Anvil or Iron?

In my last post I mentioned being the anvil for my daughter. You may wonder what I meant by that. Here is the "Parable of the Blacksmith."

A blacksmith looks at a messy, unformed, lump of metal and sees great potential.

So into the fire it goes. He allows it to get very hot but does not allow it to melt nor be destroyed.

But instead he handles it carefully, lays it on an anvil, and pounds it with a heavy hammer.

The iron is pounded, and turned, and struck some more. Then into the cooling water it goes. And it rests. Then back into the fire again!

And so the process goes... over and over again... a cycle of heat and pain and stress followed by a time to be cooled and rest.

Until finally the Blacksmith says the work is done, and "It is good."

The messy lump of metal has become a work of art. Something of great use and beauty.

We are the iron. God (as you understand him, or the "universe" or "life") is the Blacksmith. There is a plan for us. We can choose to allow the Blacksmith to make something beautiful from our trials. We can become people of great use and beauty.

Even if we are not - or don't think we are - very attractive physically according to the current societal standards of beauty, we still can and do become beautiful.

We each are iron being shaped.

But at the same time....

Sometimes....

We are the anvil.

And sometimes....

We are the hammer.

And sometimes...

We start the fire ourselves.

I am an anvil for my daughter in her trials.

Sometimes she is an anvil for mine.

Same with my husband.

And sometimes we are called upon by the Blacksmith to be the hammer. Firm, but never wielded with malice or anger or hate. But simply there to help the Blacksmith drive home a point. To help each other "pull our heads out." (Or as some of my dearest friends call it, a "Cranial-anal-ectomy.")

As I home school my dear child, I have to remember that these are HER trials. I am only the anvil.

I must be there, and I must be strong for her. I must be unfaltering and never failing. I must be steady, especially when "steady" is all I've got. Keeping in mind, though, that Anvils are never cold. They are warmed by the heat of the iron being shaped. Warm, and ever ready to be of service to the iron. An invaluable tool in the Blacksmith's shop. Without an anvil, the iron could not be shaped. (Oh, I suppose the iron could be pounded into the dirt, but how then would it turn out?)

Yes, being the anvil is painful at times, but it's worth it.

To see who she is becoming is the best reward an anvil could ever have.

Refocusing the DMZ Life

Over the past months we've changed a lot of things around here, and a lot of things around here have simply changed.

The main thing we're doing is regaining focus.

Therefore, this blog will be getting back to being about homeschooling an autistic-spectrum kid who happens to have autistic-spectrum parents.

I'll have separate blogs for the homesteading and herbal healing adventure and a separate family blog for general updates and photos. You should be able to see them listed very soon.

And yes, I'll actually post to my blog. Really.

We've been re-prioritizing and refocusing our lives. Cutting back. Simplifying some things, and making life more complex in others.

On the home schooling front, momma is now being home schooled along with the chibi.

It's taken a while for me to reach where I need to be in order to go back to school and figure out what direction I need to be heading in. (That's a WHOLE 'nother blog!)

Through a friend I've found the School of Natural Healing (www.snh.cc). Chibi and I are both taking classes there.

It's been a blessing to find something she is exceedingly interested in - applied knowledge that holds her attention: a course of study around which everything else can revolve.

She is so smart and has so much potential, but has so little ability to handle multiple inputs. Having multiple classes in a wide variety of subjects is very difficult for her. She does not do well with the traditional 6 or 7 subjects taken simultaneously in traditional school settings. Even the typical home school curriculum out there overwhelms her.

It can be frustrating to be constantly re-evaluating and re-planning and re-organizing her education. Very often I'll spend weeks organizing something that works... but works only for a short while.

Maybe all that work is for me and my growth and not for her? The work I put into her classes - maybe I will post the course plans here and someone else can use them. Or maybe I can turn them into a class for the home school co-op? I'm not sure. I think I just want all that hard work to go to use somewhere... somehow...

I worry a lot that Chibi's not getting all she's "supposed" to get educationally. What about English? Grammar? Spelling? Typing? Music? History? Math? Science? Foreign Language? How do I teach it all if she can't take it all? What do I do when the only pattern I truly have to follow is "traditional" schooling? AAARRRGGHH!!

Slooooowww down.... Deeeeep breath...... Breathe in.... Breathe out... Ah, yes.... that feels MUCH better...

I suppose what it comes down to is this:

• She is God's child before she is my child.
• She is her own self before she is my daughter.
• She is eternal and timeless, just as are we all.
• What she doesn't learn now, she can learn later.
• God's way of teaching her is the best way of teaching her.
• God's way of teaching is to guide, invite, and instruct.

If I have been praying and following the Lord in how she pursues and education, why do I worry? Because I am weak. Because I have given in to the idea that an education has to fit into a particular mold. Because I have to somehow validate my decision to home school a special needs child and show the world that really, I have done what is right by my child.

Why should all that matter? She is growing. She is learning. She is developing into the person that God would have her be. If He is happy with what and how she is learning, shouldn't His grace be sufficient for me?

Yes. Yes it should.

So I learn. I learn by being her "anvil." I learn by fulfilling my role in her education as a facilitator. I learn by allowing her to face her own challenges and by not adopting them as my own challenges. I learn by practicing trust in a Heavenly Father who loves us both. His desire is for us to succeed. With His help we will, and it's going to be an amazing adventure along the way.

In the meantime, through this course of study towards becoming a Master Herbalist (22 courses and about two years) she is:

• Typing in her answers. Typing course accomplished.
• Learning anatomy, physiology, botany, chemistry, and some pharmacology. Science courses accomplished.
• Reading a wide variety of non-fiction books. Reading course accomplished.
• Teaching herself spelling because people outside of the family will be seeing her work. Spelling course accomplished.
• Writing essays answers for some of her homework. Writing/Grammar course accomplished (for now at least).
  

What about English/Reading and History and Math? She loves books and reading and the classics. English and reading taken care of for now.

She is involved in re-enactments through the local national historical park. She loves historic fiction. She is reading/listening (reading along with the audio book or just listening) to Being George Washington by Glenn Beck and The 5000 Year Leap by Cleon Skousen. History course accomplished.

Math? That's the big mystery right now. She hates it. Her appreciation of it is slowly growing, but it's very frustrating. The smarts are definitely there, but the desire is not. And yes, she still has to do it. She watches videos via the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) and then does some worksheets. It's slow going, but that's OK. I just need to remind myself that if she doesn't learn it right now, she'll be able to learn it later. The opportunity will not be lost.

Also, as she goes on through her courses, math will become more and more important so she'll have more incentive to learn it.

So until then, I wait. It's OK for that to be difficult. I'll get over it. Because this journey is not about me, anyway. It's her journey.

I'm just here to help her on her way.