Written by Gena Suarez, Publisher of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
www.TOSmagazine.com

Hey Mama,

For our homeschool, the kitchen is usually our science “lab.”  After all, cooking is basically a series of chemical reactions. Plus the kitchen is usually the best room in the house for experiments and the messes that go with them. Here are some articles with ideas for your budding scientists, “Kitchen Lab: Edible Experiments and Other Mad Scientist Recipes” or “Ultra-Cool Science Experiments to Mystify Your Kids.”  If you’re looking for something less messy, Andy Harris tells how to build a virtual science lab with free resources in his article “Build a Virtual Science Lab With PhET.

Now here’s a quick message, I want to share with you. It’s ironic. I don’t know; I just found it funny and had to tell you.

You know how you have been kinda down on yourself about certain things lately? You look at your friends (and then in the mirror) and feel inferior. They can homeschool better, you say. They have a cleaner home, you lament. But guess what? You are going to crack up when you hear this . . . .

Just as you are looking to them as some sort of model or something, they are looking at YOU because they feel the same way–only in different areas. Some envy the relationship you have with your husband (they don’t tell you this, but they struggle). They long for the same looks you two share; it is so obvious you guys are in love after all these years. Not only that, they can’t understand how you can cook SO well, so much diversity there! (When they still feel like they are basic level “chefs.”)

I guess it’s kind of like that passage in God’s word about various members of the body doing their part (what God created each one to do) and how we all work together like a puzzle, complementing each other. Envy is the wrong action point, Mama. Don’t ever envy anyone else again. (And I’m gonna admonish your friends to quit focusing on YOU as the model, too; they need to stop that already). Christ is our model, and He has given each of us gifts. Let’s use them to glorify Him. Take ourselves off the throne and elevate Him today.

Romans 12:4: “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” (NASB)

We are members of Christ’s church, and we are all different. God did not create you to be your best friend’s clone. Sure, she is better with teaching grammar (or science), but so what. Does it really matter in the end?

Raise those kids up in the Lord; you are doing awesome, Mama (and man, keep cooking all that yummy stuff you come up with; it’s amazing.).

~ gena

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