From Training A Child To Training A Young Man

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging for a very important letter from a father to his son. 

 Dear Son,

This letter is reaching you in April on your birthday, but I started it in January. Something this big is going to take planning and I need to get all the head start I can. I'll get to that in a moment.

You're 12 today. Yea! A solid dozen years of life is now under your belt, and that's terrific! Things haven't been easy for you all the time. You've stuck to your chores, and as you've gotten bigger and more capable, we've given you new ones. However, it's not just that you've grown more capable. You've grown more responsible as well. You don't shirk from doing the job you've been assigned.

You've learned the physical and demanding game of football, so much so that I respect your abilities and your talents. If you continue to practice, work hard, and stay true to your desire, you could certainly play high school in a few years, and from there, there's only One Who knows how far you can go.

Because of these changes and because you are my son, we're going to be training you in things that men are expected to be able to handle. I will teach you all I know about plumbing, household maintenance, car care, and more. I'll train you in driving. I will help you begin to think defensively and how to guard yourself and your loved ones to protect them as best you can.

I will be giving you scriptures to memorize so that you have His Word hidden in your heart. I know from experience that there will be times in your life where you are glad you committed the Scriptures to memory, times where having a Bible is too impractical but where you can bring up out of the storehouse of your heart the solid, insightful truth as you are led by the Holy Spirit. That is the true use of the Sword of the Spirit.

I will be praying with you, teaching you how to meditate, and how to cultivate an active prayer life. I've already worked with you on hearing the Spirit. My hope is that we can improve on this with time and patience.

We will consider all of this part of your homeschooling, but more importantly, I pray that in the end, you will consider this the most valuable part of your early education. I say early education because, really, you never stop learning. But if you start good, if you have a clean, stable foundation, whatever you place on top of it will be in good shape.

Son, I love you. I know you are getting older and I am racing to fill your mind and heart with what you need when you leave. I pray I give you everything God wants me to give you. If I do, I know I will have done as good a job as I can. In the end, I want to hear "Well done! You are good and faithful. Enter into your Father's happiness." As you grow, you will hunger for that more also.

As we move forward, my goal is not to create another "Steve," but to help you become the best you possible in God's sight. Remember that this may not be the same as the best you in the sight of the world. We need to keep talking about this as we go.

I love you, son. We are different in some ways and the same in others. In all, I find you a wonderful boy and future man. You bring me happiness and thankfulness. You are a blessing of God in my life, and I am thankful for you.

Love,

Dad

Tapping The Wallet For A New Set Of Keys

I haven't posted a great deal in a great while. It has been difficult, to say the least--ha!--to not write so much. Part--no, most of it has been due to the wonderful disabilities I live with. I've also been on a bit of an introspective where God has been speaking and I've been taking notes. I'm not sure where this latest leg of the journey is going, but it's been a healthy trip so far I think. My identity and its impact on others has been a lot of it.

What have I been doing lately? Most of the time, I've been coping with aforesaid disabilities, specifically Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Other than that, I've been blogging on my railroad blog as a hobby. I've been coping as my family transitions to a new family business, helping my children manage the transition and offering as much moral support as one dad in a chair can.

More recently, I've been adjusting to life with a new keyboard. I don't normally buy things so expensive, but this was an absolute necessity. For years, it has hurt to type. Really, I've needed this keyboard since 2003 or so. For a long time, I knew what I needed, but I didn't know who made it, or where to get it. Now that I have it, the knots and spasms in my upper back have had much less to complain about. They still make a fuss, but it's just not made nearly as bad as when I was using the old keyboard.


Winters are hard to endure when you have certain arthritic conditions. It's painful, and most folks don't discuss it because it's something non-arthritics can't relate to. Pain, it seems, makes more people than just the sufferer uncomfortable. What can I do, though? Ignore it? That's hard to do when you don't want to get out of bed or, worse, can't make it to bed from the chair. Still, I've opted not to blog exclusively about pain this winter because it's not all that beneficial for everyone. On the other hand, having a keyboard that helps that pain is a positive worth noticing.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, friends. I hope this keyboard lets me post more often with less pain. That, or I'll want my money back.

I Know Jesus More Today Than Yesterday

The older I get, the more central to my life Jesus becomes. Mercifully. Thankfully. It is not my good looks, my "wits" or my charm that make me or break me. It's Jesus, his message, and his mission. Paul wrote in I Corinthians 2,

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ... My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

Despite my efforts, however, I often fail. My pilgrimage, my walk "in the light" can become a dark nightmare of a journey. I have so many pits that I can fall into. Legalism can set me on a course away from the Holy Spirit. Pride can make me shine until I'm blind to everything else, even the most basic, open pit. Whenever I trip in my walk, self-pity and depression can snag my feet and pull me in. Yet God has given me tools and blessings that can defeat each one of these pits, allowing me to walk around or even above them without falling into them. His grace is undeservedly mine, but mine nonetheless. And it can be anyone's too. All we need to do is move from being a fan of Jesus towards being a follower. It's a choice we all have, each day, every day.



I need Jesus every day. I need his power to carry my cross that I bear. Others have their cross, I have mine. I don't need to nail myself to it. I just need to follow Jesus wherever he leads. As I follow, I find myself drawn closer to him, knowing both his pain and his comfort. It is not an easy, wide, smooth road. It's a narrow, jagged, rough trail. But I believe that the end is truly the beginning and it is worth all I might suffer.



Jesus of Nazareth is the very Word of God and the life we can have through him, both here and hereafter is worth the price to pay. I choose him, daily, hourly, sometimes by the minute, but I choose him because I know enough about him to trust him. He will be with me forever. How can I say no to such a wonderful offer?

Homeschool Students Continue To Pass the Test

If you're worried about whether your child will be able to go to college without a transcript from the local high school, you shouldn't be. From ACT scores to GPAs to social habits, on the whole, it seems that homeschoolers have the mastership life requires.

You have the right to educate your children at home. Although it is not for everyone, but if your child is struggling in an area, bored, or just plain unhappy with the school they're in, you owe it to your child to examine homeschooling, whether they're 4, 7, 14, or 17. Even one year can have profound results!

Remember, public schooling advocates that there is one way to teach children, and that's in the classroom. That would work if kids were standard issue pieces of inventory. Any parent can tell you that their child is as unique as they are and that they don't all learn the same way.

What magical transformation happens at 5 years old when we send them off to Kindergarten? What does a parent not have to guide their child through their education? The answers to both these questions are "Nothing." Home education was far more daunting in the 1980s when few if any curricula existed that were designed for study at home. Today, homeschooling magazines are filled with ads for curricula as diverse as the students themselves and as detailed (or not) as the parent needs.

The Old Schoolhouse is a great place to start looking into homeschool. Try "How to Homeschool," or consider attending a homeschool conference or even their online conference. It will be time well spent, because your children are worth it!



PS: But, wait! There's more! Consider,

• National Home Education Research Institute - Dr. Brian Ray shows how much better students educated at home perform when compared with their public education peers
• Take a look via MSNBC at what life is like for a homeschooling family

Trout: Are They Ticklish?

As a trout fisherman in Colorado, I've caught everything from itty-bitty brookies barely big enough to swallow the hook to mean-looking brown trout that have scarcely seen a lure in a decade to lake trout too long for most of our cooking gear. I have fished from Steamboat Springs to the Rio Grande headwaters. I have heard fish stories and I've heard true fish stories. Until recently, I considered myself a decent docent of the salmoninae family. Then I hit Wikipedia and I heard of this activity which, to my amazement, has been done since antiquity. You might say it had me reeling.

The One Thing That Changes Everything Else

I have a friend who is struggling with the doctrine and work of the Jehovah's Witnesses. I have another dear sister who is struggling--quite literally--for her life, against alcoholism. They have one common characteristic that is at the core of their respective problems.

Both have a malformed image of their Creator.

The Two Christmases of 2010

When I was in retail, it always amazed me how the last quarter of the calendar year seemed to hang in the minds of the store managers and owners. From October through December, they could expect to equal or exceed the preceding three quarters, essentially doubling their profits for the entire year. I'm not sure that this holds true across the industry, but if Christmas didn't happen for our store, we'd close our doors.

Christmastime In Our Homeschool

I posted about homeschooling during Christmastime on my Dad @ Homeschool blog. Christmastime is a wonderful time for both parents and children in our homeschool. Home education offers so much freedom compared to the rigid secularism in our schools. We can offer our children, and our God, so much more!

Messiah In the Mall

The Messiah, and the story of G. F. Handel, is an amazing testimony to God. Its "Hallelujah Chorus" has become one of the most well known classical pieces in the world. The message of the Messiah is obvious, but it consists of scripture alone. The most well-known parts are the Old Testament prophecies about Him. What an amazing work!

Organizers in Philadelphia brought this piece to life recently by staging a "random act of culture" in a department store gearing up for the Christmas rush. Complete with a pipe organ, the sound of the praises of our King, especially in a temple of materialism, is music to my ears!

Who Am I, Again?

It's beginning to look like Christmas around here. Advent has started. We're still waiting for our Advent Book on order. Tabitha's Travels is en route, I'm told.

I just had a delightful conversation with a 3 year-old. She proclaimed that Santa Claus was coming to give gifts to all the children. Of course, I pretended not to know anything about it. I asked if you had to be a certain age, which she didn't know. I asked her if she thought I could get a present too, even if I'm all grown up. Karen, my wonderful wife, chimed in, "Because he's still a kid at heart."

To which she replied, "He's not a kid! He's a boy!"

Rats.