Hello Friends,
Since moving into my brand new office hideaway, I’ve had fresh opportunity to be reminded of what the Good Lord has been bringing me through over the past eight years. My wonderfully handy husband, Jim, “renewed” one of our old file cabinets for me that we’ve had since the early ‘80s. You know, the tall ugly gray metal types with the deep drawers. He sanded it smooth and painted it a cream color to match the other renewed furniture he’s been preparing for my office. Don’t you think it looks like new and even attractive with a scarf draped over the top and down the side?
This week I got to unpack all of my old pre-2005 work files and spent hours sorting through them, organizing, labeling new files, and installing them in the cabinet’s four drawers. Its contents are the object of my recent recollections, and the inspiration for this message.
I’m sure you can imagine all the paper files accumulated from a 20-year long business and ministry that was associated with a heavy writing and publishing effort, not to mention the computer files that numbered over 10,000. Since we shut down our business in 2005 due to severe health issues that took over my life, the files themselves got hidden away in miscellaneous boxes and in often hard to access places.
As my friend, Barbie, began the process a few years ago of digging up my messages from internet archives, I wanted to help her by providing my hard copy files or even those on my computer, but my condition prevented me. Both types of files needed a major reorganization and updating before I’d be able to offer them of use to anyone helping me. I was finally able to get back to work two years ago and reorganized my computer files, making it possible for dear friends to begin indexing my writings and pulling material for the work of updating all of my books.
Witnessing this process was hopeful since it had been seven years since we shut down the book business, and five years since it seemed like Lifestyle of Learning™ would remain buried permanently. Still, it was with a bit of inner frustration that I witnessed my friends’ process. You see, prior to 2005 my books had been in a state of being rewritten. What a mess that was to leave unfinished at the time we had to shut down our business!
There were many files filled with raw material, and many years worth of written messages that had been published in the journal, not to mention several newer unpublished works, that were in the process of being pulled together to update old books in preparation for the Seven Seasons program I was developing. There was no way I could even remember now what I was doing with it all back then or even try to sort it out, and so I didn’t provide those key files for the indexing project.
Now with the new file cabinet installed in my very own work space, I have it all gathered up in one place. During this year of 2012 the unburying will continue as I sort through and re-acquaint myself with the work I began so long ago. As the Good Lord sustains me, and with my dear friends continual help, I’ll be working on and finalizing one book at a time as we prepare the Seven Seasons to LYFE online coaching program for publication.
I’ve been amazed at how the Lord is resurrecting Lifestyle of Learning™ Ministries, and He’s allowing me to finish the work I began so many years ago. God gave me a dear friend in Barbie who’s been going the distance with me through many trials and sufferings. When she started digging for my material on the internet, she confessed that she felt like she was uncovering “buried treasure.”
The Lord had already been working the living message in her and her family after having read only one of my books, and so she understood what she was finding and got excited when she learned that the truths, ideas, and concepts that she and I spent so much time talking about together, and helping the families in our local ministry to understand, were messages that I had already spent a lifetime crafting and publishing. Her heart-felt desire to help me get the books updated and finished, and the coaching program completed as well, has been nothing short of a miracle of provision that I didn’t see coming at all when spending the last several years nurturing the God-given relationships in my community. What an answer to the deep cries of my heart! Barbie thought she was uncovering a hidden treasure, while I couldn’t help but think she was the treasure God was giving to me.
Recently, when my new book, Empowering the Transfer of Moral Values and Faith, was published, Barbie gave me a precious little “treasure chest” that her kids helped her to make as a personal memorial. It ingeniously conveys her original sentiments about my work that we are now doing together.
Inside the jewel-lined chest are a few miniatures of the finished projects we’ve been working on and room to add more as they’re published in the coming year(s).
It’s such a precious reminder of God’s faithfulness to perform His personal promises.
The message of Lifestyle of Learning™ has always been a Gospel-based message, because it is founded on a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is only through the heart-level work of the Holy Spirit that we can come into the victory and blessings Christ has for our family. Wisdom is available for applying truths to our home education efforts when we choose to listen to our conscience and allow the Lord to influence our ways with His.
The Scripture tells us that:
“We possess this precious treasure [the divine Light of the Gospel] in [frail, human] vessels of earth, that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be from God and not from ourselves.” ~ 2 Corinthians 4:7
We are in the business and ministry of helping families to bring forth good treasure. In this sense the messages of Lifestyle of Learning™ are like a treasure, because they provide wise instruction for being Spirit-led in combining the important growth/discipleship principles of the Gospel with learning principles for a whole-life education. We don’t believe you will find this type of ministry effort anywhere else in the homeschool community. We are exhorted to:
“Not gather and heap up and store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and worm consume and destroy, and where thieves break through and steal. But gather and heap up and store for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust nor worm consume and destroy, and where thieves do not break through and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” ~ Matthew 6:19-21
Many moms come back to this message after having tapped into it years earlier when wrongly thinking Lifestyle of Learning™ was just another homeschooling approach to tack on to all of their prior assumptions about education and discipleship. Are you one of those who only tapped into it? Perhaps it’s time you begin digging deep enough into the Lifestyle of Learning™ message to understand how God wants to parent you so you can parent your children for Him. The new book, Empowering the Transfer of Moral Values and Faith, will provide insight for how to cooperate with God more fully so your home education efforts will promote true discipleship to Christ and equip your family with well-developed tools of learning toward any vocation.
The new 8-part seminar series for members of LOLACHE, “The Heart of the Learning Process”, will help you guide your children in their delight-directed activities. The Moms Forum is also a source of wonderful inspiration, encouragement and heart-level instruction. We are hard at work to serve you on a week by week basis. The living examples at LOLACHE will inspire you to liberate your family’s education more quickly as you and your children catch the Lifestyle of Learning™ vision.
We hope you can join us soon, and may the Good Lord bless you abundantly as you consider the treasure God has already hidden away in your precious children.
So grateful to be in the Lord’s service,
Marilyn Howshall for Lifestyle of Learning™ Ministries
[Lifestyle of Learning™/LOLACHE eNewsletter ~ Feb 1, 2012, Issue 9]