The Danger of Educating your Children (part 3)

In my last post, I shared that by teaching my children to love reading God's Word and researching things changed our lives forever.  You can read the first two post here and here.  So, that Christmas in 2008 we enjoyed gift giving and a Christmas tree and the Advent season.  But, something had changed. The children had already started to have a desire "to have less to give more."  This would soon become a family motto, that would not only affect our holiday times, but our everyday life.
But that wasn't all.

 



Our oldest daughter loves the library, loves books, and loves learning knew things.  Even more than that she has a love for God's word and is an avid student of it.  It makes my heart rejoice that she loves all these things, but it also makes it a challenge to keep up with her.  She often teaches me things.  Sometimes things I wish I never learned.

This was one of those times in life.  As our family studied each holiday on the calendar, Tyler dug deep and shared with our family her findings.  Sometimes it was exciting and interesting.  Like learning about the true story of our founding fathers, and Squanto at Thanksgiving time.  But, other times, it was a challenge.  That was how it was for Christmas.

Tyler Ann searched scripture and searched books and websites and found Christmas wasn't at all what she thought it was.  (Instead of telling you all the different things she discovered, I will share this link with a few of the things she found.)  She shared her findings with our family.  We found it interesting and it truly challenged both Jeremy and I.  But, we weren't ready to let go of Christmas.  In fact, we didn't discuss it with each other much at first.

 



Christmas 2009 was approaching and we had finished our study on generosity and joy.  The children had started something new.  Living with less to give more.  So again they asked if they could not have presents, but instead use the money to give to the poor.  They also asked to not have a tree.  So, instead of putting up a Christmas tree we got a new nativity and placed it in our living room.  Instead of giving them gifts we gave them stocking stuffers only.  The children went bargain shopping and made lots and lots of shoeboxes to give to Samaritan's Purse.  We bought gifts for relative and friends and went to family gatherings.  We all felt pretty good about ourselves.  We felt like we found a compromise. 

The problem is God doesn't do compromise, no that was not going to work for him.

to be continued.....