[from the archives]
Here is some more exciting heart-level growth that happened after I took my children out of band and choir, especially in Rachel.
As I said in my last blog post, the kids began to play duets and trios together, but they quickly ran out of challenging music for their instruments. We went to the music stores and looked on-line, but there was very little music to be found for the kids’ set of instruments. Rachel’s desire for making music with others increased as time passed, so we prayed and searched for God’s timing and solutions for the interests He put in her.
We talked a lot about Rachel arranging music for the kids so that they could play together, since we could not seem to find much to purchase. At the same time, we had hired a voice teacher to come coach us as a family in singing together. We were only able to keep up our family voice lessons for a few months, but our skill increased from barely being able to sing 3 parts to easily singing in 5 part harmony. But here again, there is not much music written for 4 or 5 high voices and 1 low one!
We had a problem that needed to be solved. There was not much music that we could find available for what we wanted to do. Rachel got books and instructive CDs about arranging and composition from the library and began to study. She made good attempts at arranging music for us to sing, and she wrote pieces of a composition for the piano. A stronger need to know music theory and how to compose and arrange developed in her. Eventually we looked into online college courses she could take in arranging and composition. At the time Rachel was 15 yrs old.
At the same time, she began teaching Josiah and Lizzy more instrument music in hopes that one day they would be able to join in the music playing. Rachel further developed her ability to patiently teach and encourage, and she learned that she loved to teach band and instruments.
We eventually settled on Rachel getting a BA in music because we saw that what she really wanted to learn was college level. She began this a few months after her 16th birthday. By the time she was 17, she was attending on-campus music classes up north of us—a 45 minute drive one way. We had originally planned on her taking the bus, but that didn’t work out so I drove her to class everyday for more than an entire quarter until she got her license. I’m so thankful that I did!
I got to talk with Rachel all the way to class, and all the way back every day. She gladly brought to me all the relational interactions she was experiencing on campus. We talked about how she was responding relationally and her heart attitudes, intentions, and motivations through it all. She was a bit shocked by how self-centered people generally are, and she was able to see how insecure and lonely it made them, even though they appeared to be happy at times. She began to develop compassion for others.
She had learned to relate in self-sacrificing love toward her siblings, and they with her so she easily saw through the manipulation, group mentality and pressure from others that was often being directed toward her, and none of it held any sway over her.
She sought my advice on how to respond when fellow students pressured her to be involved in cheating (they wanted her to share her answers). She was bold and truthfully corrected their thinking, holding her ground even through the repeated nagging and pouting, and even though she knew they wouldn’t like her for it. She listened to me explain the pressure of prestige that was coming from all sides at school, especially from the teachers. It was clear to Rachel that her teachers had an agenda for her that was not in keeping with the way God was leading her, and she has successfully stood against manipulative relational patterns intended to make her feel pressured to change.
I was so glad when she accurately assessed the end result of following the agenda others had for her toward fame, prestige, and a life of performance and consciously decided she didn’t want that kind of life, and the way it would impact family. (I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with fame, prestige, and performance, but only that it is not where God is leading Rachel.) She was not swayed or moved from knowing who she is and what God has put in her to do. I know her ability to know herself, even in the face of such pressure, is because I had her at home, teaching her how to relate rightly in love from the heart level toward her family, be truthful to God, herself, and others and live a life of giving—to become her true self from the inside out.
She wanted to audition for French horn in the symphony connected with the college. She knew she wasn’t good enough yet so she wanted an opportunity to get better. We decided the best way for her to increase in skill for the French horn was to go back to the same homeschool band we had left before. This time she knew why she was there, she was aware of her own habits of trying to get approval and attention, and she had put them to death. Not only that, but she easily saw through the activity of others as they sought to gain approval and attention for themselves—youth and teens being busy at forming and shaping their false personalities. She also found there the pressure to become something different than the path she was on. She clearly recognized it and was not swayed at all.
False personality is developed by internal insecurity when young people don’t know who they are. It is solidly put in place when children and youth are left without heart-level training while being submerged in regular peer socialization.
You can hear my family singing at the 2009 Lifestyle of Learning Performing Arts Program below. Rachel was going to play French horn with one of her students in the program, but unfortunately her student got in a car accident and was unable to perform.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qkq6iNbT0E]
This series continues here.
[originally posted September 2010]