A refreshing weekend.

I spent the last two days at our local homeschool conference and, as in years past, I have been truly blessed. We ended this year a little tired and weary, needing some down time. Since we start school back in July, the time between when we end and July is when I do all my planning, but more importantly, find the motivation and encouragement needed for the upcoming year. One of the places I get that from is the homeschool conference. I was able to attend several workshops by some amazing speakers and I can truly say that I am encouraged! It's funny, when I first started out homeschooling, I was so concerned with the how-to's. How to teach this, how to teach that, how to find the perfect curriculum so I don't mess my kids up! 12 years later, that's really not my focus because it's really not why I'm homeschooling in the first place. Now, it's a matter of reaching my kids' hearts and pointing them toward the Lord. What good is all my homeschooling if my child can recite his times tables in record time but doesn't honor Jesus? I try to keep in mind that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at our hearts. That's where the battles take place and that is where my focus as mom and teacher needs to be. The rest is secondary to that! So while I wandered through the vendor hall, I no longer felt the need to find that perfect curriculum or believe the idea that a certain program would certainly "fix" the problem I'm having with a particular subject. Instead, they're just tools to help us out, but we should ultimately depend daily on the Lord for our strength and to "fix" our hearts. I can't say I didn't buy anything this weekend. I did buy 3 things that I am very happy with. The rest gets ordered online in the near future. I'm looking forward to the upcoming year and what the Lord may have in store for us. He never ceases to amaze me!