Kick Off the New Year with a Planuary!

If your home school year runs like mine did, then you‘ve been using your Christmas break to retool and recharge. This time around the Apologia gang wants to make it a festive occasion for you. We’ve got a Planuary January on tap; including Facebook parties, giveaways and some new products to help you out. So stick around and enjoy the fun. (Get in on the fun here.)

Let me get the party going with my recipe for a no fail New Year’s resolution:

• Resolve to focus on God’s faithfulness in your home school in 2012. I can guarantee that He’ll keep His promises.

Even when we home school moms know well that God is caring and providing for our family in all other areas, we still tend to put the burden for our home school success on ourselves. Am I right? Too often at Christmas, I spent the holidays mulling over all the things that had gone wrong during the first semester.  There is nothing wrong with reflecting on our home schools thus far; but my solutions were fatally flawed: I would resolve to turn over a new leaf come January—I’d make lists, posts schedules, buy new stuff, throw out the culprits I’d cornered and talk myself into a do or die disciplined lifestyle for sure this time! By golly, by gosh!

Why did all that resolve dissipate within two weeks? 

Because I was putting my faith in my faithfulness (for which I had no objective evidence).  I needed to functionally put that faith in God’s faithfulness (for which I have plenty of objective evidence). How to do so? I need a daily reminder to look for God’s activity in our home school.  And I need to resolve to point that out to myself and my kids, and to let that testimony build faith in me.

Don’t You Know? Have You Not Heard?

Faith in God — the immutable qualities of His eternal character (His faithfulness, His love, His mercy, His righteousness) —is the fuel our souls were designed to run on. That’s when our joy can be complete and our own faithfulness secured. Knowing that God is at work within us both to will and work for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13) will produce Christian maturity. And that in turn produces fruit in our home schools—God’s fruit, in His way and His time.

Note to Self

So how do we remember not to forget? Post these reminders where you start your day – the bathroom mirror, the coffee pot, the kitchen cupboard, the screensaver on your computer, etc. Find the verses that focus on who God is and what He has promised to do that feed your soul and make sure they are in plain sight.

Talk About It, Talk About It

The next step is to write down weekly what God has done as a record of His faithfulness to your family. This in turn is your source of encouragement when doubt and disappointments assail you. The new Ultimate Planning System I’ve developed for Apologia Press is designed to help you do this. Here is where you will have a memory book of God’s unique activity in your home school journey. And this testimony can be a part of your family heritage that is passed on to future generations.

Celebrate Good Times!

The start of a New Year should not be a painful reminder of past resolutions that came to naught. But a joyous occasion to begin a new season of recording God’s trustworthiness once again.

Now that’s something to celebrate.

Have a Happy New Year!