No offense to Dr. Martin Luther King is meant by this title. Dr. King's speech "I Have a Dream" is an inspiration and is based on his dream of a colorblind society.
My dream was different. For one thing, I have given up on my dream - which is good because it was self-serving and based on unhealthy cultural aspirations. I'm learning about setting my dreams aside and allowing God to give me new dreams. Let me tell you about my dream and then the reality.
The dream: A persistently clean house.
The reality: A messy house the vast majority of the time.
The dream: A perfectly decorated neat home.
The reality: My home - half painted, generally strewn with books, but full of love.
The dream: Children who are always clean and wear matching clothes.
The reality: Children who have to be reminded to shower regularly and wear clothes for less than three days in a row. Children who have to be reminded to wash their clothes.
The dream: Children who are self-motivated to keep the house clean and do their schoolwork.
The reality: One child who will do schoolwork and explicit chores but is not inherently neat and another child who requires threats to do his basic chores and minimal schoolwork. In other words, real kids.
The dream: An integrated literature-based curriculum (Sonlight) where the children learn most subjects through reading great works of literature in a historical context without the use of workbooks except for math.
The reality: Sonlight curriculum for Bible and History which we do at a slower than scheduled pace supplemented with workbooks for math and language arts and computer curricula (Time4Learning.com) and supplemental audiobooks.
The dream: Hours of sitting on the sofa reading to my children and discussing great and deep ideas.
The reality: Minutes of sitting on the sofa reading to my children with short discussions of moderately deep ideas.
The dream: A full schedule of extracurricular activities so people can see how well "socialized" my children are.
The reality: A slower (and slowing) schedule that allows the kids to grow and play and spend lots of time with me and with each other (and no worries about what others think about "socialization")
The dream: Children who are outpacing their peers in all areas of academics.
The reality: Children who are smart, love to learn, and who are doing OK in academics (frankly, I'm not real sure how to compare them to other kids, which is good).
The dream: A detailed schedule of the day's activities which is followed carefully.
The reality: A schedule that is determined 30 seconds before the activity.
The dream: Well-behaved, pleasant children who love God and love others.
The reality: Reasonably well-behaved wonderful children who love God and love others. Kids who take care of their mom when she has a migraine. Kids who can't wait for their dad to get home. Kids who care about other people.
The dream: Homeschooling like in the homeschooling magazines.
The reality: Homeschooling the way God wants our family to homeschool - which is like no other family!
2 comments:
Congratulations, Catherine . . .
* For being able to ARTICULATE your dreams.
* For being able to articulate the difference (the gap) between your dreams and REALITY.
* For being able to "be content" with where you and your children/family ARE in your journey. Yet,
* For PURSUING your dreams, gently, nonetheless.
May you "keep on keeping on" "teaching [your children] to love God as well as to read, write, and do arithmetic," as you say in your "About Me" sidebar!
In Christ,
John Holzmann
I read a quote somewhere that said, "There is enough time today to do what GOD wants me to do."
I'm notorious for putting 3 days' worth of work on one day's list. So I think I'd rather have God writing my To-Do list.
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