Tag: childhood

Be Your Own Teacher!

Jennifred Jones

Little kids love to learn anything. It’s all new to them. Exciting! Adventurous! Beginning to ‘adult’. and they like it.

Don’t say, ‘You can’t’; they will try to show you they can 🙂

We (I) need to go back to this part of childhood again. Seek out something we’re interested in – or maybe only a little interested in – and find out more about it. Maybe it’s a new hobby, craft, skill. Some new subject – farming, gardening, woodworking or refinishing, computers, finances, a new language…even better methods to clean your house…investigate!

You be the teacher and decide where to start learning. Which book, which YouTube video to begin; who you might meet for coffee to talk about it. You will be the teacher and you will be your student. Yes, you will grade yourself. No embarrassing call-out in front of the entire class, “Jones! you got a C- on your project!” You will quietly tell yourself to keep at it, and you will get better.

I love that part of self-learning. Actually this was the method of old when kids couldn’t go to school. Twasn’t any adult education night class either. You found a book or neighbor and learned yourself.

Really this is empowering! We don’t have to wait on anybody else’s schedule to allow time for us. No need to procrastinate. Merely begin.

So first, what piques your interest? How could I become better in a certain area? What could I learn that would help me save time around the house? And then after you get grounded in your new study, tell somebody else about it. As you teach them it further teaches you.

It’s so exciting to take the power of learning back into your own hands!

What can you think of today, what’s going through your mind right now you’d like to teach your new student – you- about?

Begin! Now!

(Right now I am teaching myself Latin again…been a few years since high school, but this language interests me)

Let You Out!

Jennifred Jones

Once upon a time most of us were carefree little kids. Mom and Dad, or Grandma and Grandpa would let us out to play. We’d make cups and bowls out of river-bottom clay, build bridges with sticks and stones, clothes-pin baseball cards to our bike spokes and listen to the clatter. We’d mix our food together different ways and eat it. We’d sew dresses for our troll dolls…

We started to grow up and somebody told us our striped shirt didn’t look good with our plaid shorts. The frosting on our homemade cake was an ugly color. Our glasses looked dumb. Our feet were too long, our hair was too curly…self-conscious, self-conscious, self-consciousness began to set in.

It’s too painful fighting off the thoughtless comments from others… I’m not going to do anything different, not going to be made fun of again…gonna blend in so no one sees me AT ALL!

Years pass, nothing changes, it’s day in-day, day-out…same ole, same ole. “Oh how I wish I could be more than a cog-in-the-wheel.”

That is the voice of our true calling…asking us:

Who are you? Where are you going? What do you really want to do? Are you tired of the rat -race?

Get back to the childhood freedom of mind. Begin to think, play, design, dream, plan, imagine, tinker.

It’s time to let ourselves out!

We do not need to ask permission…

Hurry! Hurry!! Hurry!!! Is God in a Hurry?

Jennifred Jones

Jesus was never in hurry.  God is not in a hurry. Why are we?

I’m not talking about being lazy, overly laid back, procrastinating, and indecisive.  I’m talking about the nagging feeling that we have got to hurry up with this, and hurry up with that. We’ve got to rush to get this done so we can rush to get the next thing done.

We nag our kids and ourselves to push, push, push to accomplish more and faster and quicker until we’re running around in a fit of nervous energy most of the time and can’t concentrate long enough on any one thing to do it well, or see if there might be a better way to do it, or, horror of horrors, if it even needs to be done at all!!!

Is this you? It has been me! …too many times!!!

A little voice inside my head tells me to hurry when I’m washing the dishes, to hurry when I’m trying to organize something,  to hurry when I’m trying to learn something new, to hurry even when I’m doing something relaxing! What is going on?

God made the world and everything in it. He made it so it takes time for a tree to grow; it takes time for a baby to develop…9 long months before it is ready to face the outside world; it takes 20 years to grow up and then some more to mature, and just to gain some wisdom and understanding, you’re not going to gain it by a one evening sitting– reading Wikipedia or a self-help book.

Yes, everything takes time. It takes time to think! Allow it to happen and don’t feel guilty. It takes time to think things through to get the right perspective and understand what you want to do, be, have, help, become, encourage, start, finish. Don’t give in to the ‘hurry’ bug. Don’t give in to its bite!

It takes time to read a story to your kids. Enjoy it and make it interesting and fun for them. It takes time to remember and tell a family story from your childhood to pass on that memory to the next and the next generation. Do it. And do it well. You’re building. You’re building something lasting.

The hardest, sturdiest trees grow the slowest. The white oak and the black walnut, both prized for their quality dense wood, so excellent for woodworking,  grow at a slow pace, taking many years…no shortcuts. Some rings are narrower than others showing a dry summer that year, but the tree kept at it steadily and soon another better year came along and the tree grew more.

The trees that grow the quickest, the softwoods, don’t have a lot of stability and cannot be used on big projects; they can’t support the stress needed to accomplish the job. They have bigger pores in their grain and are not as smooth, and a big wind will blow them right over.

Let growth happen, a little here, a little there. Don’t be in a big rush about it. Let God do His slow but steady, time-consuming yet sure work in you and in your family.

It will get done, it just takes time!