Good Soil
As I sit at my table, where my kids first opened their school books, I am contemplating how God started the stir in me to homeschool. I went to grab an old binder of mine to look for notes from over the years. The binder has a collection of devotions, Word given to speak at church occasions, and a lot of random notes jotted down. I look through it intending to find something I wrote recently; however, as I turn through the years of notes I come across:
Psalms/Search
5-27-18 Questioning God’s call to homeschool; prayer to reveal assurance; sent to Mark 4.
After reading that, I smiled and said to the Lord, “Ok we will start there, thank You.” I remember one day after picking Eli up from kindergarten that I asked him, “Eli, how was your day? What did you do? What did you learn?”, and his reply was, “Okay”. That was it, nothing else. I couldn’t get anything out of him. I remember feeling uneasy. I thought I should be with him, I should be teaching him, and I want to be with him as he grows in everything. That is when the stirring began.
It wasn’t an instant obedience or anything like that. I struggled all year long with the Lord on surrendering to pull Eli out and start homeschooling. I remember this was a period of time that I was doing life or discipleship (because I am still to this day doing life with her) with my dear friend, Katrina. Myself and another young woman was with her every week. We would get together to read the Word, talk about our struggles as God was working in us, and pray. Every week , I would admit the stirring I had, that God wanted me to surrender my identity as a nurse, to become a woman transformed by Christ, into a godly wife and mother who would stay home and teach her children. God was answering prayers, but I didn’t like the answer at the time. My prayer every night was, “God make me into the wife and mother You call me to be.” But I struggled with the surrender, I liked working as a nurse. I thought my call was being fulfilled through being a nurse! However, it took away from God’s call for me to be foremost a wife and a mother!
I would bawl, and the ladies would listen and comfort. But I tell you, it was a wrestle!! I even remember how the Lord kept bringing up Jacob in my studies, in sermons, and conversations with believers. I would cry to the Lord, “Am I being like Jacob? But Jacob wrestled with the You, Lord, until You corrected him by dislocating his hip!” This first terrified me, but then as I read on Jacob, he did seek out a blessing, not wanting to let go until the blessing was promised (Genesis 32:22-32). All this being said, I am aware this isn’t the way to study the scriptures, to understand the biblical account of Jacob. However, I am just being transparent of how the Lord leads in my walk with Him. I think about it now and think, “Thank You, Lord, for always leading when I would seek.”
There was a year of struggle with surrender, consistent prayer, and continual drawings from the Holy Spirit in this matter. Then, one day after a Wednesday night service, Dane and I decided to take the kids to the park. Eli had recently finished kindergarten, and Dane and I were still considering what to do. As he was pushing Eli and Eden on the swings, I got my Bible. I pray to the Lord the most silly prayer, “Lord, You know me! You know I need a V8 slap to the head! If this is what you want, I need a Word! Please, Lord, give me a Word!”
I opened my Bible, and there is Mark 4! I began to read, and the Holy Spirit convicted my heart about the soils. What soils will my children be? I began to cry as I read what abundance would come when there was good soil to lay the seeds on. Dane looked at me and saw I was crying, and I looked at him and said, “This is what I turned to.” Dane is always so simple, to the point, and for these reasons, he balances me (I am so thankful for him). He said, “Well looks like we got our answer.”
I cried more and nodded. That fall, we signed the papers to pull Eli out, and our journey to obey the Lord to homeschool our children began. Stay tuned for the next blog of how the Lord placed a homeschooling family in our church at just the right time to encourage and help me.
Mark 4:10-20
The Purpose of the Parables
And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’” And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
