Cultivating a Life-Long Love of Learning (Part 3) ~ Education is a Life

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We spent the last week of holidays at the lake and tried to squeeze out every last drop of summer. The cousins drank it up like it would never come to an end. But, summer this year was vanishing as quickly as the mist on the lake in the early morning sunlight.

Some of the maple trees have already begun their annual change from summer green to autumn gold; their leaves dappled with orange and blushing bright red. Evening is settling in earlier every day, like it is trying to tuck summer in before it’s ready. The brisk night air is warning of the looming changes ahead. Change will come, you can be sure of it.

This morning our daughter walked down the drive as a round rosy sun snuck up through the clouds.

Life, it seems, can sneak up on you like that. You come to the end of a season and you find that the next season has already sprinted off with the baton. You hardly recognized the transition zone. Life just keeps racing on.

She walked down the street and vanished from sight. For twelve years, well, except for the one I was in the hospital barely alive after open-heart surgery, she has been learning at home.

This morning, after I snapped a picture, she walked right into a new adventure—a change of atmosphere, so to speak, and I had to catch my breath and keep trusting the Lord.





Her brother and sister, her Dad and I, stood with arms flapping our farewell and prayers lingered on our lips and my heart, it felt like it was getting silently squeezed right there on the driveway.

We walked back in the house, I wrapped my fingers around my half empty mug of coffee—the one with ‘Joy’ inscribed on the front of it—and the rest of us, we settled back into old routines and new habits. We dug out old lessons to review and cracked open new living books to read. I sipped re-heated coffee and joyfully considered the year of learning ahead.

For twelve years we have been learning that “education is an atmosphere; education is a discipline; education is a life”. It’s the philosophy of education Charlotte Mason advocated and we have been discovering.

These three instruments of education—atmosphere, discipline, and life—all braided together to weave a strong cord; each one as vital as the other to hold it all together.

We build up an atmosphere—the thought environment—that encourages relationships where real learning takes place.

Secondly, we diligently cultivate good life-giving habits in our children by laying them down rail upon rail, habit upon habit in which character is formed.

Finally, we spread before our children a large and varied feast to nourish the mind. Just like we provide nourishing food for their bodies, children need rich ideas to feed their mind.

Charlotte Mason, the British educator who has greatly influenced many teachers, parents and students, wrote in the Preface of School Education: “The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.”





This is the academic instrument of education, yet it is not made up merely of dry facts, predigested tidbits of information and dumbed-down books, but rather of living ideas obtained from first-hand personal experience.

Education is a lifelong process of one’s mind feeding on ideas that originate from God. We are to learn about God and His world.

Mason submitted, children learn in order to grow, to get ideas and to gain knowledge. Children will fill their bellies with garbage if that is all that is available and they will fill their mind with the same. Mason believed that children are persons that need to grow in knowledge.

And the way we should do this, she advised, is to freely sow ideas in the fruitful soil of the mind. An idea, she wrote, is: “a spiritual germ endowed with . . . power . . . to grow, and to produce after its kind. It is the very nature of an idea to grow.”






Mason challenged: “ . . . give your child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information.” (Home Education, p. 174)

These ideas—the live things of the mind—are mainly passed on from one person to another, and when interwoven with experience and knowledge lead to growing concepts.

Children discover ideas in living books—books written by one author who passionate for his subject and written in a narrative or a story form. Real learning begins to take hold as the idea sown in the story grows in the mind. Anyone who has become friends with a character in a book, or has had the subject matter spark a fire in the mind, knows what a living book is.





Children also discover ideas in an atmosphere that lets them wonder and lets them ask why and lets them see how. Children need to be outside in nature—there is a feast for the mind when a child stoops down to study an ant or spider on the walkway; whey they observe a tree change in the seasons, drink from a glacier-fed waterfall, walk through a wheat field, listen to the spring peepers, watch a monarch butterfly unfurl from its chrysalis, or wade in the ocean.

Children digest ideas when they are given time to be silent and reflective on the living things they have read, given attention to, and handled. Let children be bored to allow time for the idea to germinate and grow. Let them run, and play unorganized sports, and invent games outside.

Charlotte Mason recommended four tests to apply to their children’s academic diet:

“ . . . children’s lessons should provide material for their mental growth, should exercise the several powers of their minds, should furnish them with fruitful ideas, and should afford them knowledge, really valuable for its own sake, accurate, and interesting, of the kind that the child may recall as a man with profit and pleasure.” (Home Education, p. 176)

Our children, especially today, need a nourishing feast set before them. The distractions are crushing, the amount of processed information is devastating, and all the while attentions spans are dwindling, and real learning is declining. It is up to us to present a feast, but it is the work of the child to deal with the idea.



We have work to do, a real labour of love. Mason encouraged mothers to seriously consider her children’s education. So, I challenge you today to ask yourself these same questions:

“‘Why must children learn at all?’ ‘What should they learn?’ ‘And, How should they learn it?’” (Home Education, p. 171)

Once you grasp that the mind has been created to grow and be renewed and that it feasts on living ideas that ultimately all come from God, you just may see that it is not so much what a youth knows when he has finished his formal education, but how much he cares. That is the learning that lasts a lifetime.



So, no matter what road your child walks down one morning to set off on a whole new adventure, it should be our goal to set our children’s feet in a large room. Real learning in life comes from relationship; build up these relationships. Invest in the atmosphere in which your children live and learn, lay down the discipline of life-giving habits, and nourish your child’s mind with rich ideas.

We need to set our children up to be life-long learners—to love to learn, to grow in knowledge about God and His world. This Truth will never vanish like the mist; it will not change like the seasons, it will stand the test of time and tradition and endure on into eternity.

Living with Purpose in this World

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I know it like the back of my hand. How life takes on a whole new sharpness when any day could be your last.

You savour the sweet pleasures and the bitter sorrows of life when your days may be short. You stay attentive to living, keenly aware that life is a mere puff of air. You lean into life, pressing in to squeeze every drop of meaning out if it. Suddenly you cannot get enough and you are stuffed to the brim all at the same time.

All week the clouds have poured down rain on the fading flowers. Tulips have dropped their petals and the cherry blossoms have blown away.



As quickly as the thunder rolled in, the sun chased the clouds away and we ran to scan the heavens for rainbows. We saw promises hung in bows across the sky and new life forming in the all small green cherries that have burst forth on the tree in the backyard.

How does one take hold of each day that is strung together to span a lifetime that fades like a passing shadow? Here today, gone tomorrow.

How does one measure one’s life?



Surely life is more than the length of days lived or the dash between two dates.

When you don't know if you will grow old with your beloved or watch your children grow up into adulthood every new sunrise becomes precious. I know about this.

I know it’s hard to live every moment to the fullest. But do we open our eyes wide to every new day we are given while eagerly waiting for our future hope?

Try to hold a shadow in your hand. It is futile. But, cling to hope and hope never disappoints.

The way to measure a life is to know that our ultimate purpose is to glorify God. Our days are numbered but our hope is in the Lord.



C. S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity wrote:

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Made for another world. Made to find our rest in God. Made to enjoy God forever.

When dying young is a threat in your day-to-day life, fear can grip you and ensnare you to waste moments and throw away opportunities to really live.



Fear of the known as much as the unknown can keep you from living life to the fullest.

We desire to live abundant lives but our lives are far from full when they are filled with fear.

No one wants to live an empty life. Yet, we let fear tighten its grip on our lives and choke us until we fall silent.

How do we loosen this hold that cages us into living pitiful lives?

When we remember that our days are numbered and our time on earth is brief, that we are simply passing through, life is put into perspective.

But, it is the present hand of the Lord in our lives that releases us from these pointed fingers of fear.

The knowledge that the Lord is near is what allows you to live without worry, fear, and anxiety.

Right before Paul exhorted the Philippians to not be anxious about anything, he reminded them that the Lord is at hand.

“The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” {Philippians 4:5-7}

The way to overcome fear is to be confident that the Lord is near.



Fear subsides when you rest secure in the presence of the Lord.

He is in our midst, a present help, and he is coming to make all things right again.

The promise that He is coming again should make us live every day of our present lives ready for all eternity.

King David knew where his hope came from and it made him ready for his death at any hour. Psalm 39 records his words:

“O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah
Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.”

The promise that the Lord is with us and is coming again empowers us to not be anxious about anything, gives us confidence to come before the throne of grace, and grants us a peace that surpasses all understanding.

C.S. Lewis also wrote these words in Mere Christianity:

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next . . . It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”

Let us ask ourselves: Do we desire to live abundantly while here on this earth? Do we wake every day with the resolve to live effectively in this present world? Have we set our mind on things above and fixed our eyes on things that are eternal?

Know that the Lord is near and you will be freed from fear and filled with the joy and peace of God as your shadow fades and your hope overflows.

What Motherhood Has Taught Me: When You Doubt There is any Purpose to all Your Pain

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You may call it crazy. I prefer to call it curious.

While anticipating the birth of my firstborn I was eager to fully know what it would be like to deliver the baby who had been formed in my womb. I was determined I would not dull the pain with medication during the blessed, rip-roaring event. I wanted a natural childbirth as far as I was able. I knew it wouldn’t last forever. And, besides, I have a strong aversion to needles. I’ll take a bit of pain over a poke.

But, here's the curious thing: I wanted to feel the pain of childbirth. I preferred to go through the whole labour and deliver and experience the excruciating pain and the exhilarating joy.

So, yeah, I guess you could say ‘crazy’.

Maybe the stranger thing is when I was in the family way for the second time, and I was fully aware of the pain that was ahead of me, but I was curious to know if it would be as intense as the first time round.

And by the time I was expecting my third child, you would think I would not need to wonder any longer, but my curiosity got the better of me. For the third time, I accepted the multiplied pain of childbearing that God spoke of to Eve back in the Garden of Eden.

I consider that bearing and bringing forth a child is a privilege and a blessing. Without any pain management medication, I breathed resolutely through clenched teeth and grasped the sheer strength and endurance needed to bring forth life.

It really was an exhilarating kind of pain. It's true when they say you somehow forget the pain in those first moments when you embrace the invigorating joy of seven pounds of new life placed in your arms.





It’s also true: we are often fearful of pain and suffering. If we can avoid it, we will. And I'm not talking about the punishment of pain in childbirth, but all suffering we endure for the sake of Christ.

What does it look like to embrace suffering for the sake of Christ?

I've always been struck with Paul's longing that he expressed in his letter he penned while suffering in prison.

"that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

His goal and aim in life was to know Christ in an intimate and personal relationship. The great apostle knew that to know the power of new life, he would have to taste suffering and become like Christ in His death.

Paul knew it's the one who suffers much that experiences the all-sufficient grace of God.





In suffering we will experience the exhilarating joy of God's power at work in us.

In the storms of life we will see the lighthouse that stands firm.

In pain our purpose is made clear.

A life without suffering lacks the need to look unto Jesus, the One "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame" and was raised to heights of Glory at the right hand of the throne of God.

Resist suffering and you resist seeing God's powerful hand at work in your life.

Gratefully accept the thorns, the tremulous times, the troubles, and trials and God's power will rest upon those who gladly boast in their weakness.

Suffer for Christ’s sake and you will know a Power that brings forth new life.

This suffering brings us low. It hurts our self-glorification. The thorns press in and sting, but that is when God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

In our weaknesses, the power of Christ rests upon us.





Oh, we're not just talking about crazy or curious speculations in life, but the whole purpose of suffering in your life.

“The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Paul said. The one who was shown he was chosen to suffer greatly for the sake of Christ. He was the one who learned to be content in whatever circumstance He was in.

It was Paul who said, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Dare I say, 'bring on the pain'?

What Motherhood Has Taught Me: For the Mothers Weary from all the Voices

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At the end of that day, I couldn’t rightly remember if I had actually swallowed the little blue pill. Every night at 6 pm my phone alarm plays the harp to remind me to take the blood thinner for my mechanical heart valve. I still can’t get over the irony that the girl with possibly the biggest rodent phobia ever has to pop a pill of rat poison every single day.

But, it’s the kind of medication that I simply cannot forget to take. Without it, clots will form around the valve in my heart and will stop the valve from opening and clicking shut, preventing the blood to flow through properly. As annoying as the distinct clicking sound can be, it is a good audible indication that my heart valve is still working.

Six o’clock has become known in our home as Warfarin Time.

So this night, I couldn’t remember if I really did swallow the pill. I remember the alarm going off. I remember pouring a glass of water and reaching for the bottle of pills, but then because of a distraction, I couldn’t recall if I followed through with this routine I have had for two and a half years now.

I didn’t even think about it until hours later when I found my glass full of water apparently untouched.

I asked if anyone happened to notice me taking my pill. No one had.

In the end, I had to assume that I did take it, despite the distraction, with the smallest sip of water leaving no visible evidence behind because overdosing on Warfarin is just as dangerous as forgetting to take it a time or two.



But, as I was tucking my littlest into bed she became concerned about what would happen to me if I didn’t take it. I reassured her I most likely took it out of habit. She looked up and probed further.

Why do I need the medication?
What would happen if I just stop taking it?
What if . . . ?

The question hung heavy in the room like a thick haze.

It hurts in the chest to breathe in the harsh reality that your seven year old has lived half her life aware she could lose her Mom and nearly has more times that I care to count right now. We haven’t hidden the truth from our children; we have walked alongside them with a fixed gaze, pointing them to Jesus.

In the pause, she switched her thoughts and asked me why I have so many wrinkles. She’s an honest little soul, that one. And well, maybe not the most flattering thing for a woman to hear, those are way easier questions to answer.

She reached up to point them all out, maybe to smooth them or count each one, when I told her flat out those fine creases on my face are not wrinkles; they are beauty lines.



She turned toward the window that was veiled with the roller shade for the night and her eyes lit up as the sun was going down. She laughed with me and pointed her finger knowingly, charging me with the accusation that I just made that one up.

I did, I confess. I made it up. But, beauty lines sound so much more graceful than wrinkles. She can run her finger along the furrows of my beauty lines and we can both be reminded that real beauty is more than skin deep.

As I age, the more clearly I see the lines etched and stretched on my body are marks of beauty in life as they have come from the gift of living out many days. But they are fleeting.

Our hearts will stop pumping, our bodies will die, our wrinkles or beauty lines or whatever you call them, will fade. It’s souls that are left at the end our lives.

It’s the hidden heart that rests in God, the meek, quiet spirit precious in God’s sight that is unfading in beauty.

In the sixteen years of being a mother I have learned a few things about motherhood.

Maybe the biggest thing I’ve learned is that I have barely a clue of how a woman who desperately longs for a child and holds three close to her heart opens her hands up and gives them back to the Lord.

Barely a clue. But, I’ve learned it comes with a breaking. It comes with the crucible. It comes with waiting and refining. It comes with denying self and believing God is the only One who will satisfy our hearts.

It comes from the Giver of all good gifts. It comes from trusting in Him and believing that He gives us all things for our good and for His glory. And there is lasting, unfading beauty etched in all of that.

The taller my children have grown, the more I have needed to get wisdom and understanding.

The more difficult the lessons in life have become, the more I need the Lord to strengthen my faith.

The louder the discord of voices have become the more they drive me to seek the voice of Truth.

It’s those voices that haunt us as mothers.

The voices that hurl all your faults in your face, so that your heart heaves and howls over all your fears and failures; these voices can make you bleed thin.

The tormenting voices that stir up emotions in the stillness of the night lash out at you.

The hostile voices that disturb the peace in the hidden places of the heart unsettle you.

The deceitful voices that speak lies in the dark valleys of every life mess with you.

The cruel voices that scream with comparison that you will never ever measure up can shred you up to smithereens.

Honestly, how do any of us get any sleep the way the voices shriek in our secret chambers?

How do we still these menacing voices as mothers?

Maybe if we see that the seasons in motherhood are made up of so much more than countless diapers and cautious young drivers and curious minds earning degrees.

It’s more than sleepless nights or childhoods zipping past way too fast. It’s more like the seasons are all the joys and all the sorrows that structure our lives.



As mothers, our days are spent in soul-searching longing and heart-wrenching labouring.

The times of waiting and of weaning, the receiving and the giving, the nurturing and the letting go, they don’t end in this life; they spin in cycles and wring us out of ourselves.

Those seasons that burst forth with new life seasons and the seasons that squeeze the life right out of you are all apart of this life as a mother.

Those who continue to long and those who live with the longing unmet mature in these seasons as well. We’ve all been made to nurture and receive and give back.

For all of us this breaks us down to the very fibre of our beings. 

The truth is we all call out in the night, at times our tears will be our food day and night, and we will grow weary from our wailing. The many voices will trouble us, the fear threaten to choke us. 

But, right there: be still and know that God is God. Rest in Him. Silence the lies and trust Him.

Motherhood has a way of stripping us down to grow us into women who hold children near to our hearts, but open our hands to give them back to the Lord.

And when you can’t remember if you have done everything just right, run your finger along every good gift and count every grace that He has etched and stretched across every season of your life.

We simply cannot forget. Our hearts need it. It is time to give God thanks in everything. Those voices will fade away as the One who is Truth quiets you with His love.

What Motherhood Has Taught Me: Joy, Peace and Hope in the Journey

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April 13, 2001 I woke in the murky darkness of a new day hours before the sun rose like a beacon of hope. I was alone the moment I saw the first sign that the baby I had carried in my womb for 38 weeks would soon be in my arms.

I had done nearly everything I could do to prepare for this new life, but, in that moment, I sat in stunned uncertainty and curious expectation.

I was still sitting dumbstruck when I heard the front door creak open and Jon, getting home from a long day of work, found me wide-eyed with anticipation. I told him that I was possibly going to have our baby on that very day.

You know what he did?

He decided since I was still early I was probably in false labour and we should get some rest. The instant he flopped in to bed sleep stole him far away from the raging storm of emotions and escalating groans beside him.

So, you know what I did?

I called my mom at two in the morning to see if I really was about to have a baby.

Still not sure if this was the real deal, I shuffled my way upstairs, turned the computer on, waited as the old fashioned dial-up screeched in the silence and lazily connected to the world wide web so Google could confirm that I was absolutely for sure, going to have a baby.

I became a mother on Good Friday.

There are times when it looks like hope has been tucked away in a tomb only to rise again and bring forth joy and peace.





At 7:02 pm after 18 hours of intense laboring, my firstborn sucked in her first breath of air and let out a lusty shriek that took my breath away.

I held new life in my arms, completely unsure of what to do next.

My body had split open and life slipped out and love burst forth from my wildly beating heart. Cries of anguish turned to tears of joy as I recognized God’s abounding grace in that moment.

A mother’s heart holds these cherished memories. From the moment of those first butterfly flutters, first suckle, first smiles, first steps, to the sleepless nights, scraped knees, shattered dreams, relentless sorrow.







We cultivate and nourish deep roots so our children will mount up with wings and soar.

A mother’s heart knows hope.

A mother’s heart can break over a thousand sorrows and by God’s steady stream of grace, pulse with joy and peace.

On August 28, 2014 I watched my children bravely walk out of a hospital, leaving their mother behind fully aware a doctor was going to do his best to help fix my broken heart.

What they didn’t know was how my wildly beating heart shattered to a million pieces as they walked out that door. No doctor could fix this heartache. My husband couldn’t fix this. Calling my mom or dad couldn’t fix this. Google couldn’t help me at all.

For fourteen years I had been a mother.

Once again I sat in uncertainty and again I had to let go and surrender them entirely to the Lord.

I had one thing I could do. One thing.

Trust the God of hope.

I didn’t know what would happen when the surgeon held my stilled heart in his hands, but I trusted the God who holds all things.

The God of hope picks up all the shattered pieces and makes us whole and causes joy and peace to overflow as we trust in Him.





So even as we daily lay ourselves down in the crucible, we are filled with all joy and peace and hope rises to overflowing.

Even in the shattering you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace.

Consider Paul’s prayer in Romans 15:13:

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

First we will ask:

How do we get this surest joy and truest peace?

We are filled with all joy and peace by trusting in the God of Hope. God is the source of joy and peace. The faith that God plants in us reaps joy and peace.

God will fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in Him.

This faith comes from God.

As we take our eyes off of ourselves and trust Jesus Christ, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, we are filled with all joy and peace.

The next thing we should ask is:

What exactly is joy and peace?

Joy is God’s grace recognized.

Faith looks to Jesus Christ and sees all of God’s promises in Him. He is our eternal hope of glory.

When we see all of God’s grace poured out in Christ to us we are filled with an inner delight in God. Our soul will find complete satisfaction in Him – this is joy!

Peace is God’s gift of joining together into wholeness. He takes our sinful brokenness and makes us right with God. Christ came to bring us back to God. He heals the brokenhearted.

Charles Spurgeon said, “Peace is joy resting and joy is peace dancing.”

Finally, we will ask:

What is the result of being filled with joy and peace?

Notice the “so that”. There is an end goal of this joy and peace. “so that you may overflow with hope”

We start with the God of hope. Everything starts with God. God is the author and object of hope. God produces hope.

He works faith in us and in believing in Christ Jesus and his atoning work on the cross we are filled with all joy and peace.

And this leads to us overflowing in hope -- a lively expectation of what is certain.

Hope leads to joy and peace with leads to more hope! An eternal hope.

Christ is our anchor of hope. He holds us steadfast and strong and in Him we abound in hope.

This is not willing ourselves to grasp passing pleasures or pin down illusive peace, but a prayer that the joy and peace that come from faith in God will fill the heart that keeps on trusting the God of hope.

Now we come to the end of the prayer: “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” We are not alone in this journey.

Whatever we face, by God’s grace we can be sure that we can be filled with all joy and peace in believing by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As we cling to this promise, let us give thanks for this triad of graces God tenderly cultivates in the soil of our souls – full joy and peace, and abounding with hope.