Today in an effort to continue my commitment to getting fresh air and exercise DAILY with my children, we visited a local state park and took the mile hike up to and back from the fish hatchery. The hatchery which houses mostly trout did not have much activity given the time of year. However we did see a few valiant trout trying to swim upstream over the waterfall/damn. It seemed like an exercise in futility but we did see at least one that was successful. This led my daughter Hope(14) to comment that she’d hate to live her whole life fighting against the tide. This was a God given opportunity to discuss how we as Christians live a life that is constantly in conflict with the culture and world we live in – against the tide, so to speak. I asked my 11 year old son Lenny what types of things he thought we were fighting against. He responded that he felt that the world values things and pleasure over God. I thought this was a good assessment.
In our family, we readily admit that we are not "normal" and don’t strive to be. When we are with some of our homeschool friends, we can feel less weird but we are weird from a worldly perspective nonetheless. If you had asked me 20 years ago if I would have wanted my family to be normal, I would have emphatically expressed my desire for my children to be popular and accepted in the main stream of society. I thank God that He has changed my perspective. We now proudly "embrace our weirdness" – although Hope thinks Lenny "embraces his weirdness" a bit too much!!! ;o)
Great post. Chris and I usually manage to get to Connectquot in the spring. We’ll all have to go!