How Are You Doing?

This past weekend our kids participated in quiz camp. Quiz camp, bible quizzing playoffs, end of quiz season finale or end of season tournament, whatever you want to call it. Lots of ripping and tearing, playing different games, I'm not sure exactly what all that they do, but the kids love it. 

Our kids started Bible quizzing as soon as they were in fifth grade, the official time in life, at least in our area, that makes you old enough to be a quizzer. The season starts out with a chunk of scripture and questions that the kids somehow memorize. These aren't theology questions or anything like that, just word for word questions that need to be answered with the right answer directly from the scriptures. There's a materials judge and a quiz master that then determine if the answer is correct. The captains of the team have the right to contest or defend the decision in a respectable manner.

They have a practice each week and then about once a month there's an actual quiz against other teams from around the community. Now this isn't anything like a spelling bee. It gets pretty competitive. The kids all sit on an electronic sensor and by being the first to jump they get to answer the question. Well, usually it's just a couple of words from the question before someone jumps. It's amazing how fast they jump and still get the answer right. If they jump too soon and they get it wrong it's a strike against them. Strikes can cost the team points. Three strikes and they are out. That keeps them from jumping too soon and makes for an exciting quiz. We're thankful that our kids were able to have this experience. It's one of those things that self-motivate. 

Our kids were somehow gifted to memorize, and once the kids got the bug, we very seldom had to get on them to study and practice.

As parents, we all want to see them doing well, but even more is seeing them developing character, learning to encourage others, working hard at what they do, debating with respect, and learning how to work as part of a team. And even better is seeing them memorize something solid that they can take with them through the rest of their lives. And so for us, quizzing has been a good thing.

At the quizzes it's always fun to visit with other parents from the area that I don't often rub shoulders with, except during quizzing season. This weekend was no different. We were talking to one of the moms about our kids, how we raise them and teach them. Are we doing our job well? Are our kids learning enough? Especially for us homeschoolers. Are we doing a good job and providing our kids with what they'll need in life?  Are we lacking in this area or that? It's easy for us to compare our kids to other people's kids or to one another. It's really not a fair deal because every person has different characteristics and giftings that make us individuals and who we are. We weren't all made to be the same. As we talked about that, it was neat to recognize how some of our kids are strong in one area but not so strong in another, even though they were all taught the same.

 As I think about my life growing up in school and the things that I do well now, I don't think that there is a direct correlation between everything I was taught and what I do now. But I do see a direct correlation between what I caught and what I do now. The same teacher that gave me the D’s and C’s in English and Grammar, and tried really hard to teach me what a prepositional phrase was, (I still haven't learned that) gave me praise for my writings, probably as often or even more than she gave me the D for the misplaced commas and sentence structure, which seemed to be rather often.

I am thankful for what she taught me but I’m more thankful that I had a teacher that encouraged me in the giftings that I was good at.

And I think that's true for all of us, no matter what stage of life we're in. It's good to be competent in every area and try to do our best at whatever we do, but there are some things that we are better at than others. It's good to figure that out. When we are encouraged by others that see our gifting, we strive to do well, using our gifts to help each other. When only our weaknesses are seen, we tend to withdraw and maybe only do what we need to get by.

Realizing that we can influence others in the same way, and not only our kids, is humbling. 

What about you?  Are you doing well at it? You're probably better at it than you think!