Home school adventures and the innocence of them.

I was home schooled for just about half of my growing up life. I spent kindergarten and part of first grade and part of second grade in a private school, spending the rest of my time up until seventh grade being taught by my mother. We lived in a kind of small northern California town where is wasn't really popular to home school your children. In fact, at that time their was a possibility of getting into trouble for homeschooling your children. But that is not what I am trying to focus on. During my time being home schooled I got to spend a lot of time with my younger brother and my mother. I always finished my school work early and the rest of the day was mine to do with as I see fit. Most of the time I just waited for my brother to finish his work and then the two of us would go outside and look for adventurous things to do. Or Mom would take us on one of her "all day" adventures driving to many different locations during the day finally getting home late in the afternoon just in time to turn on afternoon cartoons. It seemed like my brother and I always found something to disagree on, and by the looks of things it seemed like we fought a lot, which we did. I mean come on, anyone spending large amounts of time together are bound to get into it after awhile right? There were many incidents where him and I injured each other drastically. One time we were playing with this old toy that I had that was a wooden mallet with some different colored wooden pegs that were suppose to represent nails I think. (I know, doesn't sound like such a bright toy idea does it Mattel?) Anyways one day I was playing with it and my brother seemed to think that he was somehow entitled to the rights of my toy since every once in awhile out of my good graces I let him play with it. I refused him his rights and he in turned grabbed the hammer from me. As I tried to grab "My Precious" from his grasp feeling just as demoralized as poor Gollum, he decided to jab the handle of the hammer into my eyeball. Intense pain soon followed with me unable to open my eye. Lets just say my Mom flipped her lid, Jason felt the end of a wooden spoon, (Vengeance is mine sayest the Lord.) and I was in danger of forever being blinding by the end of the hammer. Mom laid hands on me and prayed for me immediately and I experienced my first miracle. Now my eye was jacked up man, the force of the blow had rolled my eye into the back of my head and I couldn't open it at all. Merely minutes after my Mom prayed for me I had one hundred percent full vision back and the pain was gone! That was awesome man, God heals, but that discussion is for another time. My brother, feeling horrible about his actions apologized and of course I forgave him right away because we were young and forgiving people is easy when you are a kid. Plus he was my brother and I wouldn't change any of our adventures for any reason because it has molded the relationship that we have with each other today. I would lay my life down for the man and I know that he would do the same for me, its that simple. Continuing with my story, in fall of 1993 our family left California and moved up to Idaho first to Nampa for a month and then to Kuna where my family still lives and have been there for the last 16 years. When we first got here my Mom of course tried to keep my brother and I home schooling as we had been doing but after while she had to start working so that we could get by. So, I was then introduced to the public school system at 7th grade, having no past experience and having no idea what to expect. In short, my innocence was lost, I had not yet gotten to the point in my Christian walk to where I could prepare myself for the things that surrounded me in my environment. Now I over exaggerate a little when I say my innocence was lost, I was still a good kid as far as I know and I didn't do a lot of things that I could have done at an early age. It was just some words that I learned and some things that I saw led to the corruption of my mind at a young age which still to this day I am trying to recover from. Am I blaming anyone for this? My parents did what they had to do it was not their fault. Also, I made many friends in school that I did not have and could have not had being home schooled, so no I am not blaming anyone for the decisions that I made. I just wish that I would have gotten into the bible at an earlier age and learned how to defend myself from the advances of the world. Because when it all comes down you are responsible for yourself. Your parents are only responsible for raising you how they think you should and how you go from there is completely up to you. Here I am twenty eight years old and finally beginning to take advantage of the gifts that God has given me I only wish I could have had them when I was twelve. So I guess what I am trying to say is don't wait until you are out of school to start building your relationship with God. Home schooled or not this is probably the most important part of your life. Kids today have no excuse resources are unlimited today and they have things that I did not. Internet, unlimited books and an assortment of religious channels on television cover all areas. But the most important tool is the book that hopefully sits very close to you every day of the week. The bible hold the secrets to the universe, so open it up every once in awhile and ask God to give you some insight. Trust me, he won't leave you disappointed.