Wednesday 17 September 2008

Happy Bloggy Birthday

Today this blog is officially one year old. Hooray! My first post was very short, unlike so many of the later ones.

I thought for my birthday post I might go back and comment again on my purpose in home educating our four kids.

As you can see under our home school crest, our purpose is "Equipping the children of our family to do the good works which God has prepared in advance for them to do", which is taken from Ephesians 2:10. This verse is referring to good works which God has foreordained for the lives of any of our children who, by the grace of God, become Christians. It is God's workmanship which ultimately will enable my children to do good works, because apart from the regeneration of God they are unable to do any good thing (Romans 3:12).

Therefore, it might seem strange and even presumptuous to plan to have any role in equipping my children for such holy service. Yet it is true in all things, that while God is sovereign, He chooses to work through human hands to achieve His purposes. (For an example, read Judges 9.) And so I home school in the knowledge that God is using me to form and shape my children into the people He wants them to be. They are His workmanship, but He is using me to mold them. They will do good in their lives according to the plan He has for them, but they will do so using the skills, knowledge, understanding and wisdom they gained from me as their teacher. I am thankful that God has chosen me for this task. And a little in awe.

Those days when I think things are difficult and we're not getting anywhere, it helps to realise the real Head Teacher of Equip Academy is the LORD Almighty. I am so thankful and glad He's in charge.

PS Happy Bloggy birthday to Amy at Veritas at Home as well!

(picture from sxc.hu)

6 comments:

argsmommy said...

Well said!

Mrs. Edwards said...

Would you believe that my first blog post was also on September 17, '07? I had to go back and check to be sure, because I hadn't thought about a year passing already until I read this post.

What a funny coincidence!

Sharon said...

Well happy bloggy birthday to your blog as well Mrs Edwards!
~ Sharon

Mrs. Edwards said...

It is so humbling to think that we are shaping our children for service in Christ's kingdom. I actually feel completely incapable of the task and often pray, "Lord, I'm inadequate, forgive me failings!"

Thank you for this reminder that, in fact, I am not the head teacher at all, but merely an obedient servant.

Serving along with you--
Amy

Anonymous said...

Happy Bloggiversary!!
We went and saw the dead whale that washed up on Sorrento Beach this morning. The kids did a sketch each, complete with shark bites. Luckily the smell of a decomposing whale carcass was not too bad!

Bec :-)

PS: What made you think of Judges 9... :-)

Sharon said...

Rebecca,

We missed out on the whale, but there were some great pictures here of the whale on the beach: http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/large-gallery/0,25537,5034574-5013959,00.html,
and here of the whale being lifted out by crane: http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22164947-2761,00.html.

(This last link includes some absolutely hysterical historical footage of some engineers who thought if they couldn't pick a dead whale up whole to bury, they'd just have to blow it up for the seagulls to feed on... It didn't quite go as planned!)

~ Sharon