Like a Perfectly Layered Cake Or A Lasagna

Triumphant Victorious Reminders
Inspired by the Holy Spirit
Written by: Teresa Criswell

"Commit your works to The Lord, and He will make your ways successful."

~ Proverbs 16:3 ~ 

"Lord!  Are you sure?  Homeschool?!?" 

Is this me or is this me being led by what my friends are doing?
 "Wait! This can't be, I'm not meant to homeschool!"  And in that confession, I realized that I was correct. For I am not meant to do anything He has called me to on my own.  Yet when I rely on the strength of God, daily committing my works to the Lord; moment by moment, The Lord reveals Himself in the midst of this class called 'life'.  And in this class called 'life', if we pay attention to The Holy Spirit Who is The Teacher of all teachers, He will prepare us with His instructions as revealed in The Word of God so that we do not fail.

With that said, this morning before our Bible class started, my daughter was led to share what the Holy Spirit was teaching her this morning. She wanted to speak to me on what had happened to her earlier that morning. I asked her if  I could record  her and later transcribe what she said to write notes, in which she gave me permission.  After she spoke, I sat down at the keyboard, hit play to transcribe, and was brought to tears to hear the wisdom of God through a teenage girl. So in that, I wanted to share with each of you.

 

My daughter's words:

"Mom, you know what I realized on why I need to be homeschooled? It's because I need to grow closer to The Lord.  I'm not saying everyone should be homeschooled in order  to get  to know Jesus, I'm just saying for me personally I knew I had to, I needed to be homeschooled. I think God changed my heart because He said, "Wait for what I have in store for you in 8th grade." Mom, if you didn't listen to that voice of telling you to homeschool me, I would be in public school right now just being like a regular 13 year old.

Mom, I know I'm not being homeschooled because of my other school; I'm not being homeschooled because, "Oh, I need a better education"; I'm not being homeschooled because, "Oh, I need to get better at math and I need to have one on one teaching."  I finally realized what it is! God is my Teacher! I didn't realize that in school, I just thought, "Oh, I have like seven teachers".

Mom, you know I just realized all of this today.  If it wasn't for God waking me up this morning at 6:30 I probably wouldn't have gotten that.  I probably would be miserable right now, right here, saying, "I don't want to do this, I'm tired and this and that." But, I was meant to wake up and go outside this morning and see those two red birds flying around and be in awe of seeing God's creation.  After I saw that,  this thought came, "God, This is why You want me to be homeschooled, to be closer to You." Before, I would say to God, "I can't talk right now, I have to get ready.  I don't have time right now, I'm going to be late for school."  You know how dad says it's all the distractions that try to keep us away from God?  Or when you say it's like we drift away from God more and more but we don't even realize it?  But we forget He's right there.  But so many people don't even realize He is there. But when we pray and read His Word we are reminded that He's there and we know we can talk to Him.  He's pleading, saying, "Please talk to Me, I'm right here."

As tears streamed down my daughter's face she continued, "And people are blinded in the world and even in the church, and people are distracted and people don't understand "Why is this happening, why is that happening?"  When God is right there, and I understand a little more, it's so sad and you see people drifting away from God and they don't even notice. But God is right there and all you need to say is, "Jesus come be in my life."  It's that easy.  He has always been there, you just got to realize it. Do you know what I mean?

Mom, I felt led to tell you that, I just wanted to tell you the reason why we're homeschooling.
This is God through me telling you why, so you have more reason why you're doing this.  Not just because I need a better education, not because of what this person or that person says.  Or when people complain and say, "these schools are so bad..." - NO! It's not because of that.  Maybe there are those that have reasons of why they're homeschooling because they want a better education, but mom the reason WE'RE homeschooling is to get closer to The Lord and of course having a better education.  We didn't know why we were homeschooling, we just knew we needed to.  We were happy with our school, but now we know WHY and we have a purpose and we need to remember that every day. I have a fire that is firing up inside of me.

So now when people ask me, "Why are you homeschooling?"  My answer will be: because I have a purpose and the reason is to get closer to God.  Mom, if you have a good foundation on God everything else falls into place, you know, like a perfectly layered cake or a lasagna."

There was so much more she said, but I wanted to share the insight from The Holy Spirit, the triumphant victorious reminder though a 13 year old girl who loves God, loves being a young lady who basks in the joys of fashion, Paris, the Eiffel Tower and just having tons of fun in this life filled with giggles and laughter!

When we begin to  get sidetracked by what others are saying, doing and living, may we be triumphantly and victoriously reminded of Who our Foundation is, our God!  May we remember that everything else will fall into proper place; like she said so eloquently; "a perfectly layered cake or a lasagna".