I got sick just as the Corona isolation safeguards began and stayed sick for a full 13 days. I didn't get tested; I just stayed at home - what I have heard called a "luxury" but is most definitely a sacrificial choice, a lifetime one.
I sneezed and hacked all day and coughed myself to sleep most nights, and since it was productive, I didn't medicate. I warded all the older kids off, each having reasons to come by for one thing or the other. I wouldn't let Michael whose university, with all NC ones, has gone online come home either. So, he's stayed there working and cooking and studying. The other day Macklynn and Madalynn Facetimed the whole family. Michael had a paint roller in his hand; Miranda was on the tread mill at the fire department; Megan was delivering freight with her husband, Jeremiah; McKala was potty training the twins; and Melody, well I'm not sure. Poor girl nearly got taken out by a semi truck earlier this month and has appointments with her neurologist, an orthopedist, and, of all things, a cardiologist. She appears to have early stages of heart trouble, the electrical kind passed down from Mike's father's family.
Mike, he's making the best of his bad situation. For several months with the church van, he and the kids pick up grocery store donations for the Food Pantry at church. They/we do the heavy lifting since he can't. He does a lot of tinkering and is planning our summer garden but is not in the same condition he was for last summer's. Funny that I wrote a couple of years ago of all the things I thought we'd do together in our new circumstances. But he's still a man, and I'm still a woman; I'm still the cook, and he's still Mr. Fixit; and that's ok. Egalitarianism is not as cut and dry as the sociologists would like it to be. I don't believe it ever will be. Men and women are born with, not trained into, certain dispositions.
There's a frustration: once Mike qualified for Social Security Disability, he was disqualified from Medicaid. What kind of politics is that? He doesn't get Medicare for 24 months. It sounds like a way for people to die without healthcare before they can live on Medicare. I'm not talking about universal healthcare; I'm talking about a man who worked from the time he was 15 years old and put into the system. So, this leads to politics and where I might need to get involved. And sometimes I think this is part of where things are headed for me even though I will never believe that politics fixes things rather than God. Speaking of, we've come to a point of choosing sides in politics. It's no longer about a policy here and a policy there. With the exception of a couple of Democrats, the party at large has given its stamp of approval on the slaughter of children. There is no way past that for a true Christian. Period. Our nation is in danger of judgment.
"They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them: but they were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions. Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance and he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them. Their enemies oppressed them, and they were bought into subjection under their hand. Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry:" (Psalm 106: 34-44). Our cry is not only to pray and to obey but to vote because we no longer "destroy the nations." And we make disciples of all people, our neighbors, our children.
Are we making disciples of our children? Daily devotions and weekly church attendance won't get it in today's environment; it never did anyway or we wouldn't be in the fix we're in. It's a lifestyle; it's accountability; it's counsel; it's training; it's discipline; it's Christian education; it's treating family better than friends; it's having friends that are going the same direction.
So, everybody's home now. What are we doing with that time? Now's the time for you to inspect what your children are being taught in the secular system. I already know; we did k12 online for 2 years. I'm fulltime at Wilkes Community College also. Michael warned me I'd hate 95% of it. Perfect prediction. If you want to be "re-educated," go to college. If you must go or send your child, there'd better be a willingness and readiness to fight the good fight because that's exactly what it's going to be, an all-out assault on the existence of the One True God and His Word. I have examples hand over fist.
It's not only the education; it's the culture, wearing away at the sturdiest of characters. The only thing I have gained from public college is becoming a better apologist. Go to a Christian college. Yes, if you have the money and if they're teaching the truth (a lot of them don't), but don't expect to go out and lead a group of people when you have no experience. That's what putting in your time is about. "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity" (2 Peter 1:5-7). These things do not happen during the course of a few years of college; these things happen over the course of decades working and dealing with family, coworkers, and neighbors.
If institutional education were a matter of a few hours before lunch with great reverence toward God, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge:" (Proverbs 1:7), then I might be on board, but because it is designed literally to keep children while parents work (say history and sociology books), it inherently prevents them from living the lives they were meant to. Are there greater behavior issues for your household than those of transition to home right now? The children are not trained to live together and obey. Are there issues with boredom? The children don't know what do with their time without being told.
Wait a minute, homeschool mom. We can be guilty of very similar things. Do we train our children or let them do what they want to? Do we give our children spare time, or do we fill it up with the things the world makes us believe we have to accomplish? Our own family has been in danger of these things lately. We no longer have little kids nor farm animals, which automatically lend themselves to work and play. What has happened in this slow down of running Madalynn to lessons and Macklynn to the high school at lunch and back after practice is a slower pace at our own home: time to fish and target practice and till and watch CSPAN. People can argue all day about what news to watch (and we do have a preference), but have your kids heard the politicians? Do they know why socialism won't work? Because school is teaching them straight up one side and down the other that it does! Do they understand what's going on? Why not?
Are you reading the Bible and with your children? Little kids can pick up on a lot. They are not dumb and do not need to be dismissed from the room when hard things are read or talked about. Just start somewhere and read the Bible. Old books advised all these things I'm saying. But so many of us read what's on the New York Times Best Seller List. Is it fixing our tiredness, our depression, our disillusionment that these lives we chose are not what we thought they'd be, so we'll just keep powering up with coffee and antidepressants and wait for retirement?
There's a better way, a way that was hidden from us, a way that no one told me about and maybe no one told you about. Why go and work for someone else when you can be quite frankly the queen of your own castle? That is the gift that God gave you. The curse was for men to work by the sweat of their brow and for women to suffer pain in childbirth, but we add to it. Yes, we've proven that we can do what men do, but should we? In seasons of our lives, we might; but in the season of our childbearing, let's enjoy the ride.
Money? Don't pull that one on me. All money is God's, and he can and will provide through your husband. Try Him. He says to. Question to you: do you help your husband make money or spend money? By that I mean, do you work together for a bigger house and nicer cars and vacations and clothes and gas and all manner of things? How can you help your husband save money? Are you willing to have a lesser house, a lesser car, fewer clothes, and local vacations. And by the way, substitutes like these would make a huge impact on the environmental "footprint" everyone's so up in arms about.
Your husband won't let you stay home? Now, that is a snag. His parents never taught or showed him the importance of it, or he has strayed from the truth. Are you willing to pray for him as your own heart is changed by the Lord? Whatever you do, do not nag to or complain about him. And whatever else you do, do not make him your excuse, when you have no intention whatsoever of giving up your "rights," "status," "freedom," and "security," all the while claiming it's for the kids and their futures.
Right now, Macklynn is running up and down the yard with Michael's puppy and has a makeshift gym in the basement to accomplish his Weight Lifting class requirements. His Foods teacher has sent a packet of assignments home. He made pancakes yesterday and apple dumplings today. He's becoming a good cook just like his brother. And he's taking training for football seriously, just like his brother. I have plenty of textbooks of my own to fill up his days, but I'm not going to. I am going through them and making my own outlines for study and memorization, to make the process more efficient, something I wish I had done with our older children instead of procrastinating out of frustration. It just requires a little preparation, like a popular homeschool speaker says, "All you have to do is stay a week ahead of the kids."
We're in 1 Kings. Over the last many months, I have read with Macklynn and Madalynn from Genesis to 1 Kings, stopping to discuss and interject current events and issues. I like for them to read to me out of the New Testament. This is doable. Don't let Satan steal this time from you. You are adequate. When your children were born, God made you a teacher and he knew the patience and wisdom you would need. You just have to stick around long enough to develop it. It's not easy. And it's not just a natural thing or luxury thing for the ones of us who do. It's a daily dying to self and seeking of the Lord.
It's interesting that I set up Skype lessons for Madalynn and her cello before this whole pandemic thing got serious. All these online sessions do not take the place of personal relationships, but they make this isolation much more bearable.
Mike is taking it easy, but his mind never stops, especially listening to all the political jargon. His defibrillator went off for the first time not once but twice this week. The changing of medicines and the ups and downs of health play on a person's attitude, even when they wish they didn't, and it seems like especially when they've been making progress.
Megan and Jeremiah are on the road delivering those essential products and had a family give them lunch in a truck stop yesterday. Miranda works for both the fire department and EMS, so she's on call for her community. McKala's husband, Timothy, is a lineman for Duke and is doing essential work also, while she does her essential work of raising, teaching, and training up their children and has a warm supper and clean house ready for him at the end of the day. As I said, Michael is still in his apartment at school working, studying, and cooking. Melody is a little distraught about not getting to work. Thankfully, her EMT classes were already going to be online (and so are Miranda's). Where her life seems to have taken another nosedive, a young man has found her and made a commitment to her. He might just be what I've been praying for her.
If you noticed a trend in the kinds of jobs our children have, it is not a coincidence, especially with our daughters. Before you lose your minds, keep in mind that our daughters do the jobs that men do, but they never set out to have the careers men OR women have, not only to stay out of school debt but to be available for their would-be families, and to do jobs in the meantime that God has gifted them at, all the better if they be ministry related as when Megan worked for SP and when Miranda worked for the Crisis Pregnancy Center which put in her heart to become an ultrasound technician for pregnancy ministry purposes wherever that might lead.
Isolation: maybe it's because we had several small children and lived in the mountains during Y2K, no, definitely because of, but we have always had a stock of certain things. At all times, I have at least three gallons of bleach. I keep particular medicines. I have potato flakes, pasta, dry beans, rice, dry milk, sugar, flour, and things to make these things appetizing.
Let this be a wake-up call; get out of debt. Put up some things for these rainy days. Put on the whole armor of God, and make sure your children have it on voluntarily and are solid in their own faith before you send them out into a world they are not, as children, called to save.
And remember this and warn others, "When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel: they disposed all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil" (Proverbs 1:27-33).
