This morning as we did schoolwork, we started memorizing a new Bible verse. It’s not the first verse we’ve learned. Not by a long shot. We have been including Scripture memorization in our daily routine for about 15 years now and have committed hundreds of passages to memory.

How about you? Are you faithfully memorizing Scripture in your family? I hope so.

Sometimes it is good to remind ourselves why we memorize Scripture. (And when I say “we,” I include parents.)

The ideas that we allow into our minds and hearts take up residence there and influence our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. How important it is to intentionally fill our minds with God’s Word—His words of comfort, guidance, and encouragement!

The ideas in those words are stored in our hearts, like items in a pantry. When we need them, there they are, immediately at hand, ready for our minds to access and use for our good.

When a stranger slaps a verbal label of Stupid onto your special needs child, the Holy Spirit quickly reaches into the supply of God’s Word stored in your heart and grabs His labels for that child and parades them assuredly across your mind: God’s workmanship. Accepted. Beloved.

When you are driving through the mountains and you come upon one of those roadside waterfalls that simply takes your breath away, you marvel again at how solid those rocks are. Then the Holy Spirit brings forth from your heart the beautiful passage that talks about God as “the rock of our salvation” and presses home the truth that “the strength of the hills is His.” And those words wash over your mind, sweeping away worries and bolstering your faith.

You never know when a situation will come across your path that will bring God’s Word across your mind. And each of those instances is an opportunity to grow. Charlotte Mason believed that:

“It is a delightful thing to have the memory stored with beautiful, comforting, and inspiring passages, and we cannot tell when and how this manner of seed may spring up, grow, and bear fruit” (Vol. 1, p. 253).

I encourage you to make Scripture Memory a priority in your home school. You can start right now. We have 12 packs of Scripture Memory Cards available free in our bookstore. Just download the file, cut the cards apart, and you’re ready to go!

Many of you have already taken this first step. About 20,000 of you, in fact! That’s right, there have been more than 20,000 downloads of those verse cards since we made them available. Month after month they continue to be a top resource on our site, and we’re thrilled!

Getting the verse cards is a great start, but don’t stop there. Use them!

We’ll give some practical tips on how to do Scripture Memory next time.

Help at Your Fingertips

Many of you are starting a new year of homeschooling. A fresh start can be a great time to introduce new Charlotte Mason methods that you haven’t tried before. It can also be a great opportunity to do a quick check and make sure you are using her methods most effectively.

The SCM Learning Library offers you a convenient way to learn more about Charlotte’s methods, as well as receive a big helping of encouragement along the way.

You will find videos demonstrating and explaining language arts, math, phonics, grammar, and more. Plus, you can access our vast collection of practical and helpful articles quickly and easily. Everything is organized for handy reference. You can look for encouragement on specific topics or even browse a variety of series to dig deeper in.

Here are some popular posts to get you started with the SCM Learning Library.