Happy February my friends.
I have heard through the grapevine that February is burnout month for most homeschool moms. Whether this is true across the board or not, I am definitely feeling it. By the grace of God we have been keeping up with most of our studies and most of the housework, but as you may have noticed, I have have not posted in two weeks and not for lack of planning either. Each post was planned and scheduled, but I did not make myself write for the last two weeks. So, as I faced the beginning of the month I debated whether I should hurry and “get caught up” or give my self grace and reflect on why I found my self in this predicament in the first place. I have chosen the latter, to the great delight of my husband and children –I am sure.
What is the same every time I end up feeling this way? I am beginning to think it has something to do with what the Lord is dealing with me on, self-edification and Sabbath. I am beginning to notice how thick this theme of self-edification and busyness runs through all I do, especially when I feel the most drained. I think it is because my focus has been on self, how I feel, what I can accomplish, how I can pull up my boot straps and make it happen, what part of me, or my kids, I am trying to change, etc… This puts me on the crazy cycle of managing particulars rather than entering His rest. Even if everything I do is “for others” I am discovering that somewhere in there I have an inward focus. The Scriptures tell us that those who refresh others will they themselves be refreshed. So, if I am not feeling refreshed, I have to face the reality that chances are I am not really refreshing others. Furthermore, I do not believe the solution is to do more. This is not a matter of degree. It is a matter of kind. What kinds of things am I doing and what kinds of thoughts am I having? What kind of relationship am I having with the Lord, my husband, my children, and learning? What kind of perspective do I have on tasks, goals, and the dailiness of life? I need to face these questions, but I also need to wait on God. Even with my sanctification I find my self wishing this or that would be changed. If I really want Jesus to be Lord of my life, that means He must be Lord, Lord of my sanctification, my thoughts, my actions, and what ever else. As the Lenten season approaches, I look forward to meditating on these things and other things.
EW Refreshed
In taking a moment to reflect on January, I can say that the first month of 2015 was still an exciting one. We reorganized Expanding Wisdom so it is easier to navigate. You must check out the Archives page for an archive of all of our posts from the day we opened. Articles are arranged by Category and categories are arranged alphabetically.
Our First Product Feb. 28th 2015!
January also marked the month we announced our first product! On February 28th we will soft-launch our Expanding Wisdom Shop and our ‘Getting Started with Classical Homeschooling’ self-paced online course. This course will take you much farther and deeper than our 11 post series did. This course will methodically and attentively lead a person through the process of entering into homeschooling and the classical tradition. Even if you have been homeschooling for a while, the vast majority of this course will be a guided swim through the essential elements of the Christian classical tradition, including the skills of teaching classically, how to choose curriculum, how to know when you are doing enough, how to deal with the particulars of a transcript, grade level general guidelines for what to teach and how to teach, and more. The content of this course will be delivered through videos, audios, a real book, and blog style articles. We are so excited about this and cannot wait to share it with you.
Co-op & Community Update!
Many of you may remember the post we published back in July, How to start a Classical Co-op, well we have been learning a ton and catching a bigger vision of what classical community could be. We revisited our co-op and decided to let it grow a bit this next school year. You can see all the details at the new website we created for it at paideiaacademics.com. If you are trying to start a community somewhere, definitely stay tuned, sometime over the summer we will be publishing a packet that includes the specifics of how we run and love our community.
So what about you? Where are you looking to reflect, reorder, and renew this February? Join the Conversation here.
Expanding wisdom, extending grace,
Jen
Join the Conversation.
Some good thoughts there on rest and refreshment. We’ve had kind of a rough go with school since we started again after Christmas…and I realized in the last week that a lot of that had to do with me. I was endeavoring to get it all done in the morning, telling myself it was for *THEM*, so they could have *THEIR* afternoons free…but really it was about me wanting to do my things in the afternoon. Ouch. So I moved a few things around in our schedule, focusing just on academic stuff in the morning and putting an hour into our schedule after lunch and rest time for handicrafts, drawing, nature journaling and other such things. And whaddya know? It’s working. Yes, I had to give up some of *my* time, but things are smoother and more focused when we’re doing the more academic stuff in the morning, and we are actually enjoying that bit of time in the afternoon together doing those ‘life giving’ things. When I was trying to guard my personal time, the result was tension, stress, and hurting family relationships. I had to give up some of that time in order for all of us – me included! – to find that refreshment we needed.
Amen. It seems so counter-intuitive at first but it really does work. Thank you for sharing this.