True Education is Between a Child’s Soul and God

During my morning routine this morning, I was thinking about that quote from Marlene that I put in my last post. I was thinking about how “true education is between a child’s soul and God” (Charlotte Mason).  The spirit inspired me with an idea. 
 
30 minutes of personal quiet time where God can teach us individually through tools and resources (music, poetry, story, artwork, scripture, journals, etc.). 
 
Even though we already spend time every morning doing personal scripture study, and writing in our journals, and sometime throughout the day we do personal reading time, the environment isn’t always completely quiet and we usually aren’t all by ourselves in the room.  I think having some time and space set apart for complete quiet and alone (with God) time is really valuable.   
 
So this is how it’s going to be set up (and what we did this morning).
 
After our morning dew time (song, prayer, family scripture study, pledge of allegiance, role play), we each go into a room all by ourselves (we’ll rotate each day on who goes to which room – boys’ room, girls’ room, my room, schoolroom, living room). We take the supplies/resources/tools with us that we prayerfully feel Heavenly Father wants to use as the instrument that day. It could be our scriptures, our journal, our prayer journal, a book, music, poetry, artwork, etc.
 
I set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes and we all have our own personal quiet time, alone with God.
 
This went really well this morning.
 
Roxanne chose (all on her own) to do her prayer journal and then to look at a scripture stories book.
 
When I opened up my bedroom door (the room she had been in) to tell her that the time was up, she ran up to me and gave me a hug.
 
I was a little surprised until she said “That’s what Heavenly Father told me to do in my prayer journal.”
 
She showed me what she had drawn in her prayer journal. It was her, hugging me. I asked her what question she had asked Heavenly Father (so I could write it down) and she said “What can I do for mommy today?” Heavenly Father answered and said: “Give her a hug.”

 
Then she started asking me about what Heavenly Father had taught me during my personal time. I told her that He had been teaching me about how God teaches us through good stories, poetry, artwork, and music.
 
The more detailed answer was a thought I had during my personal time is that the resources that become “life changing” are the ones that soften and open up our hearts so that the Lord can speak to us. It’s not the resource itself that we come to love, it’s the fact that it was the tool that God used to speak to us, and that’s why we come to love that resource.
 
Porter chose to listen to his spiritual music playlist on the iPad (He picked the songs for this playlist the other day… all of the songs were picked from my “speaks to my soul” playlist that the kids have heard me a play a lot before.)

 

 

Landon chose to finish reading the book that he has been reading the past couple days (His Indian Brother) and then he read a couple of stories out of the Stories from the Life of Joseph Smith book that is on the shelf in the schoolroom (this month we are taking President Nelson’s challenge and  immersing ourselves in the glorious light of the Restoration as we prepare for a special General Conference next month.)
 
Evelyn chose to “read” (mostly look at the pictures since she’s still learning how to read) some books. She told me that when she was reading The Three Little Pigs, Heavenly Father taught her about how Satan tries to blow down her testimony so she needs to make it strong and not build it out of straw and sticks like the first two pigs.
 
I chose to read the book that I just started yesterday called A Lantern in Her Hand. I’ve heard really great things about this book and it goes along well with our study of the 1800s this month. I’m excited to get into the story more deeply.
 
I am excited to continue this daily ritual and for us to each grow individually as we gain a true education straight from God to our souls.  
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