Drawing from the well

I homeschool our kids. It's something that fits our family and we feel called to do at this stage of our life. It's fun and hard and rewarding and challenging and lots of other descriptive words on any given day. Each year I feel a little more prepared and organized and a little more overwhelmed at the same time.

Lately, I've wanted to come up with a name for our "school." But being clever is not my strongest gift so I've drawn a blank on good names. It's really unneccesary to name it, but I thought it might help the kids take more ownership in what we're doing and maybe we could make a cute sign for our school room. At first Sam said we should call it King Kids Academy. Not bad. Pretty simple. But when I thought about what the word academy meant, I realized that we are not an academy. An acadmey is defined as an institution for higher learning. We are not an institution, but a home. I think that a more fitting word would be a haven or base or even a nest. I know I may be being too literal here, but it bothered me to call it an academy.

Then somehow in thinking about those words, I stumbled upon the definition of the term "bring up" in relation to raising and teaching our kids, and it completely defines what we are doing. It means to cultivate, develop, feed, nourish, discipline, form, foster, educate, support, teach, train, provide for, and nurture. That is what we are doing here at home. Such a simple term with such a rich definition. As I thought on that definition and the term bring up, I began to compare it to drawing water from a well. Bringing up the water. I realized that as I teach and train our children, I am essentially drawing things from them. God has placed all kinds of treasures and gifts and talents inside these children. They are His creation. I have been given the job of drawing those things out. It's not an easy job. It's hard and tedious and messy, but also refreshing, rewarding, and life giving. All parents have this job regardless of whether their kids learn at home or away. I am thankful for this job to be a mom, and in our case to also be their primary educator.

I love what Proverbs 20:5 says: Knowing what is right is like deep water in the heart; a wise person draws from the well within.

 I pray that I will have the wisdom to draw from my children what is right and good and glorifying to God and to show them those things hidden inside of them. We learn and "do school" to know God and make Him known. That is the purpose of learning, for God created all things and no matter what we are studying, we are able to point back to Him and his creativity and goodness.

Here are some photos from our first weeks of this semester. I am blessed, in this season of life, to have a multi-purpose room in our house. It serves as a school room, TV room, my work space, and game room. I love it.

Working so hard...this happens some of the time.

But this happens more often...