I Have a Dream

I have a dream....

This dream has been forming since we found out the girls' adoptions were really going to happen. Part of the dream is about homeschooling, of course, but it's about more than that....

1. In my dream, the girls grow up in a church "community", a place where their relationship with Jesus Christ is the center of their lives, a way of life, and not just something they "do" on Sundays. It's a place where we all know our gifts and use them to the glory of God. Our prayer lives are the witness to a living, breathing, work-in-progress, relationship with Jesus Christ.

2. In the dream, we live a much simpler life. It's simplified in many ways, but the bottom line is this: We have fewer posessions so that we manage our posessions and they don't manage us. We have what we need, but not to excess. We are able to give to others out of any excess as God lays on our hearts. We trust God to meet our daily needs and this gives us peace as we go about serving Him. Thankfulness for this provision is also a way of life, not just a day on the calendar.

3. Homeschooling works well for us in the dream. The girls are eager to learn and we have fun doing school "outside the box". The girls learn as much about lifeskills as they do about reading, writing, and arithmetic. They learn to care for a home and all that entails. We are able to incorporate serving others into our schooling as to be a witness for our faith.

4. Dreaming on, courtship is a given. The girls never date, but instead enter into courtships as God leads them to the person to whom they are to be a helpmeet.

And, last, but not least...

5. The girls stop fighing over toys. They go to sleep at night without an arguement. They sleep all night long. The television goes out the window. The car never breaks down. We never get sick. The cats stop puking up hairballs at the most inopportune times and in the most obvious places. Everybody likes everything we're having for dinner. Litter boxes clean themselves out. Chocolate is named one of the Four Basic Food Groups and we each have a daily requirement the has to be met.

Utopic? Perhaps. But a girl can dream, can't she?

(This was first publised on March 15, 2007 on my previous blog.)