The Writing on the Wall

Just watched an episode from Walker, Texas Ranger. He is taking a bunch of young prison inmates through a 6 wk boot camp thing to help them change their ways. Of course we know he will succeed, but looking past that I saw something there that struck a chord with me.

The theme throughout his training thing was getting them to realize that choices have consequences, you can make easy choices, fast choices, or smart choices.

He uses this as an analogy:

You are given two choices

1: $100,000 right now

or

2: 1 penny today, doubled everyday for 30 days.

of course they all chose the $100,000 and then he showed them that after 30 days they would have gotten
$5,368,709.12. It seemed odd, so I did the math, and he is right.

But that isn't what got my attention, it is that the overall lesson is something that I have been hitting on a lot lately.

A while back I was asked to teach a 7wk course using my martial arts, I chose to teach on self-control. I didn't know what I was teaching on then, but since then I have learned a lot, and I am convinced that Self-Control is all about our choices.

Life is about choices, hundreds of times a day, every single day we are faced with choices. We always have control over our choices, the question is what do we choose? At its most basic level, every choice is between honoring God or honoring ourselves, and as Chuck Norris pointed out, there is the easy choice or the smart choice. Honoring ourselves is the easy choice, but honoring God is the smart one. With every choice there are consequences, and when we choose to honor God, He honors us back. but when we honor ourselves, He withholds His blessings.

Self-control, then, is about honoring God with our choices.

thanks for thinking about it!

Posted by Hailstorm at 09:25 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I was asked to give pros and cons of homeschooling vs public by one of my students.

I began by listing the 10 top reasons I could think of for why homeschooling is good when done right.

I need others to provide feedback, am I nailing it or way out in left field? Homeschoolers oppinion prefered, and I am not interested in a debate, however I am willing to hear your thoughts.

thanks!!

10 pros of homeschooling done right:

1: more one on one attention for student, studies show that this method has greater success rate at producing real learning.

2: builds stronger bond between parent and children.

3: fulfills mandate to parents to be the primary teachers/mentors of children.

4: allows parent a fuller ability to oversee what the child is learning and tailor the curriculem and learning style/pace to each child.

5: teaches the child to be self-disciplined, self-managed, and self-learning; three characteristics that allow that individual to stand head and shoulders above his peers from both public and private educational systems.

6: produces a child who is confident in his intellect, confident in his identity, and confident in his ability to deal with life.

7: produces stronger bonds between siblings and builds ability to interact respectfully with people of all ages.

8: statistically, produces children with higher maturity than either public or private school backgrounds, thus more ready to deal with adulthood.

9: contrary to popular oppinion, teaches the child how to socialize better and more appropriately.

10: builds an attitude of learning that is always on, unlike public/private school students who typically baulk at the idea of thinking outside of school hours.

Posted by Hailstorm at 07:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

I just spent a week with 1st and 2nd Peter (two of my students from St Louis) here in Findlay. It was an intersting experience, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I end the experience encouraged and inspired to continue on in the direction my life is going.

The week was full of mutually fun and encouraging/stimulating conversations and activities. We helped remodel the youth center at my church, went through a 5 part series from Answers In Genesis, lots of martial training and practicing, rearranged my room, cleaned out the garage, watched the Fantastic Four...

which leads me into the most humorous moment of the week. Coming home from Mattoon after watching the movie I found myself in the left lane at a light next to a car full mostly of teenager girls. As the light turns green we both start to progress forward, and she initially took off much faster than I, but then I caught her look over at me out of the corner of my eye and then suddenly slow down to be even with me. Initially I thought she wanted to race me and I decided to have no part in that foolishness so I continued especially slow and easy. She, however, wasn't going to be ignored that easily and so slowed down again trying to maintain her position beside me. This presented a problem for me because I needed to get into her lane to make my turn and she would not let me over (unknowingly) so I pulled a little trick. I took off real fast, and as soon as she matched me (as expected), I hit the brakes (of course making sure I would not run the risk of being rear ended) and switched lanes. Then I stopped at the next light after she went through. "That's the last I will see of those girls." thought I. I thought wrong!

Yep, they pulled over and waited for me. I passed them and they pulled in behind me. Once again positioning themselves beside me, they matched me and started honking at me. As I looked over at her, she smiled just that one certain way that you know young girls smile and waved. I raised my eyebrows, pursed my lips as though to express the thought "oooohh k?!" and waved back. Persistence was her strong suit, for she continued this constant honking and sticking to my car until finally I left the limits of Mattoon.

The Peters of course found this to be very entertaining, it was definatly an interesting experience. Goes down into my books as a first.

yep, Mattoon women are wierd!

good taste thought ;) jk

tayl

Posted by Hailstorm at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I have a praise! A young lady that is in our youth group that has been struggling severely (sp) for quite some time is making very nice progress.

It has taken many hundreds of hours of talking/praying to gain this ground. So praise God, but don't stop praying.

Thanks

Posted by Hailstorm at 05:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)