440 | At Least We’re Trying (Sean Allen)
Show Notes:
You pretty much know where you are and where you'd like to be in your homeschool, but the space between those two places can be terribly frustrating. You've probably tried many times to build a habit or acquire a discipline that you believe would benefit your homeschool and have failed just as many times to the point that you may have given up altogether. Well, this episode is here to encourage you to keep trying. Keep trying, not only for yourself, but that your children can see the increasingly rare qualities of persistence and resilience on display.
About Sean
Sean Allen is the founder of The Well Ordered Homeschool, husband to his beautiful bride Caroline and a proud father of eight. He has a bachelor of fine arts in graphic design and is passionate about creating materials to assist parents in the incredibly challenging, yet surpassingly beautiful, work of schooling and training their children at home.
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Show Transcript:
Sean Allen Hello. Welcome to the Homeschool Solutions Show. My name is Sean Allen and I am one of the many hosts here on the podcast. Since you're listening to this, I'm guessing you already know that homeschooling is both incredibly challenging and incredibly beautiful. Every week we're here doing a little guidance, some helpful counsel, and a whole lot of encouragement your way as you navigate this busy, yet blessed journey of educating your children at home. Now, even though the show is called Homeschool Solutions, it should come as no surprise to you that we do not have the answer to every homeschool related question. But if you come away with nothing else, our hope is that today's episode will point you to Jesus Christ and that you will seek His counsel as you train your children in the way they should go.
Here's a riddle for you parents: Homeschoolers love them, enemies of freedom hate them. What are they? It's the Tuttle Twins books. With millions of copies sold, the Tuttle Twins helps you teach your kids about entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, the Golden Rule, and more. Get a discounted set of books with free workbooks—that's right, free workbooks—today at TuttleTwins.com/homeschool. That's TuttleTwins.com/homeschool. And now on to today's show.
Well, hello to everyone out there. Thank you for joining me today and welcome to another episode of the Homeschool Solutions Show. We're so glad that you're here and that you took time to join us. It is nearing the end of summer, if you can believe that. I can't. I just can't wrap my mind around it. I don't know where the time went. And I think that I'm consigned to forever be in that state where I'm wondering where the time went. It just seemed like yesterday, I guess that's cliche to say that, but that spring was here, and we were looking forward to the advent of summer and all the things that we were wanting to do, and my wife sat down it... I remember this like it was yesterday that she sat down, had a meeting with our girls and said, "What do you want to do this summer? Let's make out a list before we let the summer slip away. Let's go do some things." And so they all made their individual lists of things that they want to do. And she came to me and said, "This is what I've done." And I looked at the list and said, "It looks great." It just seems like that was yesterday and now the summer's over. How does it happen exactly? I don't know. I don't know, I wonder if there's a way to live life in such a way that the time just doesn't slip through your fingers like sand. I don't know.
But on the whole, I'd say looking back over our summer, it's been an eventful summer. It's been very productive. We got to see a lot of you out on the convention circuit, and that was wonderful. We had a great convention season. Our last one was in Texas just a few weeks back, and that was an excellent, wonderful convention. We had a great time. It wasn't so great on the way back home because our van, the rear air is out, and so we were in Texas, and it was very hot. It was like 95 to 100 all the way back home. And our poor children in the back, they were just sweating so bad. And they got very cranky, as you can well imagine. We pulled into a Walmart and bought, an electric fan because we can plug into the front of our van. We set that on the center console and tried to push air back to our children. It looked ridiculous, but it was the best that we could do. We made it. And my goodness, it's been quite the whirlwind.
So now here we are at the end of summer. Some of you have already started school. Some of you are about to start school. You're gearing up and getting ready for it. That's very exciting. I hope that you're excited. I hope that you're hopeful for the days ahead in your home school. If you're a first time homeschooler and you've never done this before, I can't imagine how excited you are. Maybe a little nervous as well, uncertain as to what it's going to look like. Well, all I could say is God bless you and welcome. Welcome! It's gonna be quite the journey. You are going to have quite the time. It's going to be wonderful. There's going to be so many challenges and so many bumps along the way. It's going to be hard. You're going to have very difficult days. But on the whole, I think you're going to look at it and say, "This is more than worth it. Why haven't I done this sooner?" Unless your children have been of age, that makes sense. But it's going to be great. You're going to do great. Despite what the world or what your family members or your friends or whoever, what they're telling you, you're going to do great. You were made to do this. And I'm not talking about educating your children at home, I'm meaning love your children. You were created to love them and to give them your very best. That's what you were made to do. And this is just part and parcel to that. Homeschooling is smaller. It's lesser than you loving your children. The greatest aspect of your relationship with them is your willingness to love them and to lay your life down for them. And part and parcel to that is educating them at home.
Now, some of you can't do that. There's some people out there that can't for a number of various reasons. There are some people who claim that they can't, but they actually can, and they could if they put in the effort, but we're not here to talk about that today. But there are some who cannot. But nevertheless, I still do not think that that belies the fact, or does not deny the fact that they were created to love their children and to do their very best by them. And that's what you're trying to do. So congratulations to you first time homeschool moms, homeschool parents out there. God bless you. God bless you in the coming year. May he guide you, may he direct you, may he open your eyes to vistas of potential that you have not even imagined yet as to what your homeschool experience could look like, or where it's going to take you, or how it's going to cause your children to grow and to flourish in ways that are not yet realized, not yet seen, or as I said, imagined. That's very exciting. So very exciting. And for those of you who have been doing this — this is year two, this is year five, this is year 18, whatever it is — God bless you as well. And thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for sticking in there doing this year in and day out... Year in and... It is year in and day out, isn't it? That's a good way of putting it. Year in and year out, day by day, through the thick of the thin, not an easy thing that you have done, or that you are doing. In the least bit, it is not easy. If it's easy, I've got to know your secret. I've never known anybody who has done this and said that it's easy. I've known many people who have said it's worth it though.
And so thank you for that. And continuing to build your tower, as it says in the scriptures, and you want to see that through to the end. You want to ask yourself at the start of your journey, whether it is your first year or it's the start of a new year, and you've been doing this for many years, you want to ask yourself, do I have sufficient to finish this tower? Can I see this thing through to the end? Lest unhappily all of the passers on who are looking on the construct that you are currently working on, they see it in its unfinished state and they mock you. And they say, "This person was able to begin to build, but not to finish." And so this is the start of that journey for all of us, again in many ways, and we want to see it through to the end. We want to cross the finish line with as much strength and vigor as we possibly can. We're going to be tired. We're going to be dragging a little bit. The pace most likely will not be the same pace that you started out with, because everybody's excited to get out of the gate. And when the gun goes off, everybody starts running. The pace does not accurately reflect the pace that we're probably going to be carrying at the end of the race, but nevertheless, we can and should and will make it to the end of the race. And we're going to cross the finish line and we're going to look back and we're going to be very tired. We're going to be winded. We need to catch our breath, but we're going to say in a very short period of time, probably shorter than what you would expect, you're going to say, "You know what, I want to do that again.". And that's the beauty of it. Doesn't make sense, it's a paradoxical thing. You're giving of your life. You're laying your life down for your children, which there are a few things in life that are more beautiful than that and are more worthwhile, and that produce better things. There are few things in this life that you can compare that with. So hang in there. It's a very exciting time. Very exciting time.
Here's the thing — you are going to fail this year at some point in time. Here's the other thing — you're probably going to fail a lot. You're going to fail often. You're going to fail daily. And that's hard to think about. For those of you who have been doing this for some time, you already know this. You're well acquainted with how prone you are to fail. And that's a discouraging thing. It's a hard pill to swallow, but that should not deter you from continuing onward. And that's the point of today's episode, or that I'd like to bring to you is this notion that, hey, at least we're trying. And that might not sound like much to you, but it's a lot. There's a lot to that, and that is very valuable. That's very beautiful. At least you're trying.
You know where I got this? The thought for this episode was... Here recently, we had a family meeting. And by the way, if you don't know what a family meeting is, it's exactly what it sounds like it is — it's a meeting of your family. You're getting together, and you're talking about the day. Doing this on as frequent a basis as you possibly can. Daily, I would recommend. At least five times a week would be nice. Usually at the beginning of the day is a good time for it. Gathering everybody into the living room or around the kitchen table or wherever you're going to have your family meeting and you're lining out the day. Doesn't have to take long. Five minutes, ten minutes, 15 minutes, and then you're off to the races. But that is a good place for you to just kind of ground everybody and get everybody onto the same page, and then you scatter and you go your separate ways, so to speak. And you know, your 16 year old is doing her schoolwork and your 11 year old is doing his schoolwork and so on and so forth. And you're doing what you need to do, and you've got some order there. You've got a grounding activity or centralized event that kind of helps to bring everybody together and then you can go off from there.
Well, that's what we were doing that. I hope that didn't sound too complicated. It's not complicated at all. It's a perfect time for devotions. It's a perfect time for singing a hymn. It's an excellent time to start your day with a prayer, at least. Like I said, this doesn't have to be long, but have a prayer and go over the day's events, and then off you go. So that's what we were doing recently one morning. We haven't been as consistent with this as I would like, but we keep coming back to it. At least we're trying. Okay? Because it would be easy for me to set on here and to say, "Oh, we're good at this and we're good at that, and you all should be good at it, too." And there are areas I think that we're doing relatively well in. There's other areas that need a lot of work. And if I were to just come on here and talk to you about the things that we're doing well, that's going to have the effect of probably discouraging you and depressing you and making you feel as if, well, I'm the only one that doesn't excel in that area. That's not true, because there are many other areas I... I have every confidence that for those of you who are listening, there are areas in your life where you are strong and you're doing well. You are uniquely blessed and gifted in particular areas where my family, for instance, would suffer. And we have a deficiency in.
And so I don't want you to listen to this and think, oh, well, they have family meetings on a routine basis and we've never had one family meeting, and so what's wrong with us? No, don't think that. I am making a recommendation. This is a plug for family meetings. I think they've been good for us. And I think they'll be good for you, too. But if you're not doing them, you know, just start. And there's no better time to start than at the beginning of the school year, I will mention that as well. And start, and you'll do it for a little while, and you'll think, this is great, and then something will knock you off the horse, but keep trying. At least you're trying. And that's where this came from here recently. Another one of our family meetings, I said, "Hey, we’ve got to get together. We got to talk through some stuff and we got some stuff that we need to work on." And so we are... Here, I'll give you a deficiency here. I'll just put this out on the airwaves — we do not do well with getting to bed on time and getting up on time. We have not been... Oh my goodness, that's putting it lightly. We're just not good at that. It's an area that I very much want to be good at, but for whatever reason, we just haven't been able to make it click. And maybe some of you all don't struggle with that. Maybe others of you do.
Well, we had a meeting about that and I said... Actually, Caroline and I went on a little trip. I just had a two year tenure as the pastor of our local church. And I was going to roll off of that time because it's a volunteer position and that's going to end in September. And so Caroline and I said, "You know, it'd be nice to go away and just have some time together." So it was Caroline and myself and Lillian, little Lillian came along with us, of course, because she's five months old. And we went and found an Airbnb, and we had a nice time, and we were sitting and we had lots of discussions about things that... Because, you know, you get into life and you don't even talk anymore sometimes. I mean, you're talking, but you're putting out fires basically. You're talking about things that must be talked about and discussed because of the urgency of the hour or the minute or what have you. But you're not talking about those other issues that are still ongoing, but they need attention. They're deeper issues that need more than just, you know, a passing glance. And so you tend to put those on the back burner or just shelve them. Put them in a box high on a shelf if you follow the analogy.
And so those were some of the things that we wanted to talk about on this trip. And this was one of them — getting to bed on time, getting up on time. And why do we want to do that? Well, it's not because we think it's some kind of, idyllic, you know, classical discipline that the ancients used to practice. I mean, if they did practice it, there's probably a good reason for it (and they did, by the way). But there's there's other reasons for that besides just the disciplinarian benefits of it. We want to do this because we recognize that it's good for our home. We could see how we would benefit from order in this area of our life, so we talked about it and I said, "We really need to work on this." And she's like, "Yeah, I know, I know." And you know, having a newborn complicates things. And having a wide age range complicates things. There are so many things that I could throw up as excuses as to why we're not good, but the point is, we need to be better and we need to get this hammered down. And so we talked it through and we...
Well, let me go a little deeper with this. I remember when we were, oh, probably had been married 4 or 5 years, and we were struggling with this back then. We had two children, and it was really getting to me. I thought, we need to do better at this. And so I called at the time, I didn't know that this is what it was, but at the time, it was maybe the first family meeting we ever had. And Israel our second was very young. I don't even think that he would have been able to participate in this meeting at all. But my oldest son could have because he was old enough. And of course, there was Caroline. I called this meeting and I tried to make it very official. It's kind of silly looking back on it, but I surprised them. I put up a whiteboard in the living room, and I told Caroline, "Let's have a meeting." And we put some chairs in the living room, and she was in her chair and she was with the children and probably had had Moziah in her lap. And I went into the other room and I put on a suit and I came out and she looked at me like, whoa, what's this all about? Well, I was trying to send a message that this is very serious, you know. And looking back on it, it looks a little ridiculous.
But at least I was trying, right? That's what I was doing. I was trying to communicate the importance of this discipline in our lives and I was very serious. And I probably, I'm almost sure, I put something up there that was probably a ridiculous bar to attempt to obtain. As far as, like, what time are we getting up and what time are we going to bed? It probably was not very reasonable or realistic, but there it was. I don't know what it was at the time. I'm just assuming that knowing myself back then. And since then, we've had many meetings about this, and we've gradually raised the bar as far as what time to get up, and lowered the bar as far as what time to go to bed. But we're not doing that to necessarily say, "Well, we really would like to stay up later. We would really like to get up later." It's more like realizing what we're capable of. And you could set high bars but the issue with that is consistency oftentimes. You might be able to do it for a couple of days or maybe even a week, but then something's going to happen and you cannot keep getting up at 4:30 a.m. every morning. Believe me, I've tried.
So over the years, we have gradually raised that bar to make it, you know, easier to reach for and to attain. And in our discussion, when Caroline and I took our time away, she set out a time and she said, "Well, I think we should get up at this time." And I said, "Honey, that's nice." Which I mean, the roles have really reversed here. It used to be the opposite. I used to be me pushing for some... This wasn't silly — the time that she recommended, by the way, but I would push for some silly time and Caroline's like, "Oh honey, that's... Are you serious?" I'm like, "Yes. That's very important. It needs to be this time." And of course, she turned out to be correct about that. And this time the rules reversed. She threw out of time, and I said, "You know that's not going to happen. It might happen for a little while, but it's not going to happen on a consistent basis." She said, "You're right." And the times that we're coming up with seem... Depending on who you are, they might seem a little silly as far as being too late. And I'm not going to say what the time is, but for us, we've got to set a time that we can actually be consistent with. And it's going to be an improvement on what we have been doing. You know what I'm saying? At least we're trying.
And, you know, you can read a blog or read a book or hear a podcast of, you know, somebody say, "Well, we get up at 6 a.m. every morning, our family's up," and you might think, "Wow, what is wrong with me? What is wrong with us?" And, you know, maybe that family's been doing that and maybe they haven't for very long. I'm also amused at how often it seems to be that there are young parents with one child or two children or three who are going about this, and they've got these routines and they've got these disciplines and they've got this order in their lives which is admirable, and yet it's not reflective of maybe what your situation is in your home. If you have one more child than what they have, that dynamic is instantly different. Okay? And so we have nine. And we often meet families who say, "Well, we have ten" and "we have 12" and so that dynamic is different. And so what we're dealing with and what you're dealing with is most likely two different things.
And aside from the number of children, there are so many other elements that go into defining the dynamics of our lives. And so you've got to be careful with that in the comparison trap. Okay? Some of these things are worthy to reach for and yet they might be unrealistic. They might not be something that are attainable for you just yet. Maybe you want to reach for a lower bar and there's nothing wrong with that. At least you're trying. Okay, so somebody says 6:00 and you get depressed because, oh, not only could I not do that, I don't think I want to do that. Okay, well is it so bad if yours is 8:00? 8:30? 9:00? Is it better than what you were doing? Is it 7:00? Is it 7:30? I don't know. There's all these times in the morning and I've known families that are very consistent with getting up on time, and the time is relatively early. I've also known families that get up around 11 on a consistent basis. And so that might not be something that they're proud of, but, you know, who am I to judge? We have to judge as to what is best for our family.
Now, I would like to put out there that earlier times are generally better, almost always better. And I think that there's scriptural wisdom attached to that. And so we should try to heed that as best that we can. But, you know, if you've been get up at 11:00 and now suddenly we're going to set this goal of 7:00, that's probably not going to happen. You know, that bar is too high. You need to start somewhere in between. And so that's what we were doing. Caroline threw out a time and I said, "You know that's not going to happen. We're not accustomed to that. Let's set this time." And she goes, "Oh my goodness, that's too late." And I'm like, "Honey, that's better than what we've been doing. You know, let's start somewhere that's more attainable." And so she agreed to that. We got home and we said, "Let's have this meeting and let's talk about this." And the meeting was late in the day. It was late in the morning, I guess I should say. And, you know, that bothers me, but at least I'm trying. At least we're trying.
And so we got into the meeting and I said, "This is what mom and I talked about, and we really want to do a better job of this." And our oldest daughter is all on board. She's not the best at practicing, but she has her heart in the right place, and she knows what we should be doing. And she's like, "Oh, yes, please. Why are we always up so late? Why are we always getting up late? It bothers me so much." And she really wants to be a disciplined person and she tries, hard. But unfortunately she's surrounded by people who aren't trying is hard. And that drags you down, doesn't it? When your peers, you know, aren't making the same sacrifices or they don't see the same value proposition that you do in, you know, various things. And so that kind of tends to drag you down. And that's the way that it is with our oldest daughter. And I feel bad for her, but she's trying. And so she said, "Oh yeah, that's what we really need to be doing." And everybody's rolling their eyes at her like, oh, calm down. Is it really that big of a deal? Because some of the little girls are like, "I like getting up late." You know, they like sleeping in as long as they possibly can in their warm, snuggly beds.
And then I've got a daughter who, you know, if you let her, would probably just read all the time. And so when she gets up and everybody else is still snoozing, she gets up at, you know, a halfway decent hour. Well, that's her quiet time and she can just read, read, read, read. And so getting up earlier interrupts that time and she wouldn't have that anymore. And so she was... I'm not going to mention her by name, but she was not convinced. Let's just put it that way. And she resisted this newfound push, you know, to try to go to bed on time, get up on time. And this is what she said. She said... well, she was kind of moping and had her head buried in her arms on the side of the couch. And, Caroline picked up on this, and she said, "What's wrong? What's wrong with you over there?" She goes, "Nothing." And I said, "Are you not on board with this, or is this not something that you're interested in?" She says, "No, we're never going to do this. Do you know how many times we've had these meetings where we've talked about improving this or improving that, and we always fail, and this isn't going to be any different. We're going to fail this time, too." And that's when I said to her, "Well, at least we're trying."
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And that is something that is going to be so crucial for you in the coming year and in the years ahead, is that you show your children that you are trying. And you can say that to them. You don't have to say it in a dismissive manner. You don't have to say it in a way that's abrasive. But you just say to them, you're pleading with them, "At least we're trying." And that is most of life, folks. It's most of life. All right, here's the thing. It's almost certain. I don't know who you are, if you're a superhuman or you know, someone who is head and shoulders above the rest of us. But I'm guessing that you're probably not, that you're like the rest of us, and that you have a pretty good idea of where you are. You know, the kind of person that you are and the the level that you've attained unto in various areas with respect to your character, with respect to your discipline, your habits and just the general makeup of who you are. You have a decent idea of that. You also have a decent idea of who you could be, where you could be. That area or that level of attainment in various areas of your character and your habits and your disciplines and so on and so forth. Your general makeup, as a person of where you could be. You've got that in your head and you can't stop thinking about it. It just will not let you go. Some of it might be unrealistic and some of it is probably informed by the influence and the information that is fed to you by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is calling to you, whoever you are, calling you by name and saying, "I'm calling you to this place on the mountain. I'm calling you up higher than where you are." And you have again, an idea, probably a vague idea of what that looks like. But what you do know for certain is that it's higher. It's at a higher location than what you currently displace.
So you have a pretty good idea of those things, but, you know, a large portion of, I believe, our life's frustration is found in the space between those two places. The place is being where you are now and where you could be. There's a great deal of frustration in the Gulf that separates those two locations. And so if that's true for you, it's also going to be true for your children. And we talk a good game and we like to listen to other people talk a good game because, you know, anybody who's successful in any area... And I'm not saying that they shouldn't, they should. They absolutely should. And I'm glad that they do, because when they've reached a certain level of attainment that is higher than the general public has attained unto, then that makes them something of an expert. It makes them someone that we seek unto for their expertise and for them to lay out for us. Well, how is it that we, you know, that we make our first million? How is it that you, you know, that you remodel a house? How is it that you cook this particular dish? How is it that you raise a three year old? You know, things like that, and you listen to people like that, and of course they're going to talk about it because they've had some level of success. But that doesn't mean that they've had success in every area of their life.
The person that you're listening to, who's telling you how to make your first million probably isn't doing a great job... I shouldn't say that, but there's a good chance that they're not doing a great job at, you know, tending to their family. I don't want to step on any toes there because I'm sure there's many millionaires out there who have more money than they know what to do with who have excellent families. But as is often the case, you will find that people who are staking their value, their intrinsic value in life on their net worth or in being productive or successful in business, oftentimes they have sacrificed in other areas of their life. And sometimes that area is in their family and you can see it. Okay? So in other words, you don't want the multi-millionaire or the billionaire necessarily giving you advice as to how to raise your children. Conversely, so-called experts in parenting and rearing children probably aren't the richest people in the world. You wouldn't want them giving you business advice. Not always the case, but we're not all experts in every area, is the point. Okay? I'm not on make your first million podcasts. Nobody's asking me to talk to you about that because I wouldn't be the person to listen to.
And so we've got this space of frustration between am and could be. And your children are going to be like that, too. And you're not excelling in every area of your life. But you've recognized that there are certain areas of your life that are non-negotiable. You have to at least try in the hopes that you will one day succeed. And your children need to see you keep trying and falling and trying and falling and trying and falling and trying. And I don't have enough time on the podcast to continue saying that, because that's probably your life's experience in areas of your life — that you've failed more times than you can count but you keep getting back up because you know it's important and that you have to eventually, at one point in time, find a relative degree of success in this area of your life because it's too important. You cannot cut it out. Disciplines with regards to your home life are one of those areas because there's so much riding on it. That's why my daughter has rightfully recognized that we've had these discussions so many times about going to bed on time and getting up on time. She's rightly recognized that we often have that discussion. Well, we wouldn't be having that discussion if we didn't fail so often, but here's the bright side of that is we have failed so many times because we continue trying. We keep giving it another go. Why do we keep doing that? Because it's important. So, you know, multiple failures in a particular area of your life or your character or your life's disciplines or your habits or whatever it might be is a very discouraging thing, and it's hard to bear. But here's the flip side of it that I think should encourage us all — it's also a sign that it's something that's important to us. We have recognized the value of that area of our life. And whether it's habits with regards to things that we ingest into our body, whether it's habits with regards to getting up, going to bed, habits with regards to what we watch, what we listen to, habits with regards to any number of other things, multiple failures denotes the fact that it is indeed important to us and that we care.
So I'm not wanting to diminish the fact that it is also very discouraging, but there is a side of this that should lighten your heart a bit. And that's what I was trying to communicate to my daughter, is that at least we're trying. And you don't want to devolve into this, you know, this cynical morass of lethargy. You know what I'm saying? Where you get so discouraged about something that you just quit and that there's something gnawing on you, and there's this inescapable downward pull of a particular message that is being played on repeat in your mind, and it goes something like this, "You can't win. You can't win." It's this constant reprieve of in the end, you're going to lose. What is the point? And I could tell you one thing with a great deal of confidence — that message has not come from God. That is not what God is telling you. That is not his voice. So you may be hearing that and it might be stuck in your own mind, or it might be put there by the adversary himself, or there might be individuals in your life who are doing the adversary's bidding and telling you that, but that is not God. That message is not from him. What God is telling you most likely is, "Thank you for trying." And if you will give yourself over to the trying and to the recognition that trying is an evidence of importance and value, you give yourself over to that, probably what it also means is eventual, ultimate success. That's what you're reaching for. Why would you try if you didn't think you could?
So I'm asking you to tune out the voices that are dragging you down and telling you that it's of no use. You're never going to win. You might as well just give it up now. You might as well just get up whenever you want and go to bed whenever you want. You might as well just eat whatever you want. You might as well just watch whatever you want. You might as well stay home from church every Sunday. You might as well... You know, we could go on and on and on with these things. The things that you are struggling with, you might as well just get sucked down the social media feed multiple times a day on a daily basis for the rest of your life, because what's the use? That's who you are. There's another part of you, there is another spirit that is calling to you and is saying to you, "That is not who you are. That is not who you're destined to be." And if you don't stand up in the life of your children and continue to issue this message on a consistent basis in their life, the message being, "At least we're trying and trying to know its value." If you do not stand up and send that message to them, then who is? Who's going to? Put another way, If we stop trying or if we stop working, what is the consequence of that? The world seems determined to create and promote a condition where in the answer to that question is, "Nothing." And that is an utter falsehood and a lie. Do you hear what I'm saying?
It used to be not that many years ago but certainly in our parents and even more certainly in our grandparents era, you know, not trying, not working had very real, almost immediate consequences. Like, you had to go to work and you had to work hard because if you didn't work hard, there was somebody waiting in the wings that would be all too happy to take your place in the working world. Which meant, you know, the immediate consequence of that is that there's no more income and you're going to starve and you don't have shelter and so on and so forth. And so you worked because there were consequences attached to not working and not trying. Now, increasingly, as time goes on, and particularly in this era, it seems as if society is trying to create a world in which not trying, not working, results in no consequences or few consequences, or consequences that they want to medicate away or deceive you into thinking that are not actually consequences. And so we could sit around and do whatever, and we could just be lazy and shiftless and ultimately worthless, and somebody is going to be there to pick up the slack or to catch you when you fall, and the consequences are few. And you don't want that in your home. I think that's what my daughter was kind of succumbing to in that moment. It's like, "What's the use? We're just going to fail again."
Well, I want you to hear this whole sentence. Okay? You need to fail in your home, and you need to keep trying. You do not need to try to fail, but you will fail. And when you fail, you need to keep trying and your children need to see that. They need to see you reaching for the higher bar because the world is not going to put that on display for them in any real or in any meaningful way, I guess I should say. Because again, they're working very hard at doing away with that economy. And it's just a fantasy land. So you need to put that on display in your home. The failure is going to come. That's just kind of built in to our nature. Some areas you're going to do great at. You're just going to do great. And other people are going to look on and they're going to respect you and they're going to try to model their lives after you because of those areas in which you're uniquely strong. And then there's other areas in which you're going to fail, and you're going to be the one looking on to other families and try to model them and trying to reach for that bar. But the bar is not resident in what you see in other families. I think that it can be reflected, but it's not resident. It's resident in the calling of the Holy Spirit in your life, because God knows the place where he wants you to be. I don't know where you need to be and other people that you listen to and try to emulate don't necessarily know, and their lives do not approximate precisely where you should be. I don't know if I should have used approximate and precisely in the same sentence, but I think you know what I'm driving at.
You can get a general idea from watching other people and listening to other people, but ultimately it is the voice of the spirit that's calling you to a very precise place on the mountain. It was carved out of the mountain for you, and it's sitting there waiting for you, and it's waiting for your family. It's waiting for your children, and you need to climb there together, and you're going to stumble and fall, and you're going to grab a rock, and it's going to be loose, and you're going to tumble down a little ways, and you're going to maybe sometimes lose a lot of the ground that you've gained, but you know what? You stand up and you brush yourself off. You tend to your injuries and then you climb again. And your children need to see that. And homeschooling is just an excellent place for that scenario to play itself out over and over and over again. Again, we're not looking for opportunities to fail. It's just going to happen by reason of our very nature. But the beauty comes in the trying and trying and trying and trying again. At least we're trying. When so many people around you are failing and not trying, you need to be the exception to that and your children need to see it.
So, you cannot quit. You must keep reaching and, you know, consistency in life and certainly homeschooling is a part of life. Consistency. Routine. Order. Habit. The feeling of security that comes from knowing what comes next. Your children need that, too. There's a feeling of security that comes from knowing what is next. And if you don't have that, like what we struggle with it because when you're self-employed and you're homeschooling, when you're doing both of those things, there's a lot of uncertainty as to what comes next because you're kind of making it up as you go along. So you've got to do the best that you can to try to provide that base of security for your children. I could talk about that longer, but we're out of time. At least you're trying. And keep trying. All through this year, it'll be a huge blessing to you. The exercise that comes from that and the strength that comes from that exercise cannot be found anywhere else. And so don't give up. Don't get discouraged. You know, tune out those voices that are telling you that you can't win, that you're never going to get there. You need to listen to the voice that says that, "Not only can you, but you will. You will." You listen to that voice and you will find yourself in that place. Maybe the tip top peak of the mountain one day. That is my hope and my prayer for you. I want to thank you for your time and again, thank you very much for what you're doing. May God bless you in the coming days, and I very much look forward to talking to you again soon. So goodbye for now.
Thank you for joining us this week on the Homeschool Solutions Show. You can find show notes and links to all the resources mentioned at Homeschooling.mom. Don't forget to check out my friends at Medi-Share because you deserve health care you can trust. To learn more about Medi-Share and why over 400,000 Christians have made the switch, go to GreatHomeschoolConventions.com/Medi-Share. That's GreatHomeschoolConventions.com/Medi-Share. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. And while you're there, leave us a review. Tell us what you love about the show. This will help other homeschooling parents like you get connected to our community. And finally, tag us on Instagram @homeschooling.mom to let us know what you thought of today's episode. Have you joined us at one of the Great Homeschool Conventions? The Great Homeschool Conventions are the Homeschooling events of the year offering outstanding speakers, hundreds of workshops covering today's top parenting and homeschooling topic, and the largest homeschool curriculum exhibit halls in the US. Find out more at GreatHomeschoolConventions.com. I'll be there. I hope to see you there too.
