Pressing On: Back to School 2017-18

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Back to School 2017-18

Back to School!

What an over-used phrase. Every flyer, every back-lit school sign and my blog, lol.

We have started strong this year! Possibly the best start ever. As much as none of us wanted to pack up the flip-flops, and come inside, we’ve done it and we are off to a great start. Why? A number of reasons that could not be re-created in other years:

My mind is catching up with my body in healing. I feel like I can take on the stress of providing an education for my deserving learners again. I, with a surprising amount of enthusiasm this year, did a lot of prep work and research, which don’t let anyone ever tell you is a waste of time - but that’s another post. This led to me feeling somewhat more enthusiastic about what we were going to learn this year and gave us a smoooooth start as we actually opened the books (which I had prepared ahead of time, like a good cooking show)

Secondly, my oldest started off the year in school this year. Last year he went half way through which meant that the first half was miserable. He was miserable, we were all miserable watching him be miserable… so this year is a clean start: he is happy and we are happy watching him be happy : )

Thirdly, I guess it’s because they are all just one year older, but it’s just less of a fight to get the work DONE. Everyone has matured in their own way. #2 child officially in the grad program has started to make her education her own - VICTORY! #3 child has always done so, but is just reaching a new level of maturity and thinking about what the future holds - FUN! #4 child has only had one meltdown so far (a record) and is beginning to see at the start of the day that there IS a finish at the end, and she can do it! - PTL!

And they are just interesting people. Have I mentioned I LOVE being with my kids more every year? I actually don’t think you could pay me enough to go back to toddlers… Well, maybe, but it would be a LOT.

Here's a shot of our first day. We always take pictures and eat ice-cream, and this year there happened to be decent weather for our local "Not-Back-to-School-Picnic". Sadly #1 son is missing, since he was at school. I'm still trying to convince him to make a sign and let me take a picture - it's his last year for crying out loud! Nonetheless, here is the class of 2017/18!

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My Testimony

Well not really "my" testimony. It is a testimony to the saving power and grace of Jesus Christ, so it's His testimony.

SHORT VERSION:

Growing up in the Catholic Church, I became a born-again believer in 1993, at the age of 24.

MUCH LONGER VERSION:

Searching for Truth has been a part of my makeup since before my dad passed away 40+ years ago. I was almost eight, then, and not a day has gone by since that I haven't been on the hunt for what is True, worthy of pursuing, and worthy of living and dying for. I guess I've always been "deep" that way :)

I was attending the Catholic Church back when I was eight, and I sold out. Completely. If God was God, and He was as important as they were telling me, then I was going to learn every prayer, make the most ardent confessions, take communion with the purest soul, and be a nun. I even had a catechism teacher convinced I would be a saint one day.

When I look back I see what a strange creature I must have been! But I was absolutely sincere, and it boggled my mind as to why not everyone (grownups included) would not serve our Lord and His Church first and foremost--if that's what they claimed to believe. (Actually it still boggles.) So devout was I, that I won the award for being top of my seventh grade catechism class--a Bible.

The problems began when I started reading that Bible. And then I went to college. I was just finishing up the Old Testament and, being no less interested in the Truth, I pursued college courses in Philosophy, Anthropology, and Psychology (as well as Statistics and Algebra, but we won't go there). Things were not at all as I had expected.

I was shocked and disturbed to hear in my new classes that there were people, thinking people, who seemed to desire Truth as much as I, who did not hold a Catholic, Biblical, or even remotely Christian worldview. How could this be? Anybody who was sincerely after Truth would certainly discover that The Church held it. Wouldn't they?

Then I became even more shocked and disturbed. As I finished reading through the book of Revelation, (the last book of the Bible) I had to recognize that I had found no evidence for, and from what I could see, actually some direct contradiction to, most of the practices of the Catholic Church to which I'd been so devoted.

None of the these are found in the Bible:

Devotion to Mary.

Any mediator other than Jesus between man and God--including a priest.

Penance for reparation of sin.

Repeating prayers over and over (eg. the Rosary).

Calling another man "Father", as in spiritual father.

Confessing sins to another in hopes of absolution.

Any man being head of the Church.

and many more . . .

What?!?!??? I thought I must have missed it, I re-read. My mind became suspect. Hmmm. No wonder there was no emphasis in 15 years of church-going on having or reading a personal copy of the Bible.

It wasn't just the Church about which I became suspect; everything fell under my scrutiny. NO WAY was I going to believe grass was green just because it looked that way, and certainly not just because somebody told me it was. (In fact it's not green is it? It just reflects green, it's actually soaking in every other colour but green.) I entered a five-year period of chaos.

God was extremely merciful to me during this time. I did things which could have killed me, and things that could have affected me with besetting sin, or consequences that would have altered my life. I investigated other religions, I lived without God for a while (as much as one can) which was initially very liberating, but eventually confined me to what felt like insane circular thinking. God has used that time to continually convict me that the grass is not greener without Him, even if it looks that way. It's a mess of jumbled, muddy colours that cannot make sense or beauty.

Graciously, through odd and timely circumstances, God led me to a handful of select, sincere people from different walks of life who were all avidly seeking to walk the words of the Bible. After these years of seeking, and dead ends, and mistrust, and study, I had come to a reasonably firm conclusion that a) there was a powerful Creator responsible for the world (not profound, even Dawkins agrees with that! lol) and b) sheer evidence probably supported the God of the Jews if the idea of a "God" (versus merely some sort of "force") were to be entertained. I had done a lot of my homework but leery of committing to anything.

It took a long time -- over five years -- but on my 24th birthday in 1993, I took a terrifying leap-of-faith and turned it all over to the God of the Bible and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. For over 25 years I have actively put this Truth to the test and It has not failed me. I have failed It, but It, He, my Creator, stands steadfast, fulfilling His promises day-by-day to make me a new creature, a testimony, to His grace and power.