Home stretch

Jacob went to work with George today to help power wash a house that George will be painting next week. Homeschooling allows that flexibility. Not only is Jacob learning a life skill, he’s earning money and helping Dad. Schooling is set aside for the day.

We’re in the home stretch, but not quite done yet. Health, Global History, Biology, and Geometry all have set topics that I need to cover, and each subject still has one to two weeks of material left. I’m a pusher, and I won’t let up on these subjects until he’s done with the curriculum I set out to cover – a curriculum that runs parallel to the public school where he started the year.

English, Bible Study, Music, and Spanish are more flexible. Jacob has read more for literature and covered more vocabulary words than his contemporaries in public school. He’s done studying the book of Luke. His piano recital is tonight. And Spanish – it’s up to Nita how much he covers, but he’s still running parallel to his sister Alexandra, who started the year in the same Spanish I class in high school. The high school teacher spends so much time in the daily class criticizing the students and yelling at them that Jacob has covered the same amount of material in his twice-weekly classes taught by another homeschooling mom. Poor Alexandra, an excellent student who grasps foreign languages easily, could have covered far more material than she did because the teacher held the class back to accommodate the slowest learners. The teacher decided to cater to them, not to the median of the class, and certainly not to the bright students. Alexandra was definitely frustrated.

Since Jacob is out of the house today, I’m enjoying a day alone, as much as I can while still sick with lupus. Over the weekend, I had a scary attack: such severe pain in my chest/heart area that I was writhing in pain, tears streaming down my face, and all this while we had guests in the house. I asked them to pray for me as I lay on the couch moaning and terrified. Eventually the pain subsided, but I continued to lie on the couch, probably making the guests a touch uncomfortable with my frailty. That episode motivated George to call the elders of the church to pray for me, as stated in James 5:14-15:

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

The pastor and one of the elders came that evening. They sat and talked a while, then prayed over me and anointed me with oil. Six years ago when I had my first and only other bout of lupus, I was healed four days after the elders’ prayer.

Now I await healing. The pastor, however, said it will still be a while before I’m well.