Keepers of the Springs - December, 2015

I've been reading the book, Mr. Jones, Meet the Master, which is a collection of Peter Marshall's sermons and prayers. Near the end of the book is a sermon titled "Keepers of the Springs". I don't know exactly when this sermon was given, but it was before 1949. Below are a couple paragraphs, which I thought quite interesting and appropriate for us as homeschoolers.

Let us not fool ourselves--without Christianity, without Christian education, without the principles of Christ inculcated into young life, we are simply rearing pagans. Physically, they will be perfect. Intellectually, they will be brilliant. But spiritually, they will be pagan. Let us not fool ourselves. The school is making no attempt to teach the principles of Christ. The Church alone cannot do it. They can never be taught to a child unless the mother herself knows them and practices them every day.

The twentieth-century challenge to motherhood--when it is all boiled down--is that mothers will have an experience of God...a reality which they can pass on to their children.

Isn't this why we homeschool? To persistently instruct our children in the principles of Christ. But, as Peter Marshall points out, I cannot pass on to my children what I do not experience, know, and practice.

Sitting down and reading the Bible, praying, praising God -- that's the easy part. Living it, practicing it, having our mothering and teaching transformed by it -- that's hard, but that is what we pass on to our children.