Well, even though April was somewhat sad there has still been an awesome amount of JOY and I can see God growing us through the loss and the pleasure of raising 5 wonderful arrows.
Satan is good...it is almost as if he has come into the loss and stirred my children towards tough behavior, discontent, not getting along...the list goes on.
In that not-so-quiet discontent have been many lessons for me. The forging of a fresh point of view. The furnace which refines my approach with my children. The realization that I AM NOT PERFECT and the regrets and mistakes I have can only be any good to any body if I give them to God and allow Him to make Silver in the Refining Fire.
If I fail to allow Him to use those moments of struggle, regret, hardship, the ones I can't get back when I overreacted or spoke too harsh or expected too much then they are for NOT, lost on the frailty of the Human Condition rather than FOUND in His Love and forged into something beautiful in His Mercy and Grace.
Grace...this concept of Christian, biblical Grace is actually foreign to so many well intentioned Christians I know. We speak about God Grace, we accept it fully because without it we would have nothing, but we fail so often to ponder how Grace is supposed to shape the Gospel that is alive and risen within us.
Even recently I've watched a Christian women fail to offer another woman grace on any measure. We so quickly slip into legalism and judgement rather than remembering that our own "GOOD WORKS" are as filthy rags to Him. He, our Gracious God, is much more interested in our hearts.
We make choices for our family, seek to be conservative, modest, kept from the world, what have you, and in making that choice we automatically call it BEST and judge others for not coming to the same conclusion. Isn't God refining each of us in a different fire with a varying temperature?
I'm not by any means that in so many things we find God's word to be explicit, black and white instead of gray and those issues ought to not be handle with passivity but should also not be absent of Grace. In the areas in which we find a varying degree of application we MUST exhibit Grace or we lose our influence upon others.
Not only do I feel the desire to see God's perfect GRACE in my own life more than I ever have before, but I desire to display GRACE to those around me and especially my children.
For, if I fail to exhibit for my children God's explicit biblical principals without Grace I rob them of the ability to both see God's GRACE for them which in turns keeps them from truly being able to offer it to another. And isn't that what the Gospel is about? The Gospel that is alive and breathing....not past or history but alive.
If my children leave my home without being able to extend Grace...their impact for the Gospel will be lost.
If my children cannot discern God's word, make decisions that align with His will, and fail to see others through the lens of Grace...they've missed the Gospel.
I'd rather make some mistakes, have some regrets, overexpose them to a degree (movies, music, people) and have them see the need for GRACE when it comes to the human condition than have children who think the world ought to live by their own standards and who miss the need for God's Grace. We cannot wrap them in bubble wrap. That creates rebellion. We cannot teach them religion...that also creates rebellion. Rather, we must allow them to see the depravity of man, our desperately lost souls, and to see the world with a heart of forgiveness.
Don't freak out...I am not saying we don't discriminate what our children watch or see or hear or that we don't consider a healthy sense of ignorance over naivety...We homeschool not to keep our children from the WORLD but to prepare them for it. With God's truth, GRACE and His love.
