Beginning Again

Proverbs 1:7-9

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
for they are a graceful garland for your head
and pendants for your neck.

In many ways this week is one of beginning again. I had forgotten how very many things we take for granted in knowing our daily routine and in the comfort of knowing where everything belongs in our home. Adding two teenagers to our home means adding time to teach routines and explain where everything can be found. It has been wonderful to have so many willing helpers "teaching" what they have learned about life together in our home. In this way, there has been a lot of modeling and just doing family life together that has eased the transition to a growing family for all of us.

We are beginning again this week because I originally started our new school year four weeks ago with the youngest four children at home. We do some school (mostly math and reading) throughout the summer, but we start the new year's full curriculum up towards the end of each summer. We started early this year with anticipation of adding to our family and knowing how hard it was to finish up history and science last year once summer arrived. I like to take first day of school pictures to celebrate and scrapbook the beginning of another year of learning. However this year our hard drive crashed shortly after those pictures were uploaded and our computer spent a week at the genius lab and those were the few that were not restored from the back up when the new hard drive was installed. I am thankful for the opportunity we had to begin again yesterday and take some more pictures with everyone here.

So yesterday we began again. It was our first day of school with all six kiddos at home. It was wildly successful in my opinion, though I admit I have changed my standard of success quite a bit since my first days of teaching 11+ years ago. Success is really not about all that we accomplish or how smoothly the day goes, but about teaching and gaining a proper attitude in the fear of the Lord, wisdom, knowledge, and respect for authority. All the rest (math, reading, science, history, grammar) are just exercises and learning tools for growing in the fear of the Lord, wisdom, knowledge and respect for authority that God has established in our children's lives. While our kiddos may not have liked all of the learning tools we engaged in yesterday, I am confident that by the end of the day that all had at least a little bit of fun and had grasped a bit of their father and mother's teaching and instruction, and that is just the beginning. Again.