Embracing Charlotte Mason’s principles, most of us find affects more than school. Some of her ideas shape other areas of our life. They are life-giving for more than just our children’s education.

For example, take short lessons. I have found myself, instead of despairing about the lack of time I have to accomplish some task, simply diving in for the few minutes I have before me and doing what I can. In fact, I feel I live my life in the “to be continued” mode quite a bit.

And the timetable itself, learning to carry out a range of subjects over the course of a week in set times, has made it easier for me to organize other tasks and responsibilities. No, I say to myself, I will not do this now while I am thinking about it because this is the time I decided would be spent on the other thing. It helps me honor commitments, not procrastinate, and, most amazingly, actually get things done I could not possibly have done if I waited for the perfect time. C. S. Lewis reminded us that “right conditions never come.” As a consequence of valuing the morning hours for lessons, I have learned to make a rhythm for my entire week and assign tasks for various days and times ahead of time. Of course life interrupts, but just as with morning lessons we do what is to be done in the time set and if we lose the time, it is simply gone and we continue to move forward, so with my work. It’s important to note that these habits have taken me years to implement, but they have happened because of that timetable.

Charlotte Mason’s practices in a specific subject have even influenced certain areas of my life. Studying sequentially, chronologically, deliberately and not skipping around, has helped me to cement my Bible reading, for instance. Many of you have asked me to share about my Bible reading plan. When I evaluate it, I realize that Charlotte Mason’s counsel affected how I came to adopt that too.

She preferred the Bible lesson to come first in the lesson line up, to establish its preeminence as the most important book, the superior book to all others. She acknowledged that the illumination from the Bible was as the sun compared to a candle flame when comparing it to other books. Her principle that the Holy Spirit is the divine teacher, that we teachers are not the dispensers of knowledge, and that as parents the weight of responsibility for the child’s education falls on us reminds me constantly that my children are not my own, that I need divine help to accomplish this job. In putting first things first, over my 40 plus years of parenting, I have learned that to acknowledge my need for instruction and fellowship with my Lord must be put first in my day. It is not that we do not have access to speak and hear his counsel and sense his presence at all times, but to acknowledge from the moment I open my eyes that I am his and need to be taught, disciplined, and encouraged is crucial to the stability of my soul. It is my realignment time each day.

But this habit has been lifelong in the making. Nothing is more obnoxious to me than the sound of an alarm clock. I have searched for a pleasant tune, tone, type of sound—and there is not a single one on earth that I will meet with a smile. I am never ready to get up. I would be happy to wake up on my own, but since 1981, that has rarely been an option.

For years I needed no alarm. A wailing baby or sound of piping toddler voices was all that was required to rouse me from the bliss of rest to face another day. When homeschooling began in earnest, I quickly discovered that the teacher had to be on her feet and somewhat coherent before those voices signaled the start of the day. Unbelievably, I did not learn that coffee was a helpful assistant until my oldest was ten years old. By then I had four children and a home business to manage. Usually I had been up late working hours after the children had slipped off to dreamland. I often had deadlines that meant I had to get up in the wee hours to work undisturbed before those perky voices in their bedrooms meant a shift to mommy mode.

All this is just background to understand my struggle to form that habit because of my trouble with getting up in the morning. I gradually learned that I had one appointment that was necessary, but it was up to me to keep it. Due to the quiet, undemanding patience of our waiting Lord, in my life, I had to voluntarily, deliberately choose to get up to meet with him. I knew that if I was to have time alone with God, it had to happen first. He has never gotten my best, because I am not cut out to be a cheerful and perky morning person, but that morning meeting was truly a matter of life and death for me. Life is not easy, raising children is incredibly not easy, teaching them and managing a home is a mammoth responsibility. I needed most definitely to have the guidance and strength of someone stronger, wiser, more loving than me. That Bible was His plain and simple voice speaking into the need of the day and the health of my heart.

Like Charlotte Mason, I don’t want to give anyone a set book list. There are many good Bible reading plans available with minimal searching. In early years I randomly selected passages. I usually forgot what I had read within the hour. Here again, Charlotte Mason’s disciplines have stepped in to stabilize my habits. I stopped skipping around. I started reading the Bible chronologically as she had the children do for school. I started reading the Old Testament one day, the New Testament the next. I worked at full attention. I started seeing things I had skimmed over all my life.

Narrating what I read, to myself or on paper,  also helped me to remember those life giving words so that as I fell off to sleep at night I could still recall what the specific lessons of the morning were. Just as with our children begin with 10-15 minute lessons, my early morning times were short at first. No matter how stealthy or strategic I was, my little ones always knew when I tried to be up and quiet before they woke. Over the years my capacity to spend more time and read more has increased. Growth is slow. We forget this with our children’s slowness to learn to spell or remember math facts, and we forget it in our relationship with God too.

I just recently realized how the subject of recitation has also influenced my time in the word. For 50 years I have read the Psalms first to orient my heart to the real invisible world. To that I added reading from a gospel every day. Naturally, I am very, very familiar with Psalms, Proverbs, and the four gospels after so many years of repetitious rereading, but they have shaped my prayer life, stabilized my person, and sharpened my ability to see Jesus as he is and not as I imagine him to be.

These are just some ways Charlotte Mason has helped me personally to put first things first through atmosphere, discipline and life. Thanks be to God.