HS #281 Homeschooling in the Middle of a Storm with Guest Ruth Schwenk
Links and Resources:
Show Notes:
Ruth Schwenk is the founder of The Better Mom blog and best-selling author of a number of books, including The Better Mom Devotional. Most recently, she and her husband, Patrick, co-authored In a Boat In The Middle of a Lake: Trusting the God who meets us in the storm. Together, Ruth and Patrick are also hosts of the Rootlike Faith Podcast.
In a Boat In The Middle of a Lake: Trusting the God who meets us in the storm.
3 Simple Steps to Help You Get Through This
3 Simple Steps to Help Your Friend Get Through This
If they need ideas of Scripture to turn to right now---30 Scriptures for Hope in Hard Times
Show Transcript:
HS EP 281
Wendy -
Hello and welcome back to another installment of the Homeschool Solutions Show. My name is Wendy Speake, and I am one of the many hosts we have here on the podcast. Each week you'll hear from one of us inviting one of our friends to join for a conversation about this busy blessed season as we educate our children at home.
Now, the title of the show is Homeschool Solutions. While we don't have the answer to every question, we know that all the solutions to every stress and every struggle can be found in the Person and presence of Jesus Christ and His living and active and applicable Word. We are so glad that you're here to join us for today's conversation. But before we start the show, I'd like to thank our sponsor.
Medi-Share. An affordable and Biblical health care alternative. Find out more at mychristiancare.org for their ongoing support of homeschooling families just like yours.
And now, on today's show.
Well, half a dozen years ago I was speaking at the Great Homeschool Conventions on the topic of mommy anger and how it rears its ugly head during our homeschooling days. All of my talks actually focused on pinpointing our triggers so that we could recognize what it was that was causing us to react in anger rather than respond in loving kindness. Most of the triggers have to do with our children's behavior. They meltdown so we meltdown. They whine and complain or throw a fit and we respond in like. But some of our most complicated triggers have to do entirely with us as moms. As women. Goodness, as humans.
When life gets hard, when the storms of life rise up, it's so hard to stay calm and kind and consistent with our children. All those years ago at the Great Homeschool Convention, another speaker who I knew casually came up to me and asked if I could take over for one of her talks. A family emergency had arisen and she needed some help and the topic that she was supposed to speak on that had been advertised was homeschooling in the midst of trauma.
While I didn't have experience with the topic, I felt the Lord give me a heart to serve the women who showed up to that message. If you've ever been to one of the Great Homeschool Conventions, then you know that these breakout sessions are massive. They're held in great big conference rooms. They can fit hundreds, if not thousands of people, but at the start of that hour-long session, only five or six women scattered throughout the massive room showed up and sat down.
You may or may not also know that the Great Homeschool Convention records every message and makes them available for people to purchase. So, I did two unusual things at the start of that time together. First, I told the audio engineer that he could take the hour off because we weren't going to be recording this message. And then I invited those few precious hurting homeschooling moms to come up front. We grabbed chairs and we formed a little circle. And then we spent the next hour sharing our heartaches and struggles with one another and laying hands on each other as we prayed together.
It ended up being a powerful time and I'm hoping that this podcast conversation will encourage you in a similar way. Today's guest is Ruth Schwenk. Ruth is a homeschooling Mom of four kiddos and she is the founder of The Better Mom Blog. We'll ask her about that when she's sharing with us. She's also the best-selling author of The Better Mom Devotional and many other titles. But today we're going to talk with her about her latest book that she co-authored with her husband and it is simply entitled, In a Boat in the Middle of a Lake Trusting God Who Meets Us in the Storm.
And so, with no further ado, let me welcome Ruth to the Home school Solutions show. Hi, Ruth.
Ruth -
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Wendy. This is so fun.
Wendy -
Well, I'm really glad that you're here, and I think it's going to be a good time for us. And I was just talking to my son this morning who has to spend some time with a counselor because he's been struggling emotionally, and he said I don't want to go. Why would I want to go? That's gonna hurt. And I remember when I went to therapy there was a sign over my therapist's door. And it said this is gonna hurt before it feels better. And I just have a sense that we're going to go to some hurting places today and we're going to have a really fruitful conversation.
So, would you start things off by just sharing who you are? What your life is about, who your kiddos are? Maybe how you got into ministry. Maybe something about how you chose to homeschool. I mean, you just take it up from there.
R -
Oh now, where do I begin, right?
W -
Okay, introduce yourself and your family and tell us about your homeschooling journey.
How about that first?
R -
Okay, I got it. Well, like you said, my name is Ruth Schwenk and I am a homeschooling mom of four kids. So, my oldest is eighteen, so he's actually graduated. And then I have a sixteen-year-old, a fourteen-year-old. I always have to pause you guys and I'm sure that other moms can understand this. I'm always like, wait, how old are my kids? And then my youngest is eleven. She'll be twelve in a few months, so.
We are, I'm in online ministry. I started a blog like you mentioned called TheBetterMom.com about ten years ago now. And...
W -
That's like old-school blogging.
R -
I know it's crazy. And so, I've been in online ministry for that long and also authoring books that kind of all came out of that. And then we're, I'm also in...my husband's a pastor so we're in local church ministry as well and had them for about twenty years. And so, I guess that's about it in a really short, in a few sentences. There's a lot more I could say, but that's a little bit about.
W -
Okay, well that's a good start. Tell me how you, why did you decide to homeschool?
R -
You know what? We met a couple years ago, who I just loved their family. I've so looked up to them. Their kids just were amazing, and they homeschooled. And I was not homeschooled. I didn't start following Christ until I was in high school. And so that was my first experience I guess with somebody who homeschooled and, I'm trying to remember, I don't think we had any kids at the time. But it turned me on to just this whole idea of, you know, of homeschooling. And so then, when my oldest Tyler was ready for kindergarten, we really. I mean, that's kind of. I was like, well, let's try this homeschooling thing. And so that's kind of honestly, we've home-schooled the whole time.
There were a couple, two years where we had this unique opportunity for my two oldest kids to go to a Jewish school. I know it's, so, and to learn Hebrew. And it was an incredible opportunity. It was an amazing experience. So, they did do that for two years, but other than that we have basically homeschooled throughout.
W -
All right, all right. Okay, well you have a lovely family and there have been many blessings and are many blessings in your life. But in recent years, well and longer than recent years, your marriage has endured some pretty tough seasons, multiple miscarriages, and most recently Patrick's cancer diagnosis. How did that diagnosis unfold?
R -
Well, a few years, that, let me think, about four years ago he just wasn't feeling well. He actually had a hurt hip and he, I think went to play. He was playing basketball or something and then it really hurt. You know, had kind of been bothering him for a while. And so that led him to get some testing done on his hip, which then led to them finding a lesion which then led to about three years ago them finding, sorry, diagnosing him with blood cancer.
You know when you were sharing, when you were talking, in the beginning about the women gathering around and praying for them. That really, I could just picture that because there are, I think there's anything we've learned in this is that there are so many people that are suffering.
W -
Yeah.
R -
And, so, sorry I entered emotionally into this. I've talked about it so many times and not that emotional. But as soon as I start to think about the other people...
W -
Yeah.
R -
...they're facing, you know, unimaginable circumstances that I probably you know, maybe can't even identify with. You know it really, it gets me because I know what it's like to feel like, oh my word, this could not be happening.
W -
Yeah. And so, how did this play out after that diagnosis? And just, you know, I remember. I remember so clearly the first couple of posts. Okay, there's a lesion. We're going to go back for more testing. You know they told us this could be bad news, so could you just be praying for us? I mean, I remember those early, I remember those early videos and updates on social media when you were rallying the troops for prayer.
R -
Yeah, and so let, you know, once he was, when he was diagnosed, then they, you know, of course, there's so much waiting and people who have been through this will understand that a week feels like three years. But there's so much waiting as you're waiting for results and different things. And it was, of course, shocking at first, like I said, where you just, you can't even believe this is happening to you. But as it played out and we were able to see the Doctor and the specialist and, that brought us hope, I guess. in the midst of what seemed just crazy, you know, like how can, like I said, you want to be like no, no, no, no. I don't want to do this. I don't want to go through this. You know you feel like you don't have time for something like that. I know that sounds so, you know, like why would you even say that? But that's honestly like I don't want to learn about this world and I don't have time for this. I mean, we have, like you said, like I said earlier, we have four kids and he….
W -
Ain't nobody got time for this.
R -
No, I mean we can't do this, but yeah, that's...
W -
Well, that's really my next question is, how did you manage to lead your family during that season? I mean it, one foot in front of the other and your eyes on Christ. But what did that look like? How did you include the kids? One of the thoughts that I'm having, Ruth, is as homeschooling moms, man, we're always looking for the right piece of curriculum, right? Like we just want, whether it's sending them to the Hebrew school so that they can, Jewish school so they can learn Hebrew. Like we're always looking for what is going to teach them what they need to know to prepare them for whatever good works God has planned for them. And so oftentimes we're looking for the right curriculum. Oh, they like history, and here are great books.
And here's a great opportunity, and they're good at mathematics, and here and they're interested in aviation. So there and. And I think that we are always looking for the great Bible curriculum and the best Bible curriculum is mom and Dad and real-life storms sometimes. How do we learn that Christ is near. That His abiding Holy Spirit really is abiding in us?
R -
Yeah.
W -
In our boat with us, if we're not living through those storms. So, tell us about that.
R -
Yeah, well, I think about, you know, like you're saying a curriculum, like we want to teach them, okay, this is how you do this and, but honestly, that's how we all are, right? In life until, yeah, until we actually go through something that actually puts our faith to the test. You know that's where the real learning comes in and actually our book, In a Boat in the Middle of the Lake, is based off of the story in Mark four, where Jesus is teaching his disciples by the shore. And then he takes them out into the middle of the lake because there's some things that they can only learn when they're in the middle of a storm. And so that's kind of the whole premise and theme throughout our book, and we feel like you know, that really ties into honestly with our kids, it was like, like you said, how did we lead them through that?
I would say first and foremost we were just really…we didn't say anything to them for probably a week, maybe. We had to get ourselves together. And I think that also goes along with just rooting yourself first. You know if I'm spending time with the Lord it enables me to lead my children better. I mean, that's just the simple truth. And so, I would say when you're in the middle of suffering, just rooting yourself first. And then we were just really honest with them. And we sat them down and we told them what was going on. And then we also said this is our chance to see God, watch God show up. You know it was real. This is like tangible faith lived out right in front of them. And I don't think we can underestimate the impact that those life experiences can have on our kids when they see, not that it's, not that we're living this out perfectly. But when they see us trusting God, even in the midst of the hardest, most unimaginable things, I mean that has an impact. And so, I think for us, we just really, again, I don't wanna make this sound like it always looked perfect, but it was, you know, our wellbeing, it was contagious to them. You know, like if we could remain hopeful. Or the times that we maybe did break down, but then kept pointing them back to God. You know it, they were following our lead.
I think the other thing, cause you were asking how, you know, how we lead our kids through this. And especially for homeschoolers, I think just trying to keep the best we could to keep those rhythms in place for them. That was really important because they need stability through unstable times. It was a very unstable time obviously. And so, I think just trying to keep those rhythms in place was really helpful. And then ultimately, I think, just continuing to point them to Jesus over and over again, in that you know we could trust Him and it was okay for them to see us hurting. You know, I think that that's, that is actually life changing for them.
W -
Yeah, well, I definitely wanted to apply this to the homeschooling situation and using these opportunities to invite our our children, who are already in the boat with us, in the storm with us, to put their eyes on Christ with us and allow that to, yeah, allow them to see Christ show up as we said.
However, I'd like to switch the focus just a bit here and really just now speak to the mom. Speak to the woman. Maybe speak to the husband and wife together if this is something that both of them need to listen to because maybe they're going through a storm together. What are some ways that God has used trials in people's lives to change people? What does that look like for you? And I know that you write that suffering is not a form of punishment, but rather one of the ways that God protects us.
R -
Well, I think you know, suffering, I would say how God used the suffering to change me. Certainly, suffering always deepens our faith, you know. And so, like I had mentioned earlier, I, my immediate thought was like no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to do that, you know, because I know God uses suffering to change us and grow us and make us more like Him and so, but I don't want, it hurts. It's hard. You know, and who wants to do that? Who wants to go through that? But I think you know He uses, He used this suffering in particular to deepen my faith unlike anything else he's ever used, and it's because I honestly had nothing else to turn to. I mean, I remember frantically searching scripture like just going through it my, just looking for some piece of hope. You know something, Lord please. like when all you can do is pray is all you can praise Lord please you know, that's when you are just totally relying on Him. And I found myself in that place over and over again and I think, you know he really used this and still continues to use this to deepen my faith and to cling to Him.
I think it's also an opportunity honestly, for us as Christians, God's saying, do you really believe what you profess about Me? And you know, like I said, we've been in ministry for over twenty years and I cannot even tell you how many people we have seen who we thought were so strong in their faith...
W -
Yes.
R -
...and as soon as a trial comes, as, you know, and their faith is shaken, they question God, not that it's not, not that you can't question God, but they question Him and then they walk away from their faith. And it's just interesting to me, I think He uses, God uses suffering to really purify our faith and ask us, you know, do you really believe what you say you believe? Do you trust me? Do you really trust me?
W -
Yeah I was, I've thought about tumbleweeds. I always thought that a tumbleweed was just a twig that started to tumble. And then would pick up other things, kinda like the snowball effect. But that's not what they are. They're actually, there's another name for them, and I don't remember what it. Maybe you know? Do you know?
R -
I don't. I don't know anything about tumbleweeds.
W -
I'm out in the West, so I should know what it's called. But they form, like you see them. It's actually a plant. It's a weed that forms in that kind of ball, dried ball shape, but it's a very short root. And those Santa Ana winds come off the desert, fierce winds, hot winds, and it just sweeps em away. And I think that that's one kind of, some kind of very dry, dry storm. I mean, it's not being in the lake. But I think that the analogy there is what happens to some of us is we find during the storms that our roots weren't as deep as we thought they were. How would you encourage someone who feels angry or disappointed with God today? Because you said that God uses suffering to change us, to grow us, and to deepen our faith, but I think that what I hear you saying now is if you don't. If you aren't available to that deepening, then you really have been living in the shallows. Then you might get swept off course, swept away.
R -
Yeah, well I would, it reminds me of a story about, well, I guess now it's been about a year and a half now with covid I don't even know what month or anyways. Right. I had a friend that was going through something really terrible and she sat down, she was, I don't know her that well actually, but it was an acquaintance, more like, I guess, and she sat down in front of me literally was very close to me and looked right at me. I think I asked her how she was doing or whatever. And she basically declared that she was struggling with her faith and she had looked for God everywhere and she couldn't find Him. And obvious...that's so heartbreaking when anybody gets to that point, but she had literally gone to different churches. She was searching for Him. And I think you know in her case you know she was angry with God for what you know, what had happened in her life. And this is so simple, but all I could say to her was don't give up. You know, don't give up. He is there. Even when you can't see Him. And I think you know a lot of times, it's us. It's not Him. Do you know what I mean?
W -
Yeah.
R -
He's there, He's waiting for us. I think we also think it has to be like, everybody who seems like, so many people have said to me, oh my goodness, you must just have this like enormous faith or you must be so strong. That's the thing that people say a lot. And I would just encourage the listener who's struggling that this isn't some magical faith you know, lived out perfectly. That this is like an everyday struggle. This is like saying, you know what? I don't have it all together and I honestly don't even know what to do right now, but I'm just going to keep taking one step in front of the next step in front of the next step. I'm gonna keep looking in God's word, even when I don't understand what He's doing, even when I can't even feel Him there, I'm going to keep turning to Him.
And so, you know, that's essentially what I was saying when I said don't give up. You know He's there. Keep looking for Him. Don't give up.
W -
Yeah, I think of the term, and I think that there's a lyric from a hymn. I'm gonna find it and I'm gonna pop it in the show notes, but it's about proving Him. Proving God throughout our lives. In our neediness, He shows up and He proves Himself to be who He is. And I, oftentimes I'll just, in my prayer life, say God just prove Yourself. Everything You say You are. Mighty to save, near and dividing. You just prove Yourself cause I need all of You right now. I need everything You've said that You are. And that's not even, that's not even in the midst of cancer diagnosis. This is just the messiness of life. I mean, just so you know, Ruth and I are recording this with our cameras turned on, and we're both blotting our noses, cause they quit dripping. This is just a hard, it's just hard, it's a hard life.
R -
Well and I didn't, you know, I would normally have a Kleenex by me, but I didn't expect... Right?
W -
I know.
R -
Right.
W -
So what about just the everyday? You know, sometimes the most surprising storms come in the fact we didn't even recognize when we're in the storm. We're just burnt out. We're worn out. I mean, I think you're speaking to that audience here. We get there. Sometimes that can be the storm.
R -
Yeah, and I think here you know I should say as well, if you don't even feel like you're in the middle of a storm right now. I stand here. Well, yeah, and I think we can prepare for those storms and so I see that over the years, not again like this was perfect, but the time that I spent getting to know who God was. There was a verse that I kept coming back to throughout this cancer journey and that was from Psalm 9:10 and it says, Those who know Your Name, trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You. And the part where it says those who know Your Name trust in you, when, because I had spent the years leading up to this, getting to know God because I knew that He was faithful, trustworthy, merciful, loving, that he's the healer. Like because I knew His Name because I knew all of His Names, I could trust Him and I think that that's a lesson for us all that no matter what's to come, those moments and those minutes add up day after day, after day, that we spend getting to know Him. And spending time with Him and going to Him.
And if you are, you know, in a storm right now that's…that maybe doesn't seem as dramatic as a cancer diagnosis. You know, everybody's hurting is different, and I think and suffering is different. And we, my husband and I say that a lot because you know, the things that you're suffering through are different than me. That doesn't make them any, you know less or more than the other. And I think that we all have to continue to take our hurt to Jesus, keep going to His Word, keep praying, keep listening to worship songs. You know all of that, no matter what we're going through.
W -
Absolutely, and I think that the more that we know, not only his Name but ironically the Word which is one of His Names, He is the Word, but the more we know the Word, the less I'm gonna be sucker punched, we can overcome life because we understand more. We, and we have Him so near and we know, okay, in this world you will have many trials, you will have many tribulations. There will be many storms, but you can be of good cheer because I have overcome the world. That's a promise straight from Scripture. And the more we know God's Word, the less sucker-punched we are by the world. It's like, oh no, no, no, no. No, no saying, you see the Lord told me this was coming and so we can be prepared and then not just prepared that they're coming, but go deeper in that verse. You can overcome because He overcame. We know that Christ has already overcome death, so in the face of death, how does that change the way that we deal with the battles that we deal with? The storms that we deal with, the threats that we deal with, the diagnosis. Because He overcame, we can be overcomers, but that doesn't happen usually because of this supernatural, in that moment revelation. It comes because we have read Genesis to Revelation, that when things happen, we say, oh no, I know what God's Word speaks into this circumstance. I know how God is speaking to me about times of suffering because I ingested his Word and it talked about times of suffering.
So, if you're not listening, I mean, if you're listening to this and you're not in the middle of a storm right now, perhaps this is just to remind you. Plant yourself by streams of living water. Let those roots go deep and ingest God's Word so that when the storms rise up you say, oh wait, I remember. I remember what God taught in that boat. In that book. I know how it applies to my life. Let Him prove Himself to you cause the storms they are promised, they are coming.
When you, I feel like this might be a transition here, you write about the importance of heaven during times in life that hurt like hell. So how are those two related?
R -
Well, this is just I guess the reminder that our current reality is not our final reality, and you know when we experience, suffering, deep, deep suffering, I think it makes, and when life hurts like hell, we long for heaven even more in that. You know, and I think that's how those two are tied together because when we experience the bad, we want the good even more and it gives us glimpses, I think, of the goodness of God, of heaven, of what's to come, and it gives us something to look forward to. Because if we're being honest, a lot of us, I mean, a lot of us probably don't think about Heaven maybe that much until we're faced with something like this. And so, I think the tie-in there is that when you're facing hard things, you long for Heaven even more.
W -
Yeah. One thing that's been unusual I recognize about myself is I long for Heaven. Like to the point where my husband and I remember, early on in our marriage, he said I don't feel comfortable with how much you long for Heaven. Like I feel like maybe you should be a little more committed to staying here with me for the time being. It wasn't depressing, longing for Heaven, it was just understanding this deep, like not intellectual understanding, but something in my fibers, in my spirit that knew that this world isn't enough and I wasn't created for it. I was created for a forever Kingdom with Christ, and He said He's brought His Kingdom to Earth, my Kingdom come right?
R -
Right.
W -
And I know that I'm in an eternal reality and one day I will take that step where, that's all it is. It's a step for those of us who have put our faith in Christ from this Kingdom reality, this presence with the King through his Holy Spirit into the actual presence of the King. And I just know I was made for that. And I never know it more than when there are trials and tribulations. And so it's amazing that we can thank Him in the midst of it, that He has become so very real. He's become so very real when we're hurting really bad.
R -
Yeah, because there's not nothing else to look to.
W -
Yeah, that's the truth. Well, I wanna ask you to wrap things up for us today, Ruth, with two things. One, any parting words or, that was a good conversation, but you know what I'd really like to leave you with? Like what is that final word for us? Whether it's about homeschooling or just about, goodness, living in this fallen world? And then as you wrap that up, would you pray us out?
R -
Yeah. Yep. I guess the only thing I didn't mention here was just the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. When you're going through something really hard. And being okay with not being okay. And I think again we put pressure on ourselves to have it all together to appear like we have it all together. And I think that it's okay to sit in your pain and let God use it in your life.
And so, I would just, I mean we cried everywhere we went. I felt like, you know, I'd be crying at my kid's basketball game. I mean, you know everywhere I went. I, for a good few months, I felt like I was crying everywhere I went and I don't like that. I mean, some people are totally fine. I don't like that. I'm like I don't want to cry in front of you. That's how, that's my personality so, but I, it really opened our eyes, you know, to the suffering around us and I just want to encourage you if you're hurting, it's okay not to be okay. And it's okay, but, besides obviously going to God, I would make sure that you're surrounding yourself with the right people. Don't isolate yourself in your hurt and your pain. You need others to support you. Whether that's just one person that, you know, I had one person that texted me over and literally every single day, and that's all I needed from her. I just needed to know that somebody else was there.
So be sure not to isolate yourself, but surround yourself with the right people. And, obviously, ultimately, surround yourself with Jesus, cause He's the only source of ultimate hope, so.
Let me pray for those listening that are struggling. Or maybe they have a friend that's struggling and they're trying to figure out, you know, how can I help them? And Wendy, I'll also give you, I have a couple of different things that we wrote up that, one, I think is called three steps to help you get through this and another one is three steps to help your friend get through this. Whatever this is in their life that might be helpful.
W -
Put those in the show notes as well.
R -
Yep. And some of the things that I talked about and there's more in there than all that I talked about here that might be helpful to somebody. Or if they have a friend that's going through some things.
W -
Okay, thank you and again the name of the book and where people can find you, follow you, and maybe they're like I want to read this blog, The Better Mom. I wouldn't mind a little bit of better.
R -
Right. Well, The Better Mom is a community of moms that are coming together to learn and grow. So that was kind of the idea behind that is that I didn't want, you know, I felt alone in motherhood. This was ten years ago. My kids were really little and I thought, gosh...
W -
Speaking of community.
R -
Right. I can't be the only one that feels like this, and so I just really, I've always appreciated the voices in my life, younger and older, and I think we all have a lot to learn from one another, so that's the idea behind that.
So, the name of our recent book is In a Boat in the Middle of a Lake: Trusting the God Who Meets Us in Our Storm. And it's really your guide through suffering and trials. Of course, our stories are in there, but there, it is rich in Biblical content to help you through whatever you're struggling, or if you have a friend who's going through something. And you can get that book anywhere books are sold. On Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
And then you can find me on Instagram at Ruth Schwenk. And my husband and I also have a podcast called Root-Like Faith Podcast.
W -
Yes. I need to find that Tumbleweed story cause that needs to be, you know, we want root-like faith, right?
R -
I love that tumbleweed story. That was, that's a really good story.
So okay, well, I'll go ahead and close us and just pray for the woman who is listening, who's struggling and going through hard things. Or maybe they have a friend who is. So let me pray for those who are listening.
Lord, well, we are always always grateful to be used by You, Lord, and to be able to share our stories, to encourage others, and bring hope and point them to You. And I pray for the woman who is listening right now, Lord, who's just really honestly struggling to trust You in what they're going through. Please, God, open their eyes to You, help them to cling to You, even though the tendency can be to run away out of fear or overwhelm. Lord, I pray that instead, they would turn to You. That they would turn to Your Word and who You say that you are, God. That you would encourage them. Bring them hope. Lord, bring them glimpses of good news in the midst of the really, really hard times, Lord. We're so grateful, God for how You use our suffering to help us understand the hope that we have in You, God. And so I just pray that You would do that for my friends that are listening today, God, that You would just encourage them and bring them Your hope and Your peace. And we're so so grateful for You Lord. We love you, Jesus. Amen.
W -
Amen. Thank you so much, Ruth.
R -
You're welcome, thank you.
W -
Oh, and we need to, before we say goodbye to everybody here, Patrick is alive and well.
R -
Yes.
W -
This diagnosis was a few years ago, so can you tell us how he's doing?
R -
Yes. So, he had five months of treatment and then he actually had two stem cell transplants back-to-back, just with like a six-week recovery time in between. And so, we are going on three years, pretty soon, that, since the diagnosis and he will be on maintenance medication, it is actually incurable. But it is treatable. So, he will be on maintenance medication for as long as, you know, as he's alive, and they will, thankfully, there are a lot of advances in this particular blood cancer that he has, and so. We are just so grateful. We feel like it was a complete miracle that they actually found...it's a type of cancer that only happens to, well, it doesn't only happen, but typically happens to older adults. Older women actually over the age of seventy, which obviously my husband is younger and...
W -
He looks pretty good for an older woman. 😊
R -
So, he, and typically they only find it very late, and so that and that's the hardest.
W-
Well, praise God.
R -
That's the hardest for them to treat. But they were able to find it very early, and so we're just, you know, we know the battle will never probably be over. But we, they are very optimistic and they, you know he's been on maintenance medication and is doing very well.
W -
I'm so glad to hear it. Well, thank you again and give our love to Patrick and we're really grateful for the book that the two of you wrote together. So, thank you.
R -
Thank you so much for having me.
W -
Alright, goodbye.
Thank you for joining us this week on the Homeschool Solutions Show. As always, you can find show notes and links to all the resources mentioned at homeschooling.com. I hope you'll take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, and if it was especially meaningful to you, share it with your friends via email or social media. This is just another way we can all encourage and love and support one another.
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