It was the first day because it was January first, 2008.  It was a day of laughter for many reasons.  We were at the neighborhood annual sledding party.  It was fun and food for all the families around.  But for me there was a fresh first out here in the frosty forest.  Little man, the bounciest, most rambunctious of our pack was assigned to me to supervise.  The others prefered the steeper more challenging sled runs.  So they all were off experiencing the rush of speed.  Little man and I were on the bunny hill.  He at the old age of three, didn't remember other winters.  So sledding was new and scary. 

Now I am usually so taken up with teaching my other boys that Little Man and I have only a little time together each day.  More often than not it is only enough time for a good round of Green Eggs and Ham or Frog and Toad.  But this New Year's Day was a peek into the future for me.  Little Man learned to sled on his own.  I taught him.  Perhaps that doesn't sound like a  terribly amazing feat for a mother to do with her son.  But I have this mothering issue that I promised myself that I'd never have.  You know, the one where the first born has two million baby pictures and each child there after has fewer and fewer until the baby of the family has a high school grad picture and that's it.  So believe it or not, a friend taught Little Man to walk.  His brother's taught him to write his name.  His gramma taught him to do puzzles.  And on we go.... Well so I probably taught him something, but I'm sure I was on autopilot and I don't recall it at all. 

Anyway there we are out on the snow he was laughing and we were sharing a great moment.  Then I realized it.  I am going to have a great future with this guy.  I'm homeschooling!  And I am going to get to teach him many more things.  We are going to have more days of laughter. (and many of frustration too, I know)  But this baby is mine for his childhood and I get to love on him and watch him grow.  We are going to have a life of laughter.

Well, Howdy,

I guess it's about time that I checked in.  My boys and I have been learning so much.  Most recently we have finished our rather laborious task of running some old rocks through our rock polisher.  They turned out so nicely!  But my it was a tedious task and very slow and time consuming.  The boys of course never tired of it.  And though it was long.  I learned so much.  I saw lessons that I couldn't yet share with my crew of eight years old and unders.  But I thought that I'd jot them down.  Perhaps one of you might enjoy my musings. 

To polish the rocks we had a small black rubber tumbling can.  We filled it about a quarter full of rocks, some nice hard quartz and others just old rocks we picked up on family walks.  Then we added some coarse grit, just sandblasting stuff.  And lastly we filled the tumbler with water just enough to cover all the rocks and grit. Then we sealed it up and set it on our little machine that just rolls it around for a week.  The next week we took the rocks out and washed them and the tumbler out real good.  Then we repeated it with fine grit and ran it for another week.  The third week we repeated the washing and ran it again with the water and some pre-polish. (Whatever that is.) Lastly we did a run with the rocks, water, and polish.  Then we really washed them well and did they ever shine. 

Well, that may not be very interesting to any of you, but perhaps these parallels will.  I tell you when I saw the beauty that had been locked inside of those dull old stones a Bible verse came to me.  1Peter 2:4-5   ...To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ....

One of my most favorite pastimes is finding parallels between the things of God and nature.  And so I saw a parallel that helped me see, yet again, the tenderness and mercy and grace of Jesus.  Water in the Bible is often symbolic of God.  (i.e.  the woman at the well)  And as Peter has done; people can be easily compared to stones.  Well, if Jesus is the water and people are the stones, the grit can easily be thought of as the hardships and sorrows that people experience in life. 

It can easily be seen that with these ingredients and an element of time the end out come can result in not only having the edges knocked off of our character, but the entire of our lives being transformed.  We come to God as a common, dirty, useless old stone.  But when we submit ourselves to him living in us and dwelling with us, just as that water was wherever those tumbled stones were a miracle begins.  No one and nothing else other than God working through the hardships of life could ever make something beautiful out of one whose heart is deceitfully wicked.

And how kind he is.  And how compassionate to give us rests, times of refreshing inbetween our struggles.  Those times where he picks us up and washes the mire and the mud of our own filth from us are more than deserved.  Then places us back to go at life again. We often see it in a more pessimistic way.  But his ways are higher than ours, he sees those corners of our personality being softened and shined.  He sees the dull old man dying and the new man being revealed from within. And when he has finished with us (for he who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it) we are no longer what we were at all.  We have become a jewel. (Malachi 3:17 And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels..)  We will be a beautiful treasure that speaks of his great power and mercy and a glorifying honor to Him. 

Well, you might think that this is all I saw.  And it might have been if my eight year old hadn't shown me something else.  I let my little man hold the finished stones to admire while I was doing something else.  When I came back he was rubbing the rocks together.  I told him to stop.  He looked at me with confusion and said that he was just polishing them some more.  That was when I saw it. Without Jesus in our lives there is still the whir and tumble of life.  There is still the grit of hardship and sorrow.  But instead of becoming a thing of beauty.  The rocks would be broken, damaged, and scratched.  Some kinds of stones would crumble and become nothing under these circumstances.......How very like life without Jesus.

Hello, all,

The clock is tick tocking and the stars are twinking.  It is a quiet evening.  The kids are snoring and hubby is out helping out at the church youth group.  I am alone with my thoughts and I suddenly thought that I haven't checked in for quite sometime. 

 I am definately an eclectic homeschooler. 

Have you ever looked up the definition of Eclecticism?  I hadn't until now.  It is the most encouraging thing... have a gander at it!

Eclecticism: The use of an eclectic method; the practice of choosing doctrines from various or diverse systems of thought in the formation of a body of acceptable doctrine....it selects from each its psychologically satisfying doctrines, and thus gains whatever consistency the eclectic system may have from the inner conformity of the eclectic's own temperment.

After reading that don't you think that we all are eclectic in our own way.  None of us are clones of another.  Each of us brings individuality to our circles of influence, our homeschools, and life. We choose from the practical, the inventive, the intellegent, and the beautiful and we add them to our own lives in our own individual way.  Well, I'd better run.  Just a pondering from me.