I love how God can change us as He guides our education!
I started the year looking for an online program to challenge Drew. This led me to TJEd High... which had a sign - up bonus offer for the parents to take Mentoring in the Classics for cheap, a program that I have been interested in for some time.
The books I have read and mentoring I have received started by refreshing or resetting the basis for my homeschooling / parenting (since I cannot really distinguish between the two). Then I read Gifts from the Sea that made me evaluate the pressures of being an idealist, of being a woman, of being a mother in a more healthy light.
But all this inspiration, all these changes, brought on the usual "gird up your loins, bully forward at all cost, beat yourself up to do it" mentality I recognize so well after feeling inspired.
Well, this time the Lord wanted to show me a better way.
On my shelf "A Separate Peace" has sat untouched for months. Well., years... other than being moved. Ignored as many others have been 😁.
Since August, it has grabbed my attention as kids seem to keep asking what it is about or as they look for books to read and ask me for recommendations. I couldn't really remember the subject or story line... just a feeling from it.
I became more emphatic in my recommendation of this book to no avail. No one would read it! This great classic that I couldn't remember much about. Finally, the thought floated in my head, "if you want to get your kids to read it, the best way is for them to see you reading. " So I picked it up.
At that time I was also reading Gift from the Sea and the mentoring on that one focused on how to read a classic. The mentors emphasized asking a mentor for something to look for as we read books. So I asked them for a question for Separate Peace even though it is not in the curriculum of that course.
I got back that short reply from my previous post: "transformational book... open your heart to the change. " And change my heart did! I have learned to recognize that my heart is at war in so many situations! Just the feeling, the tightness of heart and mind, the feeling of hunkering down in the trenches to protect myself... or something. Preparing against the need for attack.
However, this book has shown how false, how non-existent, how one-sided these battles really are or can be.
"All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way – if ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy."
I started the year looking for an online program to challenge Drew. This led me to TJEd High... which had a sign - up bonus offer for the parents to take Mentoring in the Classics for cheap, a program that I have been interested in for some time.
The books I have read and mentoring I have received started by refreshing or resetting the basis for my homeschooling / parenting (since I cannot really distinguish between the two). Then I read Gifts from the Sea that made me evaluate the pressures of being an idealist, of being a woman, of being a mother in a more healthy light.
But all this inspiration, all these changes, brought on the usual "gird up your loins, bully forward at all cost, beat yourself up to do it" mentality I recognize so well after feeling inspired.
Well, this time the Lord wanted to show me a better way.
On my shelf "A Separate Peace" has sat untouched for months. Well., years... other than being moved. Ignored as many others have been 😁.
Since August, it has grabbed my attention as kids seem to keep asking what it is about or as they look for books to read and ask me for recommendations. I couldn't really remember the subject or story line... just a feeling from it.
I became more emphatic in my recommendation of this book to no avail. No one would read it! This great classic that I couldn't remember much about. Finally, the thought floated in my head, "if you want to get your kids to read it, the best way is for them to see you reading. " So I picked it up.
At that time I was also reading Gift from the Sea and the mentoring on that one focused on how to read a classic. The mentors emphasized asking a mentor for something to look for as we read books. So I asked them for a question for Separate Peace even though it is not in the curriculum of that course.
I got back that short reply from my previous post: "transformational book... open your heart to the change. " And change my heart did! I have learned to recognize that my heart is at war in so many situations! Just the feeling, the tightness of heart and mind, the feeling of hunkering down in the trenches to protect myself... or something. Preparing against the need for attack.
However, this book has shown how false, how non-existent, how one-sided these battles really are or can be.
"All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way – if ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy."
A few times since I finished reading this book I have recognized this feeling of ugliness, of discontent in my heart and have been able to identify the underlying war lines I am drawing...and identify that they don't even exist. That I am fighting against an "enemy" that doesn't exist or that exists within myself.
This morning, though, it came up and I couldn't identify what the "battle feeling" was there in response to. That is when the magic of God's education clicked in my head.
While I was shopping at DI for a book for a book exchange, my sister Heidi showed me a book that she loved and was going to purchase to have a second copy, "Mindset." "I love this book!" she said. I had never heard of it and she excitedly told me about it. Then she gave it to me :D, wonderful friend. (You know someone is a true friend when they give you a book that they love!)
I have been reading about how the authors suggest that everyone falls into two mindsets, a "fixed" or unchanging mindset and a "growth" mindset, one that sees challenges and "failure" as learning opportunities. The book defines the two and then basically gives example after example of how those of each mindset respond to situations.
Now, I believe that people don't generally fall into just one or the other mindset in everything they do. They can see things both ways. However, fundamentally, I can see myself acting from a fixed mindset, a frantic-ness to work with my resources to live up to what I feel God's expectations of me are in the long run. As I have read more into ";Mindset" however (combined with Holland's talk: "Be Ye Therefore Perfect...Eventually"), I realize that these expectations are for a long and distant future...and that He is content with whatever I can give at the moment.
Underlying so many of my actions is a constant striving to "finish," to "complete," to "perfect" now...sometimes with no view of how maybe the moment is just a stepping stone for a more futuristic view of my life and who I am.
So this morning, as I recognized that "heart at war" default inside my heart as I looked at how I wanted to apply the things I have been learning the past few months in Mentoring in the Classics, the examples of "Mindset" came to mind. I could see how I felt my lot in life was fixed and that I needed to desperately make the most of every thing, of every moment...instead of welcoming the moments as gifts in a long series of moments. My vision and passion is no less determined, just less frantic...hopefully!
I am pretty set in my defaults, but just seeing how these seemingly "random" books are affecting a change in my heart made me pause this morning and marvel at a God who teaches me so well in the seeming randomness of my life.
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