Throughout the Bible, God’s people were instructed to remember God’s past blessings, and were urged to teach their children to know previous triumphs and victories, too. “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way,” admonishes Deuteronomy eight, verse two, following closely on the heels of Exodus thirteen’s command to teach children about the delivery from Pharaoh's army. The Psalmist echoes in praise, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m really skilled at forgetting blessings. Like the Israelites of old, I’m prone to amnesia the minute the Red Sea closes behind me, focusing on my mundane duties instead. As you probably know, in a homeschool mom's life, there are a lot of routine tasks, begging to take our focus away from what matters.
So how do we
- keep our eyes on Jesus,
- rise above the monotony,
- truly cherish the season we’re in, and
- not lose sight of our children in the process?
How do we cherish even the mundane seasons of homeschooling?
When We Don’t Feel Like Cherishing the Season, We Can Cherish our Children
There are some days—or even weeks and months—I don’t feel like cherishing. You, too? But when we don’t feel like cherishing the day, the chore, or the situation, we can still cherish our children.
Nothing takes me from drudgery to joy like lifting my eyes up from whatever task I’m engrossed in, to really see my daughter for the pure miracle that she is. And this doesn’t apply only to our duties as homeschool moms, either. I think there’s a parallel there for our relationship with Christ, too. We can get so lost in doing things for God, we forget to rejoice in God.
But there is deliverance awaiting us in God’s simple commands to remember and give thanks.
When We Feel Lost in the Season, Gratitude Will Transform our Attitude
Thankfulness holds miraculous power, doesn’t it? One of the best ways to
- keep our perspective in the right place,
- cultivate a thankful heart, and
- carry on through challenging times
is to actively and intentionally thank God for the wonders He has wrought in our lives.
While there’s nothing wrong with quiet contemplation, it’s especially poignant to say, write, or draw exactly what we’re thankful for.
And that’s why I just love the new Memory Book from Sonlight: it tackles my short-sighted memory and my forgetful faith head-on. It helps me cherish even the mundane seasons of homeschooling.
When We Know We’ll Forget the Season, We Should Document the Good
After a year with many ups and downs—include an unexpected, disrupting move—the prompts in this printable keepsake book opened my eyes to
- blessings I’d overlooked,
- progress I didn’t even realize we’d made, and
- memories I would have forgotten.
How wonderful!
It’s almost as though the Memory Book is in step with the Psalmist in chapter 102, verses eighteen and twenty-one: “Write this down for the next generation, so people not yet born will praise God... Write it so the story can be told in Zion, so God’s praise will be sung in Jerusalem’s streets.” “Bless God”, he continues in the next chapter, “Don’t forget a single blessing.” (The Message translation)
Don’t forget a single blessing.
When life tries to trick me into believing that our read-aloud time is just a box to be checked, the Memory Book reminds me the hours I invest are making an eternal impact. There’s lifelong significance in not just these powerful Sonlight stories, but in all the time we spent together, too.
When life does its best to tell me the skills I’m teaching are going in one year and out the other, the Memory Book reminds me just how much learning has happened. (It’s so easy to miss the forest for the trees, isn’t it?)
When the clocks and the calendars tell me I’m behind, and I’m tempted to focus more on scope and sequence than on love, the Memory Book reminds me of the relationships we’re strengthening in our homeschool.
When I wonder if the multiplication tables are ever going to stick, and we all lament how the erasers have worn a hole in the paper, the Memory Book reminds me that in the end, it’s about so much more.
Meditating on our blessings is powerful, isn’t it? There’s a transformative, life-altering purpose behind God’s instruction to remember and give thanks. Won’t you join me in obeying God’s command to recall what God has done, write it down for the next generation (in your Memory Book!), and rejoice along with the Psalmist—“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” (Psalm 126:3)
Get a copy of the Memory Book and document the fun memories of your homeschool year.
