Nothing is more important for the Christian homeschool mom than to meditate on God’s Word. But how do we prioritize time with the Lord and Scripture memory in the middle of an often overwhelming homeschool life? And how can we easily include Bible memorization in the homeschool day with our kids? Today’s Homeschool Conversations guest, Katherine Pittman, has some much-needed encouragement and practical tips for us today! You’ll leave filled with a love and desire for more of God’s Word! Read, watch, or listen and then share with a friend.
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Who is Katherine Pittman?
Katherine Pittman is wife to Geoffrey, and homeschooling mom of three. She is the creator of Write the Word on my Heart, a Bible Memory curriculum for little ones, and occasional co-host of the Books and Parchments podcast. She serves alongside her husband in youth and children’s ministry, together sharing the burden to see another generation fall in love with the Lord and his church. Connect with Katherine on Instagram, or find more of her writing at chroniclesofmomia.com
Watch my Homeschool Conversation with Katherine Pittman
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Amy Sloan: Hello friends. Today I am joined by Katherine Pittman. She is wife to Geoffrey, and homeschooling mom of three. She is the creator of Write the Word on my Heart, a Bible Memory curriculum for little ones, and occasional co-host of the Books and Parchments podcast. She serves alongside her husband in youth and children’s ministry, together sharing the burden to see another generation fall in love with the Lord and his church. Connect with Katherine on Instagram, or find more of her writing at chroniclesofmomia.com
I am so delighted to have you here today, Katherine. Could you start and just tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and how you got started homeschooling.
Katherine Pittman: Sure. Hey, well you just said it. That’s basically my basics. I met my husband at a Christian camp and for the next few years after that, we always ended up similar places sharing with youth and youth ministry. We got married, and that’s been our life very much since then. We do have three kids that came along in the midst of all of that and we homeschool. Did you say how did we decide to start homeschooling?
Amy: Yes, how did you get started?
Katherine: My oldest is 12-and-a-half now, we’re approaching teenage years. When he was five-ish, we knew a lot of homeschooling families just in our church, but it was kind of like, “We’re not quite ready to just release you into all of that.”
Also because we were so involved in ministry and sometimes that meant traveling and sometimes that meant late-night Bible studies, just the choice to homeschool gave us so much more flexibility. I’m not freaking out if our house is filled with teenagers at 11 o’clock at night, which has happened countless times because we have flexibility in our day. We can start our day at 9:30 or 10:00. It let us involve the kids in so many more things that we were doing without that fear of like, “You got to be on the bus and out the door.”
It was a combination of, practically, we needed the flexibility in our lives and also just we weren’t quite ready to release our kids to the world at five. They just seemed like they needed to be with mom and dad, or at least we wanted them, actually.
Amy: They weren’t quite ready to be a light in the world yet, you mean?
Katherine: Yes. Exactly. My husband brought that up too. He said, “If they get to be high school and they’re just flaming Christ, sure, go out and flame Christ in the high schools.” We’re approaching high school and I’m pretty sure we’re in it for the long haul.
Amy: I think the flexibility as schedule particularly for families in ministry or if dad is working night shifts or quirky schedules is something that’s so valuable because you have the freedom of– I know someone whose husband is a pastor, so their traditional school week is actually Tuesday to Saturday and then they can take that Monday as their family weekend’s day after a Sunday. You just don’t have that flexibility in a traditional setting. It’s definitely a gift of homeschooling.
Learning to homeschool outside the box
Well, as you have homeschooled now for several years and your oldest, as you said, is heading into the teen years, have you seen that your thoughts about home education, your approach or philosophy has grown or changed in any ways over the years?
Katherine: Oh, for sure. I wanted to do everything by the book in the beginning and this is probably the storybook case. I got the box curriculum and yes, we’re going to go through every page and check off all the boxes, but my oldest struggled a lot with reading and writing especially. He did not like to write. He was delayed at reading. I remember taking the end-of-the-year testing in first grade and he couldn’t read it and they expected him to read it. I’m like, as the check-the-boxes type of mom, I’m pretty freaked out. Probably it was that way for a couple years and we had a bit of conflict. There was some like, “Am I just a failure?”
Around third or fourth– I don’t know, he was eight-and-a-half or nine and he started picking up chapter books. He read one and then he read another one and another one. He was reading a chapter book almost every night for years, and he is spitting out all this information and I was like, “Okay, you’re learning.” It looks different than how I expected it to look because I was in public school my whole life. It looks different, but I saw it happening and I just saw him spitting out all this stuff and learning all these things.
We still struggle with writing especially with my oldest, but I’m trusting the process a lot more and I’m trusting we’re going to get there and I’m trusting the education, it can look different for different people. I think a verse that’s helped me a lot, is in Ephesians 2, where it talks about the works that He’s prepared for us to do and I was like, “What does the Lord have prepared for my children to do?” It may be far beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic. It may be: What if they’re going to be a missionary somewhere, or what if they’re going to be a chef? It’s just like only the Lord knows.
Yes, we’re exposing them to many things. We want them to do well in school. It’s not like we’re casting off all of the structure, but I think just trusting the process and– I’ve been enlarged a lot maybe by the Lord and by the, I don’t know, growing, experiencing with the kids. I trust the process a lot more. I’m a lot more laid back than I was in the first few years, a lot less freaked out if we don’t check all the boxes.
Amy: I love that story. Oh that verse in Ephesians, I often bring that up to my own children and to my own heart like, “God has prepared good works for us already. He’s already got them. We just have to walk in them by faith knowing He will equip us for those things because He’s already done the hard part of preparing them for us.”
It’s really interesting your experience with your first grader, especially with that end-of-year test. I had that experience with my youngest little guy and so I was actually really thankful that I had all of these previous years of going through the process and having a little bit of perspective as a homeschool mom because I had always said like, “Standardized testing is testing mom, not the kid. It’s not that important. Only measures certain things.” I said all the right stuff and it’s really easy to say when your kids just breeze through the test and is no trouble. My youngest has really struggled with reading and same experience, so much of the test they have to read. Even if you know the math, it doesn’t matter if you can’t read the question.
Halfway, there were several where he started crying and that’s just not okay with me because I was like, “No, we were going to have positive testing experience.” I’ve actually written about this, I think it’s so important, have positive non-stressful testing experiences. I was like, “Okay, well we’re just done.” I was like, “Okay, I’ve always said it doesn’t matter, so let’s see if I actually believe it doesn’t matter.”
That was last year. This past school year I’ve seen him grow. He’s on a different trajectory than other siblings, but he’s catching up and he’s doing such a great job. I think some of that comes from this freedom in homeschooling to not freak out about one test score or, you haven’t hit some marker that is standard across all children everywhere. You can just work at your own pace, slow and steady and then they’re reading chapter books like your little guy.
Katherine: Right. Actually, my youngest had the same experience. He was reading a little bit, but not well. You hit the test, they have to read it themselves, and he also didn’t do well, but I was like, “Whatever.” Now, we’re halfway through second grade and he’s fine and he’s all into reading. He said, “Mom, I want to learn to read this year.” I was like, “Great. Okay.” A little more relaxed.
Katherine’s favorite parts of homeschooling
Amy: Yes. I love that. Well, I hope that’s encouraging for any mom who is on that first side of things and is worried. I hope that’s an encouragement. What have been some of your favorite parts of homeschooling?
Katherine: I think I probably already alluded to the traveling and just the flexibility. We’re in a very odd life circumstance at the moment where we actually have homes in three places. This is weird, a bigger story to go into. We have family all across the country. Nobody lives nearby. None of our family live where we are. Anyways, so we have homes in three places and you know what? That’s weird. I know, but one of them is in the country and my kids are exploring the country and building tree houses when they’re there. We’re in the city and we’re doing all the city things like gymnastics lessons and whatever. You cannot do that when you public-school your kids.
Traveling, we have traveled a lot. The kids went to Singapore one year with his dad, he was sharing at a conference and so we got to tag along. That’s huge. That’s really neat, stuff that we’ve been able to do. Definitely, the traveling flexibility is probably my favorite perk.
I also am a nature lover, so we do a lot of hikes and explorations. We were out in the country, we just came back from the country, I’m in Kentucky, and, we’re just exploring rocks and hills and flowers and studying poop. All this stuff like, “What animals live around here?” “Oh, it’s a bear,” because we studied. That’s weird learning that you don’t get in public school, but it is valuable. Actually, where we were in the country, it’s pretty valuable to know what animals were around our property so the kids can be safe when they’re hiking and playing outside and stuff. Anyways, that’s a whole beautiful part of homeschooling that I’ve just loved discovering
Amy: That’s not something in a workbook but that’s part of the life of learning.
Katherine: It’s really stuff I didn’t value or appreciate growing up as a public school kid. We’re doing an astronomy course and going out and looking at the stars and learning how they– it’s just awesome, just to be out in creation. It’s beautiful.
The not-so-fun parts of homeschooling
Amy: How about the less fun parts? What have been some challenges of homeschooling? How have you sought to overcome those challenges?
Katherine: The less fun parts. Yes, there are those. I’m sure. There are hard days. There are really hard days, I think just teaching three kids at the same time or mom getting her max because the noise has been like all day long and no stop, and like “Aah,” I’m on 24\7. Even some lessons, I feel like whenever we have a hard day and I go back to the Lord there’s a couple of things that He has shown me to do anyway.
One thing that we’ve always tried to do for a long time is a daily quiet time. It’s like we finish school, we make it through school, sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 or 1:00 and 3:00 or whatever. We try to send everybody to a quiet spot for an hour. That’s especially for me for my brain to recover. Anytime we have a hard day almost, not always, but often it’s because I’ve been on my phone too much and I feel like that’s something the Lord has exposed and continues to show me just like, “You know what? Between 9:00 and 1:00 or whenever you’re doing school, just set it aside.”
I am involved in social media and I run a couple of different accounts and stuff, but it’s like, your kids know– They sense when we’re on the phones and when we’re not giving them our whole heart. Whenever there’s like– I just feel like the Lord continues to bring me back to that like, “You know what? Just set the phone aside, show the kids they matter.” Even if they don’t need you in that moment, I think just the fact that our ears are tuned to them and we’re quick to listen, that they sense that and there’s more peace in the house.
That’s, personally, something the Lord always- whenever things are hard, He always shows me that, “Are you giving them your full time between 9:00 and 1:00, or whenever school time is?” Also to have times, individually, where I’m with each kid has been helpful and getting others involved has been helpful. There was a season when we were really struggling and actually my mom volunteered to do one class with each kid on Zoom. We’ve done that at different seasons. That was really special. This year we each have- we have two other online classes so that way one kid can do an online class while I’m working with the other kid one on one.
There’s a lot of little things like that, that have been helpful that we’ve worked through but a lot of it really comes down to me and, “How is mom? Did mom start the day well with the Lord? Is mom right with the Lord and walking through with the Lord?” I think that really sets the tone a lot for whether our day is good or bad.
Amy: I often say that mom’s enthusiasm is the secret sauce of homeschool, of the homeschool day goes smoothly, but I think the flip side is true too like you were bringing up. Mom’s own sin, my own bad attitude, my distraction, my lack of diligence can often be the worst part of the homeschool day. I like to blame the kids, and they have their own sin too, let’s be real, but I can’t control that part but I can control myself.
Katherine: Even today, we just turned on a song and we were dancing before we even started the day. I don’t do that often, but sometimes I just have grace to be free and fun. I think the kids are always so shocked that they’re just like, “Wow.” It does, it changes the atmosphere. When mom is fun, the kids are just like, “Okay,” and then I’m like, “All right, let’s get still now and read our Bibles and settle into everything.” Mom sets the tone a lot.
Why is Scripture memorization important for homeschool families?
Amy: Oh definitely. For good or for bad, but God’s grace is sufficient for that too. Oh, Katherine, one of the reasons why I wanted to chat with you today is to talk about this topic of scripture memorization. You were a special guest in the summer audio blog series last summer with some tips and advice for incorporating that in our homeschool, and I would love to talk to you more about that.
Let’s just start big picture, maybe basic, but why do you think it’s important to include scripture memorization regularly for our families and then in our homeschool more specifically?
Katherine: Okay. Lots of places you can go with that. I will tell you two quick stories that really blessed me. We’ve been incorporating scripture memory for a long time. I wrote a curriculum about it. It’s something that’s been important to us but not too long ago we have our little kids, they run these summer races. My youngest, I think he was three or four at the time, and he was running this race and I actually have it on video, but he fell in the middle of the race and then he just got back up and he finished.
A year later he was looking at that video of himself running and he was like, “Oh yes, I remember that. I fell in the race, and then I remember the verse, ‘the righteous fall seven times, but they rise up again,’ and I got up.” I was just like, “Are you serious?”
Amy: Like, “It’s a ‘praise God’ moment right now.”
Katherine: Same kid, I think he was five or six, and we were talking in bed about being afraid, and he was like, “Whenever I’m afraid, I just remember that song, When I’m Afraid I Put My Trust in You,” and I was just like, “Okay, God is speaking to our kids.” We can’t say that our kids are too little to hear from God. I know the Lord can use all kinds of things and I know He does use all kinds of things, but when they have the Word already there, He’s going to use it and it’s going to become living to them.
It’s not just going to be like, “Okay, my parents read the Bible.” It’s going to be like, “This is the Word of God and God is real and God is speaking to me. He gave me that word just at the moment I needed it.” I know, as a parent, I did get into scripture memory a lot in college, and I started having those experiences, especially in motherhood when I was so aware of my lack. Initially I memorized because it was cool and fun. You got a stack of index cards walking around. There were mixed motives.
My husband was big at the scripture memory because he was in seminary and whatever, and I thought like, ”Hey, this is cool.” I wanted to do it. I maybe wanted to impress him.
Amy: It’s the cool Christian card.
Katherine: Yes, it is great. There were mixed motives, but the Lord uses all of that. When I was, especially, in motherhood and I was dead tired and brain fried and blur and had nothing, and we’d have these teenagers come into our home needing help or I’d be up late at night or I encountered postpartum depression, time after time after time, all of those verses that I’d memorized 10 years earlier, even a few that I’d memorized from Sunday school when I was seven or eight, were, all of a sudden, coming back in weird moments when I knew I had nothing.
I was just like, “Wow.” I think I was just experiencing all of the blessing of that, and of God meeting me in so many moments, so many desperate times of need. Also, I started writing articles for various outlets as my kids got older and I would find like I’d be writing an article or asking the Lord like, “Okay, how do I write this?” Then all of a sudden these verses would flow together and I’m like, “This is so cool.” It’s so cool when– because it took years for that to happen, but then it started happening all the time.
Anyway, I just saw the value of scripture memory in my own life, and even as a mom now. We use it a lot, but they’ve memorized certain verses. When I say like, ”Hey, is that building up? Does that build up and edify? Is that a soft answer response? Hey, you know you can cast that on the Lord and come to Him,” they already know those verses. It’s almost like as a mom, I can use that to direct them back to God and to the Word of God. It’s not like, “This is mom’s laws or rules or family rules.” It’s like, they have that reference like, “Oh yes, that’s the Bible, that’s God. I’m learning to yield to the voice of God.” Anyways, a million reasons to bring scripture into the home but those have been a few.
Amy: We think about, “Your word, I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.” It is hidden. Sometimes, if somebody was like, “What’s this verse?” then they just give you a reference, you might not be able to say all the verses you have hidden in your heart. It’s in those times where the spirit brings it back to your memory that it is hidden in your heart and it is a part of you, and then the Lord is faithful to bring it to mind at just the right time.
I know I’ve experienced that as an adult. Our children are no less able to have that Word of God hidden in their heart, that the Lord can then be faithful to bring back to them in hard times and good times. Oh, go ahead.
Katherine: They’re not always going to be with us. I think that was a shock to me, even in motherhood too like, “Oh, my kids are going to have experiences that I’m not a part of.” I think the first time that happened where I was dropping my kids off places, I was just like, “Wow.” A verse we quote a lot is, “How you have obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.”
You want the Word of God to be hidden in them especially because you know you’re not going to be there forever, or they’re going to have experiences apart from you. I think just by hiding the Word in them, it gives the Lord the opportunity to speak. I don’t want to say “the opportunity.” That’s the wrong way to– Anyways, it gives the Lord added materials to speak even when you’re not present.
Amy: I often tell my kids– this is true when they’re at home and when they’re not at home, that, especially as my kids have gotten older and have so much more independence. My oldest is 17 and I have teens, tweens, and little. I’ve got the whole range. I remind them like, “I will not know everything that you think, say, do. I will not. Even if you were perfectly truthful all the time, I still wouldn’t know.” I was like, “The Lord sees and the Lord knows.” It’s good for them to remember they’re before the face of God all the time.
Katherine: Amen.
Struggles with Scripture memory
Amy: We know it’s important. Someone’s listening, they’re like, “Yes, that’s great. I think it’s wonderful. I should totally memorize the Bible,” and then they get up in the morning and they’re like, “Okay.” What are some common struggles that we all face? No temptation has overtaken us, but such as is common to man, these are common struggles, we’re all there together, that keep us or are hampering us from pursuing this, hiding God’s word in our heart? Do you have any tips and strategies to help us actually do this thing that we want to do, but actually make it happen?
Katherine: Yes, I know exactly what you mean. First of all, there’s dozens of ways and tips and things you can try but this was why I created the curriculum because I think so many of us, we get ambitious or maybe you see somebody that inspires you online, you’re like, “Wow. That person memorized the whole book of this,” or, “That person memorized a chapter. I’m going to do that too,” but we don’t really have a plan in place. We start off really zealously and we’re memorized for a week, and then there’s no like, “How do I keep going?”
Part of that was like, “I want my kids to memorize and I want to put something in place so we’re looking at it every day.” There’s a lot of systems out there to do that. I think the most brainless simple way is to say, “Every day we’re going to listen to scripture songs.” There are so many groups out there. If you were really in the throes of motherhood and little kids and there’s nothing, find some scripture song groups. Slugs and Bugs just put out four albums of Sing the Bible. Seeds Family Worship. There’s a group that I discovered a while back called Every Last Word. They have whole chapters.
I’ve been so blessed and there’s a lot of groups out there. I’m sure you could search online and find a lot of groups, but those are all groups that have done a lot of word-for-word verses. If you have no way to do it, if you have nothing except– I’d say just turn Alexa, whatever you use to listen to music, and listen to scripture songs because it’s something you can do with your kids and it’s meeting you and it’s getting the Word into you even if you have nothing else so.
I also think sometimes we get too ambitious and we say, “I want to memorize,” and we commit something. There are things you can do. Right now I’m working through Hebrews 11. I watch some of these people that memorize whole books and whole chapters. I started Hebrews 11 in January and I’m actually up to verse 40, which is the last verse in it right now. I’m hoping by the end of the year, in one year, I’ll have memorized one chapter.
For some people that’s a lot. For some people that’s a little, it’s all relative. This is how I did it. I’ll just put it out there for anyone who wants to try. Every morning, I just read Hebrews- say we’re starting, Hebrews 11:1. I’ll read it and then I might write it on a rubber band or write it on my wrist or write it on an index card, I’ve done all those at different times, where I’m going to see it throughout the day. Throughout the day, I’m grabbing it and I’m reading Hebrews 11:1. When I take a shower at night, I have a Ziploc covered copy of Hebrews 11 from my Bible that’s in my shower. I’ll just look at it and I’ll read Hebrews 11:1. Once I get to verse 2, I’ll read verse 2, whatever.
I might be confusing and you can cut it out if you need to. For me it was a very tangible way– a way I could memorize through the day as a mom that didn’t take any extra blocks of time and that I could continue to add to. That was just as a mom, something that was helpful.
As far as with kids, I think just to pick something and to be consistent whether it’s these 10 minutes a day, we listen to music or before a meal, we just are going through 1 Corinthians 13. Every day we’re going to recite it and add one verse to it or something. Chapters are Psalm 23, 1 Corinthians 13, we’ve learned those around the dinner table because every day you can say it and you can add one verse or you can add hand motions or you can do something.
I think one thing that’s been helpful is just you don’t have to memorize a ton. I recently felt I should memorize Psalm 131 and I memorized it, it’s random. It’s just three verses. Sometimes I’ll be stressed out and I’ll hear that Word in my heart and just start going through it, and my heart is stilled. You don’t have to memorize a ton. You really can just memorize two or three verses and just start chewing on them and get it in your heart so it’s solidly in there. Anyways, sorry. That’s a big long tangent, but just a lot to say.
Amy: I love that. One of things I want to bring out that you said in passing is just pick something and do it. Don’t try to wait until you can do something big and glorious and this huge big thing. Just pick something simple and small and be consistent. Think whether it’s scripture memory or any part of our homeschool goals, is really easy to try to do this big perfect glorious ideal thing. Either we never start it, because it’s scary, or we sprint out, we’re all great that first week and then by Thursday or Friday, we’re fizzled out. It was too much.
It’s just really good to always remember just to do something simple and then be consistent with it because that’s going to end up, over the long term, being a lot more valuable and that’s true with scripture memory just as much as anything else. I think in my own life too, when you brought up songs, scripture memory songs count, a lot of the verses that come to my mind the easiest, now as an adult, are the Steve Green or the GT & the Halo Express, all these verses that were put to music that I listened to as a kid.
Those are, very honestly, the very first verses that come to mind. Before all the other passages I have memorized more formally, it’s those verses that are set to music that come to my heart first. I think scripture memory to music is such easy, simple.
Katherine: It’s effortless.
Amy: Just play it in the car.
Katherine: Yes, exactly.
Amy: I love that.
Katherine: I’ve been so encouraged over and over that the Lord will use whatever you have in there. So many times people are like, “Well, where do I begin?” There are places, but I almost feel like you could say, “Anywhere,” because the Lord will use it. He’ll bring it to life in some strange way you’ve never even thought of and He’ll bring it to life at weird times. The Word itself is powerful so it’s almost like sometimes, it doesn’t even matter if it applies to your situation. You just remember the Word and, all of a sudden, there’s peace because– I don’t know. It almost doesn’t matter where you start.
Amy: Which would make sense if the whole Bible is telling us one story about one God and one Jesus and it’s the gospel message the whole way through, it’s all telling us the same thing. Oh wow. What a wonderful gift God has given to reveal Himself to us in words. I am very thankful for that.
As part of that last question, you talked about some of your own strategies for memorizing the Bible as a mom. I love the idea of putting a verse in a Ziploc bag in the shower. I was actually thinking like, “I wonder if I could get a wipe-off marker and write a random verse even in the kids’ bathroom on their shower, so then they’re just in their showering and they’re stuck looking on this verse.”
Katherine: My daughter did it. She memorized Lamentations 3:21 through 24 in the shower. She just stuck it in a Ziploc bag.
Amy: I love it. That’s amazing.
Katherine: You can laminate it too. I think that works.
Amy: Okay. I’m going to go today and figure out this plan because I think this is a place, I don’t have the Word of God written yet. That would be a great place. We all take showers. Sometimes it’s hard to take a shower as a homeschool mom, but hopefully we’re getting one at least twice a week.
Encouragement for the overwhelmed homeschool mom: taking time for the Bible is worth it
What about the mom who is just feeling already overwhelmed? Maybe she’s got babies and sleepless nights and she’s busy and just feels stretched too thin and is struggling to find any kind of time one on one with the Lord. What encouragement or advice would you give her, both for the value that it’s worth it, but also meeting her where she is in her own very tired state right now?
Katherine: Are you talking about just in general or scripture memory specifically?
Amy: Yes, I think scripture memory specifically, but general too. Whatever you wish to say.
Katherine: I think, sometimes as a mom, you’re too tired or brain fried or didn’t get that space in the morning before the kids wake up. I think if you can set a certain time of the day. It’s not necessary, but I think it’s super helpful to just say, “Every morning when we clear the breakfast table, we’re going to do this.” For us, we started when my oldest was two.
Every morning after breakfast, we just started pulling out a Bible story. This is just a Bible story. It had pictures. It was very simplistic. It was like the Read-Aloud Bible Stories. I was reading it with my two-year-old and the Lord was meeting me. I can’t even tell you how many times I was reading through those and just in tears. The Lord was meeting me through a very simplistic children’s Bible, or children’s Bible story.
We kept that routine and we’ve kept that routine now for more than 10 years of, after breakfast we do something. As the kids have grown, it’s looked a little different at different seasons. I think it’s important for the kids to show them, but it’s also important for mom because sometimes, especially in the throes of everything, that’s the only time you get, maybe that time that you purpose with your kids. If you bring the kids into it, whether for memory or bible reading or bible story reading, you’re forming a habit and you’re involving the kids, you’re setting the example. It’s almost like you’re giving the Lord a still space in your day where He can be Lord and He can speak.
I feel like if you do that, the Lord will come and bless that time no matter what you’re doing in that time. We’ve purposed-opened the Bible, we’ve done Bible journals, we’ve done memory work in there, but I think just a still space. You may have nothing. You may have a two-year-old, you may have a screaming baby, but set a time and just say, “Lord, I’m going to show up at this time every day with my screaming kids and we’re going to do this,” and just see if He doesn’t bless it.
Amy: God hears us even in the midst of the screaming children
Katherine: Amen.
What Katherine is reading lately
Amy: This has been so encouraging and I cannot wait for moms to be able to hear this and hopefully leave just feeling exhorted but also encouraged and equipped to include scripture memory in their own lives and in their kiddos’ lives. It’s so important and really encouraging. We’re here at the end. I want to ask you the questions I ask all of my guests. The first is just what are you personally reading lately?
Katherine: I’m always reading about a hundred books at once, no, maybe ten, and it’s rare that I finish one. I have a weird one I’m reading right now. It’s called The Pilgrim’s Regress by C.S. Lewis. It’s an allegory in the vein of John Bunyan’s, The Pilgrim Progress, but it’s more like his own story of searching for the Lord and all the things he ran into along the way. Very interesting. A little heady. I’m appreciating it, although there’s some parts that are weird. I’m reading the biography of Susannah Spurgeon. It’s just called Mrs. C.H. Spurgeon. It’s really neat. I’m re-reading-
Amy: Isn’t she one who would– No that was the Wesley’s one. I was thinking the one who would put her apron over her head to pray.
Katherine: No, she’s got some crazy stories like when her husband went to preach and basically just forgot that she was with him because he got so absorbed in the message. Yes, no, this is Mrs. C.H. Spurgeon. I’m reading Ephesians on repeat along with a bunch of other random things in the Bible, but yes, a wide variety.
Amy: I love it.
Katherine: Probably some other ones.
Amy: It’s good to have a wide variety of books so that no matter what mood you’re in, you always have something that you’re ready to read.
Katherine: Yes. That’s what my husband says too.
Katherine’s best tip for helping the homeschool day run smoothly
Amy: Well, the final question is, what is your best tip for helping the homeschool day run smoothly?
Katherine: Okay. I have an offensive and a defensive tip. My offensive tip is to get up before the kids and just still your heart and have time with the Lord. Write down those things that have to get done during the day. My offensive is get up before the kids and be with the Lord and write things down. It does change a lot with the day.
My defensive is what we have in our house. We call it the reset button, which really can be anything. It can be a balloon that we squish. It can be something I drew on the wall. If things get really crazy, we actually just say, “All right, guys, we’re going to the reset button.”
We’ve done it many times where we’re just like, “All right, we’re all resetting.” We actually just come together and pray and just get honest with each other like, “Guys, we’ve been pretty grumpy. We’re pretty nasty to each other, or not pleasing the Lord in how we’ve lived, but by God’s grace we can reset right now.” We do that frequently. If things just get crazy, we just come together and call a reset and then we pray and go out from there.
Find Katherine Pittman online
Amy: I love that idea. That is awesome. Katherine, where can people find you all around the internet?
Katherine: All right. Write the Word on my Heart on Instagram, and there’s a website too. That is some of my Bible memory-specific type of stuff. I also blog at Chronicles of Momia and I have a lot of homeschooling e-resource things, a lot of homeschool co-op curriculum I’ve written. I’m at both of those places. Write the Word on my Heart and Chronicles of Momia, on Instagram and on the web.
Amy: I will have links to both of those places in the show notes for this episode over at www.humilityanddoxology.com. Katherine, thank you again for taking the time to chat with me today. This has been really great.
Katherine: All right. Thank you.
Check out all the other interviews in my Homeschool Conversations series!
