Home Alone and Loving It

My husband and three children are vacationing in Kentucky and DC for two weeks while I hold down the fort here at home. THe first few days were a little rough as I tried to do too much, but on the whole I relish all this time on my hands to read and prepare for the next school year. Not to say I have been totally reclusive; my married children have both come by to see me and help me out when I needed it, and our friend and construction guy Jim M. has been working daily on our kitchen-dining remodel. Also my faithful housekeeper has been coming each week to get the house cleaned and in shape in time for the family's return.

I am enjoying Genesis in my daily morning devotions again. Genesis has always fascinated me. It is a glimpse into a long-ago mysterious world far removed from our own. My imagination runs wild trying to grasp what life was like for Adam and Eve and their progeny, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. It also strikes me how many things remain the same--i.e. the sinful nature of man. I invariably pull out one of my favorite resources, given to me by Caleb for Christmas a couple of years ago: the Adam's Synchronological Chart or History of the World. This marvelous 22-foot timeline is based on Ussher's Annals of the World, another wonderful book I purchased a few years ago from Master's Books. Ussher's Annals were universally accepted as the most reliable source for dating the beginning of human history based on scripture for centuries after its first publication in 1659. In the last 150 years that it has been largely ignored and discarded.

I believe every homeschool mother or father should own these resources. They were both produced before the influence of evolutionary theory had poisoned the minds of many Christian scholars and commentary-writers. Even to this day it is difficult to find prominent Christian teachers that do not reflect evolutionary influence on their thinking, though they may deny it. My ESV Reformation Study Bible, edited by R.C. Sproul and written by evangelical Christians who profess to believe the Bible as infallible, displays a disappointing cynicism towards some passages of Genesis such as the post-Flood genealogy. In contrast, the Adams-Ussher duo shows an uncompromising trust of the word of God, for saying what it means and meaning what it says. It is a breath of fresh air.