less about the rainbow or the full moon. "That's nice," I mutter distractedly. And I certainly don't love my life at that moment.
In these moments, I am the example of joyous living for my children. If they don't see me wondering at God's creation, it will soon lose its wonder for them. If they don't see me living a life characterized by peace and contentment, they may never learn the benefit of a quiet lifestyle centered around God, His will and His blessings. If they don't see me wholeheartedly embracing my blessings with an unswerving devotion to God, they will not sustain a God-centered life once they are out on their own.
What happens to us that we become blind to the wonders that are so joyously evident to our children? Life can be hard, and slowly we close up places in our hearts. We're too tired, too busy to be bothered. If we're not careful, we may lose the capacity for wonder altogether. On the other hand, a life lived wholeheartedly can keep our eyes and hearts open, no matter what our circumstances.
Building a family is different from a few generations ago. Our mothers and grandmothers were instinctual about much of the process. Many of us have memories of homes which were reasonably orderly and in which the smell of baking cookies lingered as a backdrop in the air. Those of us who have no such past in reality have fantasized about building an idyllic backdrop for our own families, with the added expectation of warm, connected relationships and fulfilled, contented mothers.
I approached motherhood with neither the instincts nor the memories. My mother was severely depressed and, by the grace of God, raised eight children in an intact home. (I am the youngest.) My father was a hard-working, Irish-Catholic weekend alcoholic. Somehow, they managed the passages of parenting without the advice or inspiration of books and seminars.
I have learned, with God's grace and through trial and error and with frequent references to the ideas and inspiration of others, how to raise a family, create a nurturing atmosphere in my home and how to meet my own needs most of the time. It is a question of wholehearted devotion, commitment, balance, organization, regular replenishment and prayer. If any aspect of this equation is neglected, all suffer.
Taking care of yourself is a worn concept. Volumes have already been written about looking out for number one, putting yourself first, paying attention to your own needs. As today's women, it is part of our definition to meet the needs of others. Some of us do it selflessly, then find ourselves empty and spent.
Taking care of our homes is an entirely different challenge. Much of housework is mundane and repetitive. Someone else could do the cooking, the cleaning and the rest. But God put you in your family with your husband and your children. Your work as God's blessing to your family cannot be replaced by a cook or cleaning lady. It is uniquely yours. Our challenge, then, is to do the work of managing our households efficiently so that most of our time is spent on the relationships God has arranged, not on housework.
Home life can be different. We can shift our paradigm to serve others while also taking care of ourselves. We can have a loving home with a warm atmosphere where everyone's needs are met--including mom's. We can do it without selfishness or guilt by practicing balance and attending to our own needs as well as the needs of our families. We can learn to claim as our own the definitive truth as told by Marion Duckworth who said, "Christian joy isn't a feeling at all. It is a quality of God deeper than my emotions and comes from His spirit in me. It exists in spite of circumstances" (Transforming Trouble, Victor Books, Wheaton, IL, 1996). Perhaps this Christian joy is a product of our wholehearted devotion in life.
While most of us may never take a rejuvenating sea cruise, we can do much to increase our contentment and joy. We can draw from the well of God's love by feeding on his word and fellowshipping with other believers. We can develop a vision for our families and begin to nurture our homes into havens of rest and peace.
What fills your well? Find it, mine it, savor it. Fill it you must. Too much and too many are depending on you.
HSB Homeschool Blog
Lifeway Homeschool Message Board
As many of you know, Lifeway is associated with Broadman & Holman, publisher for Homeschool Methods by Paul and Gena Suarez and my own Homeschooling the Challenging Child. They have launched a message board just for homeschoolers, and I get to moderate it! Come join the conversation! I'll see you there!
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Trusting the Creator By Christine Field
My children can make me laugh, weep, giggle and wonder. Sometimes they say things that just sum it all up.
My oldest daughter (then age 10) has always been excessively fearful of storms. She cowers in fear and must be held during severe weather. The next daughter (age 9) actually enjoys the light and thunder shows of nature. It makes for interesting cuddle-up time on the couch during severe weather!
During the last storm, Clare (the oldest) was teary and fearful. Caitlin (the next child) was trying to calm her down. She said, "I don't trust the storm either, but I trust its Creator."
I praised the Lord silently for giving her wisdom and compassion. I praised her directly for being an encourager to her sister. I got down on my knees in my heart and thanked God for her and for the touch of His hand in her life.
We've had a rough year in our family. Health problems, a sister with severe illness, a foster baby who we nearly adopted, a roof falling in, the death of Grandma Great--the list goes on. Your family has probably experienced many of the same challenges this year.
What a comfort and a joy to know that we don't have to put our trust in the storms of life because we can have absolute trust in the Creator!
When we have faced financial problems, I never trusted the job, the money, the investments, the market--I trusted the Creator and His will was done.
When we have encountered family problems, like child behavior or a husband's attitude and mom's fatigue--I trusted the Creator that He brought together this particular constellation of individuals into a family to do His will and for His good purposes.
When we faced infertility issues or obstacles to adoption, what a joy and a comfort to know that we could trust the Creator to bring about His will for our family.
Caitlin, (then) my philosophical 9-year-old, is our only biological child. The other three are adopted. Caitlin was born during a severe ice storm in March 1991. The area we lived in had a widespread power outage and the hospital was running on generator power. My husband and our older daughter were frozen out of our farmhouse and stayed in a hotel for the few days surrounding Caitlin's birth.
My in-laws often quipped that we should have named Caitlin "Stormy" because of the weather conditions surrounding her birth and because of her mercurial personality during her earlier years. She has mellowed and matured.
We didn't trust the storms, but we had absolute trust in the Creator.
How about you? Are you dealing with decisions for your family? Do you find yourself frustrated, angry, disappointed because things may not be going the way you would choose for them to go?
Our Heavenly Father may allow the storms in our lives, but through them He beseeches us with open arms to trust Him and to enter into the shelter of his perfect will.
I don't trust the storms either, but I completely trust their Creator.
Share Your Story!
We are looking for real parents to share their stories of real life with their special learners. If you would be interested in writing a short piece for us, contact me at christinefield@sbcglobal.net.
About Your Editor
Christine Field practiced law for eight years before becoming a full-time Mommy. She and her husband live and homeschool their four children in Wheaton, Illinois, where her husband, Mark, serves as Chief of Police. Three of their four children are adopted, one through a private adoption and two from Korea.
She is the author of several books, including Coming Home to Raise Your Children (Fleming Revell, 1995), Should You Adopt? (Fleming Revell, 1997) A Field Guide to Home Schooling (Fleming Revell, 1998), Life Skills for Kids (Harold Shaw/WaterBrook, 2000), Help for the Harried Homeschooler (Harold Shaw/WaterBrook, 2002) and Homeschooling the Challenging Child (Broadman & Holman, 2005). Her next book, written with her husband Mark, called Homeschooling 101, will be published by Broadman & Holman in Spring 2007.
She serves as a correspondent and Resource Room columnist for The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine. Her articles on life skills have appeared in Focus on the Family Magazine and Single Parent Family.
To contact her about your special learner, or to have her speak to your group or conference, you may email her at mailto:christinefield@sbcglobal.net or visit her website at www.HomeFieldAdvantage.org.
Her mailing address is:
The Home Field Advantage
PO Box 261
Wheaton, IL 60189-0261
Visit her blog at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/christinefield.
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