I would like to share a homeschool-related spiritual experience I had recently in hopes that it will be a blessing to someone else in some way. 

Several times I have heard the apostles say we live far below our privileges when it comes to receiving the gifts of the Spirit and that thought always makes me feel so determined to not fall short of what God would like to bless me with.  For years now I’ve been consciously trying to live so that I can obtain more of those privileges.  Each step has been small and I have a long way to go, but it has been a joyful and amazing journey. 

I have been doing a lot of praying lately for guidance from the Spirit in determining how to guide each of my children on their own unique path that Heavenly Father has for them.  I want to know what I need to do now so that they will be where He needs them to be, equipped with the tools necessary for them to do the work that He sent them to earth to do.  I believe as mothers we have a right to revelation about our children, starting before they are even conceived. Especially as homeschooling mothers we need this revelation.  We should ask for it and expect it. 

Monday morning we had our usual morning devotional.  In reading some scripture in the book of Moses, I got off on a tangent talking about the book of remembrance that was kept and how important it is to keep journals.  Bean, my oldest, who is ten, suddenly put his head in his arms and started crying noisily. 

Emotional outbursts from Bean are fairly common and when they happen he can’t learn or do anything until he calms down.  Sometimes this takes hours and sometimes entire days have been wasted because he’s angry or upset.  So when this happened I groaned inwardly and thought “oh boy, here we go again.” 

But I am trying not to get frustrated and, more importantly, I am trying to follow the Spirit in situations like this. I asked Bean to move to the couch so that his noise wouldn’t disrupt our devotional.  Then when we were done with the devotional, I went and sat next to him on the couch and put my arms around him. I wasn’t sure exactly what had set him off crying, so I probed a little and reminded myself to listen and not lecture. 

He was upset not because his brother had hit him or because he was wishing he could go jump on the trampoline, but because he felt like he should be keeping a journal and he wasn’t. 

The reason he isn’t keeping a journal is that he is a very late-blooming reader and his writing skills are not yet sufficient to produce a narrative of his daily life.  I explained to him that he was not expected to keep a journal yet and that I had been keeping a record of his life for him. 

Suddenly, the Spirit came over me so strongly.  I looked at him and said, “Son, the reason you feel so intensely about needing to keep a journal is that you have the gift of writing and one of your tasks here on earth will be keeping a record of your life in these latter days.  You have many missions to fulfill here on earth and you will write about them in great detail.  This record will be a tremendous blessing and treasure to your posterity throughout the years.” 

It was such a tender experience between the two of us.  He felt the Spirit too and he knew I was speaking by the Spirit.  I knew that I had awoken an understanding and a vision in his soul that had been there, but neither one of us had been aware of it until then.  I had had absolutely no indication up to this point that this child had any gift for writing whatsoever.  As I said, his reading and writing switches have been very late turning on so I have hardly seen any legible writing from him at all, let alone anything that would indicate that this child will be known for his writing. 

But he will be.  And now that we know that, we can nurture that and provide him with the guidance he needs to master his craft. 

This was such an example to me of how even though I watch my children close to determine how to help them develop their gifts I still need the Spirit of revelation to help me know what those gifts are.  I am so grateful for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in my mothering and homeschooling.