Love One Another

We talk a great deal about caring for one another. The girls and I regularly visit Matthew 22:37-40, letting the words of Jesus settle in our hearts: "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind...You shall love your neighbor as yourself,'" And we turn quite often to Galatians 5:22-23, in which Paul exhorts us to "walk by the Spirit" (v.25), exhibiting "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." And we cannot help but remember Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13, as he explains just how to love one another.

And so it is that the training of little souls requires diligent nurturing and patient attention as the days at home quickly turn into weeks, and the weeks inevitably turn into months, and the months gradually turn into years, and quite suddenly it must seem that that they were born just yesterday!

We love homeschooling... learning to count plastic hearts over breakfast... practicing reading lessons in our imaginary Irish cottage... delighting in the latest of our library selections over lunch. It is just so fun. With all of the attention to these ever-important subjects, it is easy to neglect that aspect of spiritual training that comes from serving others outside of our home. But it is just for this reason that I still love homeschooling... because even when there is a week when the completion of core subjects seems to be ill-accomplished, there is a reminder that there are things that are truly more important.

I'm so thankful for a certain dear friend who is such an encouragement to me as she strives to tend to the needs of both older and younger Christians. She is terrific when it comes to visiting older members of our local congregation, and she is so thoughtful to prepare a meal for someone and place it in the freezer in the anticipation that it might be needed. What a blessing to have such a loving Christian sister! And so it was during a recent afternoon, that while the diligent pursuit of scholastic proficiency seemed to have eluded us, it is with full conviction that I can say that a great deal more was learned while spending the afternoon encouraging a dear sister who is advanced in years. The girls and I had such fun, and if it means that our afternoon's reading and writing activities lay untouched for the day, it was all the more gain to us. How often it is that when we set out to encourage another, we ourselves are the ones who are truly encouraged.