Parched and Quenched

As I am trying to make the most of my time this summer getting ready for the next homeschool year, I find myself inspired by music. Music permeates our lives daily in the Price house. But, my musicians are off doing their own thing this week and its been quiet. So I just turn up my Pandora or my KLOVE and blast it through the last layer of paint on the walls! I would love to have the windows up and go for it, but it's over 100 degrees outside and I just can't do it.

I love this song. I love it because of it's lyrics, but most of all I love it because Lincoln Brewster's son recites scripture at the end and it makes me tear up every time! It reminds me of why I homeschool.

I want my children to know God. I want them to live with God. I want them to be with God each and every day of their lives with limited distractions and influences from worldly things. Not shut up in the house and never going out, but building that foundation and that confidence in their knowledge of God and who he is and how he is with you when you are in the world around you. How to observe those things daily that God puts before us that may be taken for granted outside of a life of knowing Him.

Psalm 19: 1-2: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge." He is always in front of us if we choose to see. When they are in situations in this world, I want their eyes to be wide open, not shut to the world and the things in it. I know it happens in their lives already.

My 15 yo son went on a mission trip in Chicago this summer and helped out in a vacation bible school put on by the Y in the inner city. He came home and a few weeks later was involved in helping out at a local church with their vacation bible school program. He came home one day and said, "Mom, after working with those kids in Chicago, I've realized how spoiled these kids are here." Now, not spoiled in a bad way, mind you. Just in the way that there is so much here and there is not in the inner city of Chicago for those kids. He had an "aha" moment. My soul drank up the goodness of his heart growing at that moment in time.

I was quenched with the knowledge that God was at work on the inside of my child. You see, if you are to raise a child of God you have to release them into the dangers of the world in a way that they can then be molded into the men and women God has already formed in their hearts. We have to trust the God in heaven above who has trusted us with the precious souls of our children. Every day there is a teaching moment for your kids whether you homeschool in the homeschooling definition or whether your kids go to school outside your home. We, as Christians, are ALL homeschooling our kids when it comes to the values and teachings of the Word of God to our children.

So, my prayer is this today, that God blesses you in a way that makes you totally aware of how important you are as His child in this crazy world we live in. That somewhere in your life today, your eyes need to be open to the blessings within the icky, dirty mess of the day. Even if its just as simple as an extra smile given to you. I pray that through your blessings that you see in the world that those other children around you, young and old, will take note of God within the world and want to reach out and get some o' that. I pray that if you have children or are in charge of their care for any part of your day that God will reveal to you the places to plant the seeds so that the beautiful ones that they are will shine brighter when they aren't with you. May God be with you today in all you do! Now, go get dirty in the world today and watch Him wash you white as snow!!!