There was once a time when I felt equipped to teach other people’s children but not equipped to teach my own. I guess there’s the pressure of being responsible for everything versus one subject. Also, there’s the “balancing mom and teacher” thing. I must say, God has been faithful. Almost every time I become so discouraged or overwhelmed with homeschooling, He provides grace, rest, conformation and reassurance that this is what He wants me to do during this season of life. I am fulfilling the vision in His will, not my will! And I’m grateful, to say the least. My heart is full even at the end of the most stressful days.
To get into more details, here are 5 specific reasons my husband and I felt lead to homeschool:
The Opportunity to Teach
We get the opportunity to shape and mold our kids full time at such an early, vulnerable age. While doing so, we have to opportunity to control their influence and focus on building their character, faith, and other skills morals & values that we have as a family. Character and Faith are extremely important to us. While you don’t have to homeschool to have these traits, for us I love that I GET to nurture and build my children up in these areas frequently.
Meeting Individual Needs
We get to cater to each kids’ learning style. Although my kids are all still very young, it’s extremely evident that each one of my kids have different learning styles and I get the opportunity to observe that regularly and make adjustments based on trial and error. Most schools have a one shoe fits all policy when it comes to learning and testing. In my opinion, that’s unfair and NOT true. During my brief experience in public schools, it was obvious to me why children were not making good grades or passing the state tests.
No Need to Rush
We get to go at our own pace. Sometimes it takes kids longer than a week to grasp/master new material. I honestly didn’t retain much of what I learned in school because I simply memorized the information for a test, then never saw it again. I desire for my children to learn the material not briefly memorize it. Therefore, if it takes us 2 weeks to learn to add vs subtraction, nouns vs pronouns, we get to take the time and focus on just that.
Flexibility
We’ve literally moved 10 times in 7 years. Therefore, my kids’ school would have changed just as much. Also, since our schedule is different than most–Homeschool provides us flexibility in school time, curriculums, locations, etc. We typically do school year-round to make up for the slow or missed weeks—and when we travel we can take our work with us or plan hands-on learning experiences for the kids in whatever city we’re visiting.
Quality Time
We get to spend a ton of time together as a family. It is my desire for us to be a close-knit family. Because we spend most of our time together, we get to love on each other constantly. Work out our issues in the moment, and do team-building exercises that will enhance our oneness.
If you’re considering homeschooling your children, I encourage you to do the following:
Seek God first. Pray with fellow believers.
Don’t be discouraged by what your friends and family members may think. They probably don’t have their life all together anyhow.
Establish your why! Have no fear of being exposed to the world.
Start. Just start. Give it a try and understand that public or private schools are still always an option in the future.
Know that there are extremely rough days and extremely amazing days — they can both be rewarding!
Know that you are not alone. There are endless amounts of curriculums, communities, and resources available to assist on the journey!
Stay connected with us at the F Word! I’ll be providing lots of resources along the way.
My husband, Demario Davis, and I use his platform in the NFL as our ministry.
How is that?
First, you must understand that a lot of times when we think of missionaries, we automatically think of people who are going to the poorest of places to share the Gospel. But that’s not the only way God moves.
God has elevated us for a mission that is not normal in the eyes of most. He has said to us, “Not only do poor people need Jesus but also people who think they have everything — but yet they have nothing because they don’t wholeheartedly have Me!”
It’s true. There is missionary work to be done on different levels, in different places. It doesn’t all look like work in the slums of cities. Spreading the Gospel is about using the platform given to you, wherever that might be.
Our platform allows us to reach and encounter both individuals and entire communities that we typically wouldn’t have been exposed to. It has elevated our voice, giving us a place to be heard by people who wouldn’t normally listen to us share God’s truth. As people often fix their eyes on us, we boldly (in love), attempt to shift their eyes to Christ!
So, here, amongst wealthy athletes and high-profile entertainers, I walk alongside my husband in ministry.
I encourage you to use your platform to do the same.
Sweet potato casserole… When my family hears the name, their eyes light up!
Our first introduction to an amazing sweet potato casserole was a dinner we had at Ruth Chris Steakhouse. It was phenomenal, so I searched high and low for recipes that would give our hearts that same satisfaction that I could make in-house! I didn’t find one I loved right off, but then I got the idea to take my Godmother’s sweet potato pie recipe and tweak it with a few I found online, creating the perfect in-home dish recipe. It certainly took a few attempts for me to master it, but now, it’s a holiday staple in the Davis household.
I typically make three pans minimum, because our family and friends can’t decide if they’d like to have it with their meal, for dessert or both! Sometimes, I’ll surprise the family with this dish for a Sunday dinner, and boy, do they dig in! I’m later bombarded with hugs, kisses, kind words — and sugar-high, stinky-fingered kids running in circles!
My grandmother used to say certain dishes taste better when they are made with love! So, I can certainly tell a difference when I make my dishes with minimum distractions, lots of love, and a quick prayer over those who’ll consume it. I hope your family enjoys this dish just as much as mine does, and I’m sending some of that love your way to make it extra special.
Ingredients
Crust:
Brown sugar
⅓ flour
1 cup chopped pecans
⅓ cup Earth Balance butter (melted)
Sweet Potato mixture:
3 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup and ⅓ cup of sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
½ cup Earth Balance butter (melted)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Rub butter on the sides and bottom of the pan.
For the crust: combine brown sugar, flour, nuts, and butter in a mixing bowl. Chill in the fridge until ready to use. This helps the crumble maintain its form and not melt into the sweet potatoes.
I boil my potatoes with the skin on and add a dash of salt and olive oil. This makes it easy for the potato to slide right out of its skin. Combine sweet potatoes sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, and butter in a large mixing bowl in the order listed. Beat thoroughly with a hand mixer for about 3-4 minutes to increase the fluffiness of the sweet potato mixture.
Pour mixture into the baking dish and bake for 25 minutes.
Sprinkle the surface of the sweet potato mixture evenly with the crust mixture and return to the oven for 10-20 minutes or until the crumble has browned. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes before serving.
Facebook memory pop-ups! You gotta love ‘em! There was a lengthy post I wrote back in December 2015 that popped up just the other day. I found it amazing that I mentioned The F Word blog website coming in the new year of 2016. Well, it’s been a long time coming! God gave me this vision so long ago, and today, I am thrilled to see it all come together in perfect timing.
Here’s the New Year’s flashback:
Facebook Journal Entry Dec. 2015 —
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a perfectionist with a mild case of OCD, who adores family and domestic tasks. My husband often ask why do I insist that our house looks as if we don’t live in it. Umm, I have no idea! Everything has a place, maybe. When our family visits they often walk on eggshells attempting to meet my expectations for the cleanliness of our home.
My friends often wonder what my position as a “Domestic Engineer” entails. Let’s just say, I don’t sit down all day unless I’m nursing our infant or using the potty, and in my mind, I wear a cape! Each morning, I rise with a mission, and keeping the kids happy and the house clean are BIG – although I sometimes fail (not so good for perfectionist).
This morning, I started my day in our War Room, and I had what I thought was a clear vision of how I would execute our day. I got our daughter dressed. As I began the process for our son, my daughter began to create this mess with her things. As I turned around to stop her, my son begins to shoot urine onto the ceiling and floor. LOL… What should I do? I wanted to panic, but I decided to proceed with him and let her be! She’s trying to find a headband for her outfit, I told myself. I started to clean up this mess, but something told me to stop. I decided to laugh, sit my son down and embrace the moment!
While snapping this photo [pictured below] for the grandparents, I realized I needed to hurry to get them breakfast before leaving for an appointment.
Let’s just say another huge mess was created in the kitchen. Usually, I’d panic and rush to clean up the mess, but there was a voice inside me that said “not today”. I smiled and rapidly packed up the kids to get out the door. With a baby bag and purse on my shoulder, a 29lb baby and car seat in my hand, and a 25lb toddler on my hip, I rushed to the car.
Then, I realized I didn’t have on my shoes. LOL! I ran back into the house with my entire body being weighed down to grab my shoes and looked around at the messes that had been made. Wow! I could hear the voices of my family and friends saying, “…and you want 6 kids?” I kissed my little lambs and literally laughed out loud, thinking, “Yep, 2 and 4 to go!” This is something minor I usually make major.
Once we returned, our toddler decided to give her brother and herself a yogurt bath. I found humor in this too!
What would have normally turned into a day of stress with a “Martha” spirit, turned into a day full of answered prayers, joy, chaos, laughter, and quality time with the ones I love so deeply! If someone walked in right now, they’d think I’m cracking up, and ask if I’m ok. But today is the 1st day I honestly would rather have a messy house full of kids, love, quality time, and laughter, instead of a super clean one with no one to share it with!
Often, we waste energy on things that are irrelevant or try to figure out what’s next in life. Instead, we should embrace each season we’re in and learn to have a “Mary heart” in a “Martha world”!
Now, off to love on these little lambs, the mess can wait!
I absolutely love Christmas. Yearly I find excitement in the traditions, decorations, shopping,& movies. Since I was able to get ahead on planning this year, I’ve been spending every moment of my free time indulging in Hallmark Christmas movies.
Yesterday as I sat and anticipated the ending of my 5th movie it dawned on me that most of the movies had a similar storyline. Finding true love that you can’t live without during the holiday season. It became evident that more Christmas movies displayed finding true love in man and not the true love of Christ.
Glancing around my home I was reminded that Christmas is more than decorating, food, shopping, finding true love . Although I’m grateful for them all my heart was filled in remembering that Christmas is about the birth of our savior, reckless love of God, and the gift of eternal life. We should find pure joy in that this holiday season!
As we enjoy our holiday season let’s remind people of the greatest love story that’s ever been written, the Bible, the greatest gift that’s ever been given, Jesus! And the one relationship we can’t live without, Christ!
We love because he first loved us.– 1 John 1:19
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8
Enjoy a space to connect, be empowered and educated to seek Jesus wholeheartedly, identify blind spots, seek growth, learn to love, forgive, laugh, cook amazing food, and understand that living the in the spotlight is not always roses & candy.
