Christian Homeschool Resources & Homeschooling Advice

Get guidance on Bible study from C.S. Lewis - Free Course!

Filling Our Wells

  • Christine Field Author, Attorney, and Home-School Mother
  • Published Feb 01, 2002
Filling Our Wells
 

You can’t nurture from an empty well. You can’t home school running on fumes.

Sometimes I am running on empty so much that when one of my precious children or my precious husband comes to me for nurturing, they reach their hand into Mom’s well and all I can give them is sand.

Mothering is a matter of the heart. So is home schooling. If our hearts are full, we can love and nurture others. If our hearts are running low, and people just keep trying to take and take and take, then our hearts are going to feel shrunken and dried out because we haven’t filled them. God has recently taught me many lessons about this matter of the heart, both physically and emotionally.

I am one of those idealistic mothers who thought parenting and home schooling would all be bliss. I figured if I had the right curriculum, the right techniques, cheery chore charts, appropriate skill lists, Godly discipline, and good health care support, that my life style would be a breeze. I wanted to learn from books and experts all the things that the Lord can only teach us from the heart.

I am in my early 40s and I was living my life with such intensity, trying to be the perfect mom and the perfect home schooler, and trying to meet everyone’s needs that the Lord had to get my attention to teach me.

I am very stubborn. I often have to be whacked upside the head before I will heed the error of my ways. This time that whack came in the form of a heart challenge. I was having some irregular heartbeats and went to see the doctor. I figured I needed an adjustment to my thyroid medication, which I have taken since my teens. Or perhaps I needed to give up caffeine once and for all. I was totally ignoring the fact that for years I had been meeting everyone else’s needs and totally ignoring my own. My spiritual life had slipped and my health had deteriorated.

After a bunch of testing that summer, the doctors determined that my right coronary artery had substantial calcium deposits. I have a terrible family history of cardiac problems, but I never thought it would happen to me. I was the happy Christian one in the family. Certainly, I wasn’t going to have heart problems.

I have heard it said time and again that at the heart of every problem is a matter of the heart. I needed to change my lifestyle, reduce my stress, and focus some attention on myself. The cardiologist put it bluntly when he said, “Do you want to live to see your grandchildren?”

You don’t want to hear that at the age of 43. The past few years have been ones of major changes for us. My health has improved. My weight is down. My cholesterol is actually low. I praise the Lord for getting my attention and forcing me to confront myself.

When God looked at my physical heart, He would have seen calcium deposits and hardening. In my emotional heart, He would have seen emptiness and dryness. I had lived this lifestyle too long by hanging on by my fingernails.

A lady in my church went on cruise a few years ago with a couple of other ladies. Their tan, relaxed faces were in sharp contrast to my baggy eyes, pinched expression and shallow complexion. For a fleeting moment, I felt envy. I used to think I had to get away to recharge and fill my well. But life isn’t like that. We often can’t get away. But God is there. He’s there to catch us when we fall. He’s there when we blow it with our children. He’s there in the struggles of our marriages. He’s there during our own illness and depressions and the illnesses in our families.

Sometimes we need to reach out our hands to the Lord and say “I can’t do this!” or “I can’t love this child who is driving me crazy!” It is then that God reminds us that He can do what we cannot. He can mend broken hearts. He can heal injured hearts. Most importantly, he can fill empty hearts.

Sometimes in our lives as home-schooling parents, we fail to see the whole picture. Our lives with our families are like a mosaic. If I showed you one tiny piece of tile from a mosaic, you would say, “Oh, it’s a piece of tile.” When we focus only on the drudgery of housework or the stress of home schooling, we miss the beauty of the completed mosaic.

All of life is like that. We need to look at the full picture, not just the fragment which is immediately in front of our noses.You can’t nurture from an empty well. You can’t home school running on fumes.

Christine M. Field practiced law for eight years before becoming a full-time Mommy. She and her husband live and home school their four children in Wheaton, Illinois where her husband serves as Chief of Police. Three of their four children are adopted, one through a private adoption and two are from Korea. She is the author of several books, including Coming Home to Raise Your Children (Fleming Revell, 1995), Should You Adopt? (Fleming Revell, 1997) A Field Guide to Home Schooling (Fleming Revell, 1998), and Life Skills for Kids (Harold Shaw/WaterBrook, 2000). Her fifth book, Help for the Harried Home Schooler (Shaw/WaterBrook 2002) will be available in January 2002. In addition to her contribution to Crosswalk.com, she writes columns for several magazines, including Home School Digest and Open Arms Magazine. Her work appears regularly in Hearts at Home Magazine and others. Her articles on life skills have appeared in Focus on the Family Magazine and Single Parent Family.

Christine loves to encourage others. She has spoken to many groups, including small fellowships and large conventions. To contact her about speaking to your group, or to share your tips and ideas about home schooling, you may email her at FieldFamily@HomeFieldAdvantage.org or visit her website at www.HomeFieldAdvantage.org. You may write to her at The Home Field Advantage, P.O. Box 261, Wheaton, IL 60189-0261.