The thread of math

What is the first thing that comes to you when I say the word math? Do you like math?  Did you do well with it when you were in school?

Last week at this time I was out of town attending a Classical Conversations (CC) parent practicum/tutor training for this new season of my life called homeschooling.  (Just a side note: I had every intention of posting in my blog last Wednesday, however the town I was in had no functioning internet.)

A portion of our mornings was spent in math.  What is math and why do we need it. Learning Numerals (with there different kinds, forms, and representations), operations, and laws that govern operations.  I will tell you that I was a bit haughty because I like math and thought it was easy.   As our speaker began going over the foundations of math and gave us problems to solve, I got hung up on the 10,000,000th decimal in scientific notation.  Oops.  It was very humbling to me to be able to look over my work and see the holes that I have in mathematics and the areas that I still struggle with.  Areas that I need to work on. Whoever said you quit learning when you graduate was wrong.

I’m sharing with you a glimpse of this time because the heart of Classical Conversations Homeschooling mission is to know God and to make him known.   As I sat and absorbed as much as my brain would allow me, I saw how each of our subjects and fields of study, (for ex. science, writing, reading, fine arts, history…) are all sewed together with the thread of math.

Why is math so hard for some of us?  In Genesis we are told that God created all things.  All things came into being by Him.  The earth, the heavens, the sun, stars, the land, and all that grows upon it, the waters, birds, fish, animals of all kinds, and humankind.  I can’t touch math, or science, or language arts, but I know that it’s there, I study it all the time.  It is all around me.  Numbers are everywhere too, stitching our education together as one and pointing back to God the Creator.

God gave us brains to grow in knowledge, understanding and wisdom.   He gave us mysteries to discover Him in all things.   We didn’t create these subjects, he did.  They aren’t hidden from Him, these things aren’t unknown to Him.  There is an order, a math, that shows us a way to discover Him, so don’t be afraid of math.

Be excited.

It’s more than just numbers, it’s knowing God and making him known in the tapestry of our lives.

Now when you hear math, hopefully you can say,  “Ready or not here I come.”