It’s All About Relationships

Hi Folks,

Let me just start off breathing a sigh a relief, AHHHHHHHHH! It has been along day. I hear you asking “What happened?” so I will tell you. Remember last year I told you that one of my sisters, Yvette was considering home schooling her son and the other sister, Adrienne, was also considering home schooling her youngest son. Well they considered and moved forward on it. But there’s more. Adrienne who was only going to home school her youngest decided to do it for her 11 year old twin boys as well. You know what that means? More fun for me!

Fortunately all the kids are enrolled in virtual classes and they only come over a couple times a week. Today was the day the Jones Boys were over (that is the name affectionately given to Adrienne’s boys when referring to them or talking to them collectively). It went pretty well considering Brandon and Christian (my boys) thought this meant playtime and had to be reminded several times that school was in session, The Jones Boys were not as familiar with the system and needed more help. The youngest Jones boy chose to leave in the middle of his class to get juice and my cell phone was ringing off the hook with text messages from Momma Jones checking in on them (actually other people were also texting me a lot today too). WHEW!!! It is a good thing I got up early today and worked out, that along with prayer gave me energy. At 3 o’clock when school was done, I told everyone to put their sneakers on and GET OUT! Ahhh—sweet relief. They are outside and I am enjoying peace and quiet.

Surprisingly though, having the nephews over for school is not the topic of this blog today. Rather the topic has to deal with the theme for this home school year. You see last year a good friend suggested we have a theme for our first year and we did. The theme came from Phil. 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” We said it in our morning prayers and tried to remind ourselves of it throughout the year. As we were embarking on something new we needed to know that if God was calling us to do this, that He would certainly give us the strength to do it. As we start this new school year we are already convinced of the power we have in God, so although we will continue to stand on this we need a theme for this year that will keep us on our toes. Surely with all the extra people that will be at our house we could use the theme “The more the merrier,” but no, that’s not it. ~Smile~

As I continued to give our theme dilemma some thought I flirted around with Ephesians 4:32 where the Apostle Paul speaks about being kind and forgiving one another. This would be great because sometimes my kids go at it, whew doggie! I liked the scripture but it had to be more than just being kind. Then it hit me like lightning from the sky hitting a tree causing it to split in half, LOL!

I went out to lunch one Saturday with friends from high school, friends who I have not seen in twenty years. I was a little nervous because I was not sure what, if anything we still had in common? But once seeing them and spending time with them it was like old times. We laughed, reminisced and caught up on the past twenty years. Afterwards I realized one thing, it’s all about relationships. You see no matter what our differences or similarities, how much time spent together or apart we were made for relationship — God first and then with others. The scripture in Ephesians that speaks about being kind and the verse that precede it and the ones after are all talking about relationship. How we should behave and treat one another is up there on God’s agenda. In fact it is proven in the Great Commandment when Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-40 NRSV)

So you see it is all about relationships, even your relationship with your kids. I have a pretty good relationship with my boys, but I want it to be a GREAT one! I want this year and every year actually to be about growing closer with Brian and the kids in God. I don’t want us to take our biological relationship for granted so that we are not constantly working on being kind and forgiving toward each other. I know that as we grow, all of us (children included) will make an impact on the rest of our family, our community and every where we go. I am about impacting and influencing for the Father.

There you have it, in a nutshell, my theme for this school year. I pray that whether you use traditional or non traditional means to educate your children that your focus is more than just Reading, Writing and Arithmetic’s. But instead on building long lasting, influential relationships that honors God and brings glory to the Kingdom. Be blessed and…

…until next time, happy home schooling!



Hugs and Kisses,
Cheryl

Catch you in two weeks on, Thursday, September 30th!


Friday's Blog: Pat "Words of Wisdom"