The Journal of
The Kindled Mind

Integrating art and poetry is about making connections more than perfection. When a child sketches a steam engine or copies a stanza about the Industrial Revolution, they aren't just doing schoolwork, but actively processing history through their own hands and mind. If history and science are the "bones" of our studies, art and poetry are the "heart."

Since I am teaching both my older girls and younger boys, I’ve tried to teach the boys to ask, “Whats’s next, Mommy?” after they finish a project. I need to help them learn not to run off the minute I go help the girls. I’d say they remember 50% of the time. The other 50% they run off and make a mess somewhere in the house, and I have to go find them and show them what’s next.

Spiritually, I’m a lot like my little boys. As I’ve been teaching them to say, “What’s next, Mommy?” throughout the day, He’s been teaching me to ask, “What’s next, Father?” too.

You would never know from these photos that we were not deep in a winter wonderland…unless, I showed you the second photo of the speed limit sign. In reality we were right by the main canyon road and just off of another road that goes up to the normal sledding spots further into the mountains. With a slight shift of perspective, my camera only saw the snowy wonderland and not the road a few steps behind us. One view was an ugly, muddy mess, and the other view was beautiful and magical.

Back in April we purchased five tiny caterpillars and took them home. As soon as we got home, Simon grabbed the container off of the counter and dropped it. I thought we had just killed our newly acquired beings. Thankfully, caterpillars are pretty resilient. For 12 days we watched as they grew and grew, waiting anxiously for when they’d make their chrysalis. The kids were mesmerized. It was funny how long we could sit and simply watch them move around in the container. One day we woke up to one in a newly formed chrysalis, and 6 days later we woke up to one emerged butterfly. We released them just in time - the day before a big trip back East. It was a beautiful way to wrap up our school year. They loved watching the caterpillars grow, and I loved watching them grow. (Though I thoroughly enjoyed the caterpillars too.) Watching my kids find joy in learning and in nature is such a blessing to me. Getting to teach them so many thing is such a joy. I both lose and find myself in being their mother and teacher.

I don’t have to know where I’m going anymore. I’m fine with riding passenger. It’s taken a while to get rid of the bad theology of “The American Dream” (or most of it, I hope). I’m not the “master of my fate” or the “captain of my soul” as stated in Invictus. I’m content, joyful even, to know Jesus is leading me. Even with so many reasons to be discontented, I’ve found God has given me contentment. I’m less “in control” than I have ever been. I honestly don’t even know what this summer or next year will look like, what I’ll be doing, or if things will resolve in so many respects. Yet I know this is where God has led me. So how can I have contentment without any “game plan”?

It’s the time of year that many people look back on the year that is drawing to a close and highlight all the good or say “good riddance” and wish for a better year to come. I’ve thought often about what this year means to me in retrospect. It was certainly an “ebenezer” year, and I wish I had an actual stone to put somewhere in remembrance. It was a year I saw a true miracle: God spared my husband’s life when he had, at best, a 2% chance of survival. It was incredible, undeniable and I will never be the same or stop being grateful that we can all still be together as a family. But we can’t tie up our story with a nice bow. We can’t say “God saved Jonathan and this is why.” I can’t negate the dark valley I walked through afterwards or the fact that Jonathan still lives with a medical condition that gives him pain and hinders normal activity. He still can’t run around in the yard with our kids and he’s not back to 100%. The discouragement and limitations that continual nagging pain causes is hard for us both, especially because it looks like there may not be any resolution on the horizon apart from another miracle of God. 

The outdoors have always called to me. Many times I feel I simply need to go outside and feel some sunshine on my face. During our normal homeschool days, we try to take a daily walk around our neighborhood. But after my husband almost lost his life in February, I’ve been rethinking, well, everything. I took an imaginary look forward into our future. In five years I will be 40 years old, our youngest (the twins) will be 7 or 8 and our oldest will be 14. I can’t imagine them being so big and independent since they insist on “Mommy!” for everything at present. That is a big change in such a short amount of time. It reminded me that I have a lot of groundwork to lay in these brief years. There are more vital things than schoolwork, though I do still want a high bar set for academics. Going through something traumatic will teach you that you can’t survive without a good framework and a good vision for your life. The unnecessary things seem to crumble away. I see now the need to change a lot of rhythms in my life, and being outside for my sake and my kids was something we all needed more than our current schedule allowed. Our curriculums have always encouraged a field trip day or something of the like on Fridays, and we did that plenty, but now we go outside for different reasons.

What if life-giving words were spoken to us over and over and over? Words have the power to shape us, yet we often don’t give enough attention to what our own words are doing. James gives us the image of the tongue as a fire, yet Proverbs speaks of good and timely words as “apples of gold in a setting of silver.” We can let our words be something that destroys beyond all repair (only rebuilding) or something beautiful, valuable, and enriching.

Limitations can be blessings if we let them. Have you ever thought of how most songs, even something as complicated as a piece in a symphony, is technically comprised of only 7 different notes of a single scale? The art of painting is even more limited. All the colors used come from a mere 3 primary colors. Drawing is mostly made up of 3 shapes: circles, triangles, and rectangles. All the beauty of nature cycles through 4 seasons, year after year after year. Whole worlds are created from these limited means.

The hardships I’ve been through, this past year especially, have felt like falling overboard in the middle of the ocean and plunged into icy depths. The undertow is stronger than my ability to push upwards, and am horrified to find my struggle only takes me deeper and deeper down. My only hope left is God, and without His help I will certainly drown. Maybe you’ve been there too. There are in life those moments that take all the breath from your lungs and all the strength from your body and soul. All the light of day becomes small fragmented beams that dance mockingly on the surface of what pulls you under.

I am a mom of 5 kids ranging from almost 9 - 2 year old twins. To say our home can be chaotic sometimes is an understatement. I really didn’t know how in the world we would were going to make it when the twins were born. They were only a month old when we started homeschooling with a 2nd and preK student, along with our 2 year old. But we survived, and it was actually a great year. I am wondering again how we will make it happen this fall with twin 2 year olds, but I know we will find our way. If you have multiple ages you are schooling and littles, I hope this is a help. I’m still in the thick of it, so I can’t say I know everything. This is just works for us.

I remember when I was in the throws of having newborn twins, moving into a new house, and starting a new homeschool year. We had just transitioned from three kids to five. It was a continual cycle of feedings, meal making, school, feedings, and naps. Rinse and repeat all day. To be honest I was living in survival mode, constantly stressed and frazzled. I never got much of a break and was needed nearly 24/7. I wanted to find joy in my numerous blessings, my five kids, and our life, instead of drowning in all the work it took to keep everyone alive and fed. I wanted to be a calm and gentle mom, not a stressed-out mom. I wanted God’s peace, not a constantly hectic feeling.

Our sweet little Elias broke his collarbone last week. It was pretty rough to see him so pitiful and hurting. After his accident he wasn’t very responsive, which was so scary for me to experience so soon after Jonathan’s emergency surgery and ICU stay. At the ER I watched him being scanned by the same machines that had just scanned my husband and hooked up to heart rate and oxygen monitors, all of which felt eerily similar to what I’d just been though. As I sat in the ER room waiting for answers about our son, I wondered why God would allow this to happen as I was just finding healing from nearly losing my husband. I couldn’t hold back the tears as my precious son grimaced in pain and the surroundings took me back to those trying days in the ICU.