Latest / Grace for My Home | Christian Women, Growing in Faith / Trusting God as We and Our Kids Step Into What’s Next (with Judy Fulmer)

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Trusting God as We and Our Kids Step Into What’s Next (with Judy Fulmer) · Grace for My Home | Christian Women, Growing in Faith

• 1:13
  Audrey McCracken: Hello friends.
• 1:14
  Audrey McCracken: Welcome back to Grace for My Home.
• 1:16
  Audrey McCracken: I'm Audrey McCracken and I am delighted to be back with you again this week.
• 1:20
  Audrey McCracken: Please forgive me for being a little stuffy.
• 1:23
  Audrey McCracken: So if I sound stuffy, I am.
• 1:25
  Audrey McCracken: But luckily I recorded this podcast last week before I was so stuffy.
• 1:30
  Audrey McCracken: I have a special treat for you this week.
• 1:33
  Audrey McCracken: I have my first interview.
• 1:36
  Audrey McCracken: I've been doing the podcast here for about three years now.
• 1:39
  Audrey McCracken: I've done 150 episodes or so, and I have never had a guest.
• 1:43
  Audrey McCracken: I've always flown solo, but I'm branching out.
• 1:47
  Audrey McCracken: I have a friend who I think you will connect with.
• 1:49
  Audrey McCracken: Her name is Judy Former, and we've gotten to know each other over the last year, year and a half, and I just adore Judy, and I think you will too.
• 1:58
  Audrey McCracken: Last week I had the opportunity to talk with Judy a little about homeschooling and about what she does.
• 2:04
  Audrey McCracken: She we're in a very similar season of life.
• 2:06
  Audrey McCracken: We are former homeschool moms trying to figure out what God has for us now in this new season of life.
• 2:12
  Audrey McCracken: And I just hope that you enjoy this conversation we had.
• 2:15
  Audrey McCracken: We certainly did.
• 2:16
  Audrey McCracken: We enjoyed talking and getting to know each other a little more.
• 2:19
  Audrey McCracken: Just to tell you a little bit about Judy, she is an independent educational consultant and she specializes in college admissions counseling.
• 2:27
  Audrey McCracken: She helps high school students with SAT ACT Prep, and she's the founder of College Prep Excel.
• 2:35
  Audrey McCracken: Judy and her husband Philip, they've been married for 34 years and they live in Marion, South Carolina.
• 2:41
  Audrey McCracken: Philip, her husband, serves as the pastor of Ebenezer Church, and he's also a physics and engineering professor at Francis Marion University, which is in Florence, South Carolina.
• 2:53
  Audrey McCracken: They have four grown children, three sons and one daughter.
• 2:56
  Audrey McCracken: In addition to her work with college-bound students, Judy also serves in ministry with community Bible study.
• 3:03
  Audrey McCracken: She also serves as a childhood cancer advocate.
• 3:07
  Audrey McCracken: I just love Judy.
• 3:08
  Audrey McCracken: She has a heart of gold.
• 3:10
  Audrey McCracken: So let's get started with today's podcast.
• 3:13
  Audrey McCracken: Well, Judy, welcome to Grace for My Home.
• 3:17
  Audrey McCracken: It's such a blessing to have you with us today.
• 3:20
  Audrey McCracken: And I'm so excited to have you here.
• 3:22
  Audrey McCracken: You're my first guest.
• 3:24
  Audrey McCracken: Okay.
• 3:24
  Audrey McCracken: You're my first actual interview here.
• 3:27
  Audrey McCracken: Um, I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and you just were the perfect guest to do this because I knew you'd have Grace and me.
• 3:34
  Audrey McCracken: Absolutely.
• 3:35
  Audrey McCracken: And um, and I'm Judy and I met at Awakened Coffee Shop, the coffee shop that I run for my church.
• 3:43
  Audrey McCracken: She came in early on when we first opened, and she and some of her friends, and we had an immediate connection.
• 3:50
  Audrey McCracken: Both of us loved Jesus, both of us are pastors' wives.
• 3:54
  Audrey McCracken: We were both, Judy, you're you were an engineering major, weren't you?
• 3:58
  Audrey McCracken: Yep.
• 3:59
  Audrey McCracken: You were both in, I thought so.
• 4:00
  Audrey McCracken: We were both engineer majors.
• 4:02
  Audrey McCracken: We were former homeschool moms, and so it just, you know, we it just clicked.
• 4:06
  Audrey McCracken: And I thought there's a kindred spirit right there.
• 4:09
  Audrey McCracken: But Judy, welcome.
• 4:11
  Audrey McCracken: Can you and I and I shared a little bit in the intro about you and and what you do now and and and what you have done, but can you just share a little bit about yourself?
• 4:21
  Judy Fulmer: Sure.
• 4:21
  Judy Fulmer: Well, first, thank you so much for having me.
• 4:24
  Judy Fulmer: This is truly enjoying, and you know, I just absolutely love you.
• 4:28
  Judy Fulmer: You are so dear to me.
• 4:30
  Judy Fulmer: You really are.
• 4:32
  Judy Fulmer: So as you mentioned, um, I'm a former homeschool mama, and golly, we homeschooled for about 17 years.
• 4:42
  Judy Fulmer: And that's I never I don't really count preschool, but you know, we did homeschool for preschool too.
• 4:47
  Judy Fulmer: So it's probably about 20 years all said and done.
• 4:51
  Judy Fulmer: But it was such a a precious time of life.
• 4:55
  Judy Fulmer: I loved my time homeschooling.
• 4:57
  Judy Fulmer: We did have our kids in a private school for a little while while I was caring for my mom.
• 5:02
  Judy Fulmer: Um I'm an only child, and mom moved here from Texas.
• 5:05
  Judy Fulmer: She was terminally ill, and she passed away about halfway through there and um through that time, and then I taught at the school for a couple of months, a couple more years.
• 5:15
  Judy Fulmer: But you know, the Lord called us back home.
• 5:18
  Judy Fulmer: While, you know, we were home.
• 5:20
  Judy Fulmer: I guess we're trying to remember how old the kids were when we came home.
• 5:24
  Judy Fulmer: Our youngest was going in fourth grade, our oldest would have been in going into ninth grade.
• 5:30
  Judy Fulmer: We have four kids and they're within five years, so they're pretty tight.
• 5:34
  Judy Fulmer: Three boys and a girl in six years.
• 5:37
  Judy Fulmer: In five years.
• 5:38
  Audrey McCracken: Five years.
• 5:39
  Audrey McCracken: Oh, bless your heart.
• 5:40
  Audrey McCracken: Okay.
• 5:40
  Audrey McCracken: Four kids.
• 5:41
  Judy Fulmer: Yeah, they're not actually two years apart.
• 5:43
  Judy Fulmer: They're none of them are actually two years apart.
• 5:45
  Judy Fulmer: They're all less than two years.
• 5:48
  Judy Fulmer: Um, our two middle kids are 19 months apart, they're the closest.
• 5:53
  Judy Fulmer: But um, but anyway, so you know, as Jonathan was in high school, one of the things I've always taken homeschooling, I always took it very seriously.
• 6:03
  Judy Fulmer: I knew the buck stopped with me.
• 6:05
  Judy Fulmer: And I wanted to make sure that my kids had a really great education, a good social network, but I also wanted to make sure they didn't miss opportunities because we homeschooled.
• 6:18
  Judy Fulmer: That was something that was always kind of on my mind.
• 6:20
  Judy Fulmer: I was always looking around to see what I could do, what I could offer them to take their interests deeper.
• 6:28
  Judy Fulmer: And you know, when you're homeschooling, you have more time to do those things.
• 6:33
  Judy Fulmer: So that was pretty cool.
• 6:36
  Judy Fulmer: Um and so I guess I think our oldest might have been a sophomore.
• 6:41
  Judy Fulmer: And I had found this camp.
• 6:44
  Judy Fulmer: I don't know if it's still going on.
• 6:45
  Judy Fulmer: It was through the Celebrate Freedom Foundation.
• 6:47
  Judy Fulmer: So it was an aviation camp with a leadership component.
• 6:51
  Judy Fulmer: So they had this whole leadership curriculum built in.
• 6:54
  Judy Fulmer: It was a really great camp.
• 6:56
  Judy Fulmer: Kids actually got to fly Cessna while they were there.
• 6:59
  Judy Fulmer: It was awesome.
• 7:00
  Judy Fulmer: But the whole focus was on engineering and aerospace.
• 7:04
  Judy Fulmer: It was really good.
• 7:04
  Judy Fulmer: But it was competitive.
• 7:06
  Judy Fulmer: It, you know, you had to apply.
• 7:08
  Judy Fulmer: And um, so I remember he was working through that application and he comes to me.
• 7:15
  Judy Fulmer: I remember distinctly where I was standing when this happened.
• 7:19
  Judy Fulmer: He's like, Mom, what what were my extracurriculars?
• 7:22
  Judy Fulmer: What are my volunteer activities?
• 7:24
  Judy Fulmer: What leadership things have I done?
• 7:26
  Judy Fulmer: And I think that's one of the things when you're homeschooling, um, these things are just part of your lifestyle.
• 7:32
  Judy Fulmer: You don't realize there's anything unique about the things that you're doing.
• 7:37
  Audrey McCracken: I actually I remember my kids, it's just live.
• 7:40
  Judy Fulmer: You know, they go, Well, we don't do anything about any volunteer service.
• 7:44
  Judy Fulmer: I'm like, wait, let me think.
• 7:46
  Judy Fulmer: I no, yes, you do.
• 7:48
  Judy Fulmer: You've been running the sound at church for the past six years, you know.
• 7:53
  Judy Fulmer: Stack tables and chairs every Sunday, every Wednesday.
• 7:57
  Judy Fulmer: I mean, like, as we thought through what they do in our community, we served with OM ships quite a bit and did different things.
• 8:05
  Judy Fulmer: It was like, no, we actually are doing that.
• 8:07
  Judy Fulmer: But that question, you know, he threw a bunch at me.
• 8:12
  Judy Fulmer: You know, I need what's my GPA and what's this and what blah blah blah, all these things.
• 8:17
  Judy Fulmer: And I went, yeah, we need a high school guidance counselor.
• 8:21
  Judy Fulmer: And I remember it struck me like so it was like a brick.
• 8:27
  Judy Fulmer: I went, whoa, that's me.
• 8:31
  Judy Fulmer: I remember, oh no, that's me.
• 8:35
  Judy Fulmer: I'm it, I'm the guidance counselor.
• 8:37
  Judy Fulmer: Oh my goodness.
• 8:38
  Judy Fulmer: I felt this weight come down on me.
• 8:42
  Judy Fulmer: And I read and I mean it was a defining moment.
• 8:45
  Judy Fulmer: I said, you know what?
• 8:46
  Judy Fulmer: I'm gonna take ownership of this because I knew he was on a college path.
• 8:51
  Judy Fulmer: He ended up, I two of my kids were valedictorians of Grace Homeschool Association.
• 8:57
  Judy Fulmer: Like I knew they were headed to college, and I said, Man, I I don't want to mess this up.
• 9:04
  Audrey McCracken: You know?
• 9:05
  Audrey McCracken: Yes, I know that I remember with homeschool, you're as the homeschool mom, you're taking on such a responsibility.
• 9:12
  Audrey McCracken: You know, there's no one else to blame.
• 9:14
  Audrey McCracken: You can't blame the guidance counselor or the principal or the the teacher or the system because it's all on you.
• 9:22
  Audrey McCracken: And I remember many times that realization landed on my shoulders, and I thought, oh my goodness, I gotta get, I gotta figure this thing out.
• 9:30
  Audrey McCracken: Cause like you said, there's no, there's no one like authority to go to to figure it out.
• 9:35
  Audrey McCracken: And there's so many different ways to homeschool.
• 9:38
  Audrey McCracken: And so I was constantly like researching and trying to to figure out, you know, what do we do?
• 9:44
  Audrey McCracken: And and we weren't sure.
• 9:46
  Audrey McCracken: I would have loved to homeschool through the high school years.
• 9:48
  Audrey McCracken: We didn't, but when I hear your story, it you know, I think I wish I had known you when my kids were at home.
• 9:56
  Audrey McCracken: When I I think you would have given me a little bit of comfort, a little bit of hope that, hey, we can do this, you know, because there's a lot of fear.
• 10:03
  Audrey McCracken: You know, homeschool moms really struggle a lot with um, you know, why am I doing this?
• 10:10
  Audrey McCracken: What should I be doing?
• 10:11
  Audrey McCracken: Am I preparing?
• 10:12
  Audrey McCracken: My biggest fear was not preparing them for the life that I wanted to be able to set them up.
• 10:19
  Audrey McCracken: You know what I mean?
• 10:19
  Audrey McCracken: I want to set them up so that they can do whatever God's called them to do, and nothing I did would hinder that.
• 10:27
  Audrey McCracken: You know, I'm necessarily, you know, and I and then and now when I look back, you know, I I know a lot of it was grace, a lot of it was just, you know, God's good.
• 10:35
  Audrey McCracken: Um, and they're very resilient.
• 10:37
  Audrey McCracken: But it would have been so nice to have somebody like you to sit down and talk with and just say, what should I be doing now to prepare for those high school years?
• 10:48
  Judy Fulmer: Yeah, for sure.
• 10:49
  Judy Fulmer: I do that with my clients.
• 10:51
  Judy Fulmer: I'm able to sit down and make some course planning um suggestions and teach the kids some life skills they may not realize they need to do and uh need to know.
• 11:04
  Judy Fulmer: One of the things that happened during that time, I told you I I really took some ownership of this and I did.
• 11:10
  Judy Fulmer: I researched just like you did.
• 11:12
  Judy Fulmer: I realized the buck stopped with me.
• 11:15
  Judy Fulmer: And also I think you hit the nail on the head when you were talking about that fear and that insecurity.
• 11:22
  Judy Fulmer: I think, honestly, I think the homeschool mantra is, am I doing enough?
• 11:28
  Judy Fulmer: I know that was my question.
• 11:30
  Judy Fulmer: And I've not ever met a homeschooler who didn't ask, am I doing enough?
• 11:34
  Judy Fulmer: Are my kids gonna be prepared?
• 11:36
  Judy Fulmer: Are they gonna be able to hold their own?
• 11:38
  Judy Fulmer: Am I giving them enough foundation and background?
• 11:40
  Judy Fulmer: What I learned, at least at my house, I really had high expectations.
• 11:45
  Judy Fulmer: My kids were very well prepared.
• 11:48
  Judy Fulmer: But when they got to college, we had this whole conversation.
• 11:51
  Judy Fulmer: I was like, now you're gonna see, now you're gonna see how challenging it is.
• 11:56
  Judy Fulmer: And they all came home.
• 11:57
  Judy Fulmer: Every one of them came home and said, Oh, it's so much easier than I was going.
• 12:03
  Audrey McCracken: My kids said the same thing about high school.
• 12:05
  Audrey McCracken: They were like, Mama, we're overprepared.
• 12:08
  Audrey McCracken: I felt like not underprepared.
• 12:12
  Audrey McCracken: I did my job.
• 12:13
  Audrey McCracken: Exactly.
• 12:15
  Judy Fulmer: You know, but but I think the thing that reassured me was when my kids did go into a school a traditional school system for that four-year period.
• 12:26
  Judy Fulmer: And I realized they were holding their own.
• 12:29
  Judy Fulmer: They were actually at the top of the class and they were prepared.
• 12:32
  Judy Fulmer: So that helped me to help others, you know.
• 12:36
  Judy Fulmer: It's not that I would change anything that I was doing.
• 12:39
  Judy Fulmer: I continued when we returned back to homeschooling.
• 12:42
  Judy Fulmer: I continued on the same path that we had been on because I did see them lose some of their skill.
• 12:49
  Judy Fulmer: They actually declined a little bit academically.
• 12:52
  Judy Fulmer: That wasn't the only reason.
• 12:53
  Judy Fulmer: I mean, uh ultimately, God said go home.
• 12:55
  Judy Fulmer: He flat said go home.
• 12:57
  Judy Fulmer: And I was like, what do you mean you go home?
• 12:59
  Judy Fulmer: What exactly do you mean?
• 13:01
  Judy Fulmer: Because I wasn't sure I wanted to jump back into it.
• 13:04
  Judy Fulmer: It's a lot of work.
• 13:06
  Judy Fulmer: It's a lot, it's a lot.
• 13:07
  Judy Fulmer: Yes.
• 13:08
  Judy Fulmer: And so, yeah, I thought he meant invest yourself in your community.
• 13:12
  Judy Fulmer: Well, uh I rationalized that he meant that we needed to invest ourselves in our community because we were driving to another town for school and really everything we did socially was happening over there.
• 13:23
  Judy Fulmer: And so I was like, maybe he means that we need to get more invested in our own community, you know, bloom where you're planted.
• 13:30
  Judy Fulmer: And that was part of it.
• 13:32
  Judy Fulmer: But the the next year he was like, I told you to go home.
• 13:38
  Judy Fulmer: And I was like, Okay, and we did, and I had no regrets.
• 13:43
  Judy Fulmer: And then I found out after the fact that our kids had had some talent as I didn't realize.
• 13:48
  Judy Fulmer: Um, so it turned out to be a really good thing that we were able to pour into them and help them overcome some of the stuff they were dealing with.
• 13:56
  Judy Fulmer: But um brought all four children back home to but you know, as we were working in high school and I was learning all these things about scholarships and college admissions and you know, just prepping my kids in this way.
• 14:13
  Judy Fulmer: Other homeschoolers are asking me questions, and you know, I'm speaking to our homeschool group and I'm giving little workshops and I'm learning all these things.
• 14:21
  Judy Fulmer: And then after our kids graduated, they did well.
• 14:25
  Judy Fulmer: We were really, really blessed.
• 14:27
  Judy Fulmer: Um, you know, they they earned top scholarships and they got through college without undergraduate debt.
• 15:14
  Judy Fulmer: And so people are asking, how are you doing that?
• 15:17
  Judy Fulmer: And I the more I talked with other homeschool families and even friends who had kids in other school systems, I realized there's a big need for this.
• 15:26
  Judy Fulmer: And that's how College Prep Excel was born.
• 15:29
  Judy Fulmer: It was really born out of my heart to serve the homeschool families because we didn't have anybody in that college admissions role really guiding us step by step through.
• 15:41
  Judy Fulmer: And you know, and and again, most of these families were single income.
• 15:46
  Judy Fulmer: So you want to get through school without a lot of debt.
• 15:50
  Judy Fulmer: Um so you know, a small investment on the front end saves you uh tens of thousands on the back end, and and that's why the business was born.
• 16:01
  Judy Fulmer: I serve all the students, I serve public, private, homeschooled anybody, but that's where it came from.
• 16:08
  Audrey McCracken: And let me ask you this are there anything like if there's a homeschool mom listening right now, and maybe she doesn't have high schoolers, but say middle school or even elementary school, are there any things that you would suggest that she start doing right now?
• 16:25
  Audrey McCracken: Like what are some things, or even if it's not doing thinking about, like planning for the future, if she wants her her kids to be ready for high school and for eventually for entering in college and this kind of things, what kind of things should she be thinking about?
• 16:42
  Judy Fulmer: Well, at the younger ages, you know, older elementary, middle school, make sure they can communicate, make sure they can write well.
• 16:52
  Judy Fulmer: That's good.
• 16:53
  Judy Fulmer: You know, there's a big difference between the written language and verbal language.
• 16:59
  Judy Fulmer: And a lot of students I'm seeing don't understand that distinction.
• 17:05
  Judy Fulmer: And so, um not specifically in the homeschool environment, just in general.
• 17:10
  Judy Fulmer: So teaching a child to communicate and you and with all of the new challenges that AI is bringing, students are becoming reliant on AI to produce their papers.
• 17:20
  Judy Fulmer: And I can look at something and deter, I mean, it's easy for me to tell what was AI written and what was not.
• 17:26
  Judy Fulmer: Because an AI produced document cannot, it's not really personal, it's not thoughtful.
• 17:34
  Judy Fulmer: You can't really work through your thoughts and creative ideas the same way through AI that you can otherwise.
• 17:44
  Judy Fulmer: You know, and and then also if you plug something into an AI to have it review it for grammar or whatever, then it goes into the large language, what is it, the language learning model.
• 17:56
  Judy Fulmer: So what I'm seeing with students is they wrote something, they had it evaluated by AI.
• 18:04
  Judy Fulmer: Maybe they said make it clear and concise, maybe you know, check it for grammar or whatever.
• 18:08
  Judy Fulmer: It's their product that AI tuned up, and now they've sent it to a school and the school runs it through their AI checker because they don't allow AI produced things.
• 18:20
  Judy Fulmer: Well, because it's been added to this language learning model, now it's flagged as having been AI, it's flagged as plagiarism.
• 18:28
  Judy Fulmer: So there are all these nuances now that the kids are dealing with.
• 18:32
  Judy Fulmer: So I would teach them I I would teach them to write well.
• 18:36
  Judy Fulmer: I would teach them uh how to actually study.
• 18:40
  Judy Fulmer: And that's one of the benefits of homeschool is that the kids learn how to learn.
• 18:45
  Judy Fulmer: So learning critical thinking skills, learning communication skills, learning study skills, those are really, really valuable things.
• 18:55
  Judy Fulmer: But then, you know, just uh identifying a child's interest, you know, if you can step back, because a lot of times there are things in us that we don't see, but the people around us see.
• 19:06
  Judy Fulmer: So if you can help foster and develop those interests, because the colleges now, when I went through school, they wanted you to be well-rounded, which meant a member of 25 clubs, you know.
• 19:20
  Judy Fulmer: The more better.
• 19:22
  Judy Fulmer: Yeah, it was like a the more the better mentality.
• 19:24
  Judy Fulmer: The more the better when I was coming out of high school and going into college.
• 19:28
  Judy Fulmer: But now the schools are saying, well, we want a student to be well-rounded because you do have a lot of elite athletes and other things, and and that may be the only thing they do because it's so time consuming.
• 19:40
  Judy Fulmer: They're like, we want to see a little bit more than that.
• 19:43
  Judy Fulmer: But we want a student to really go deeper in their area of interest.
• 19:48
  Judy Fulmer: So, say you want to be a nurse or a doctor.
• 19:51
  Judy Fulmer: Okay, what are you doing to expose yourself to this field so you even know if this is something you want to do?
• 19:58
  Judy Fulmer: Listen, some kids, it's crazy.
• 20:02
  Judy Fulmer: Some of these kids are actually doing research with university professors and publishing papers in high school.
• 20:10
  Audrey McCracken: I can't even fathom that.
• 20:12
  Audrey McCracken: Yes, that's awesome.
• 20:13
  Audrey McCracken: And that was one of the things I loved about homeschool, is it was you could be so out of the box.
• 20:19
  Audrey McCracken: Oh yeah.
• 20:19
  Audrey McCracken: You if you had an interest in something, you could deep dive into that.
• 20:24
  Audrey McCracken: And we had the time to do that.
• 20:26
  Audrey McCracken: I love that freedom.
• 20:27
  Audrey McCracken: And that's why I think it's so nice to when you can tailor a curriculum for that child.
• 20:34
  Audrey McCracken: That sounds a little intimidating sometimes for somebody who's just starting out.
• 20:39
  Audrey McCracken: Like, who am I to tailor a curriculum?
• 20:42
  Audrey McCracken: Well, you know that kid better than anybody.
• 20:45
  Judy Fulmer: That's right.
• 20:46
  Audrey McCracken: And you know, and and and it's really not as um, what's the word?
• 20:50
  Audrey McCracken: It sounds a lot more intimidating than it is, because it's just finding something that that lights that spark and developing something or you know, finding things to do around that.
• 21:02
  Audrey McCracken: And I I loved that.
• 21:04
  Audrey McCracken: That was my favorite part of homeschool, is we can do whatever we want to do, you know.
• 21:07
  Audrey McCracken: We can't, you know, we can't do that.
• 21:10
  Audrey McCracken: And but I like I said, I I do wish I had somebody like you at that time because there's so much fear on for homeschool moms, like like you said earlier, what if I don't do enough, you know, and and we all face that.
• 21:24
  Audrey McCracken: And I think part of that is because we don't have sometimes we are isolated and we don't see what other people are doing.
• 21:30
  Audrey McCracken: And so we often think we're not doing enough.
• 21:33
  Audrey McCracken: Everybody else is doing enough, but I'm not doing enough.
• 21:36
  Audrey McCracken: How what kind of things have you seen?
• 21:39
  Audrey McCracken: Like what when when people come to you, when when parents come to you and they're like, help us, what kind of misconceptions do they have about college and high school and and what they should be doing versus what they are doing?
• 21:51
  Audrey McCracken: Do you see a lot of that, like a lot of fear-based decisions?
• 21:55
  Audrey McCracken: That yeah.
• 21:57
  Judy Fulmer: Oh yeah, definitely.
• 21:59
  Judy Fulmer: You know, I see the whole gamut and and not just homeschooling, but in in other school situations.
• 22:05
  Judy Fulmer: I've seen some families who don't challenge their students enough.
• 22:10
  Judy Fulmer: And they really, the student could do more, and they just simply don't do it.
• 22:15
  Judy Fulmer: I actually had this conversation with a couple of homeschool girls the other day and they were talking about the the program that they use.
• 22:22
  Judy Fulmer: Like one of them actually said, I don't feel like I'm learning anything.
• 22:26
  Judy Fulmer: And and she said this program that she's using, she she's doing some online school, and she said, I can go back and retake and retake and retake until I ace it.
• 22:37
  Judy Fulmer: So I do I do see some misconceptions there that uh the parents want something maybe a little easy for them.
• 22:49
  Judy Fulmer: They want something that's gonna teach everything and grade everything, and and I I think sometimes maybe the the kids pay the price on that.
• 22:57
  Audrey McCracken: I I completely I see that.
• 22:59
  Audrey McCracken: Yes, I I'm all for easy.
• 23:01
  Audrey McCracken: You know, if it's easy and it works, I think that's great.
• 23:04
  Audrey McCracken: But I I think you're right.
• 23:06
  Audrey McCracken: I think sometimes we can sacrifice easy for actually learning.
• 23:10
  Audrey McCracken: I won't call the name.
• 23:12
  Audrey McCracken: We had a math, um math was hard for us.
• 23:15
  Audrey McCracken: When I say math was hard for us, I mean I thought it would be easy for us because you know, I was an engineering major.
• 23:20
  Audrey McCracken: My husband was a math, he was a math teacher, and I thought, oh, you know, we got math, but I had a hard time finding a math that my kids liked, and you know, they didn't necessarily have to be fun math, right?
• 23:31
  Audrey McCracken: It didn't have necessarily have to be fun, but it has to be where they will sit down and there won't be tears, you know.
• 23:37
  Audrey McCracken: I'm like, I don't think I've set the bar too high, you know.
• 23:41
  Audrey McCracken: I just I just don't want to cry every day.
• 23:44
  Audrey McCracken: Yeah, and so we struggled with finding the right math.
• 23:49
  Audrey McCracken: And I remember somebody said, Oh, you should do this math, it's so easy.
• 23:54
  Audrey McCracken: And so for a whole half a year, we did that math, and it was easy, but they learned nothing.
• 24:01
  Audrey McCracken: Oh, when it was all said and done, they passed all the tests, but they didn't understand the concepts.
• 24:07
  Audrey McCracken: They could they could figure it out, they could figure out how to answer the questions, but they didn't really understand math.
• 24:16
  Audrey McCracken: And I thought this was easy and with the price, and so we kind of had to start all over, you know, and and and and that was another nice thing about homeschooling is we could just start all over, right?
• 24:29
  Audrey McCracken: We could just mid-year say, this isn't working, and you know, I think often the homeschoolers feel like they're behind, but you have so much time, yeah.
• 24:38
  Audrey McCracken: You know, you and I and you might think, well, my son, my son's a senior or junior.
• 24:43
  Audrey McCracken: You really like a a homeschool year and a public school year is so different, you know.
• 24:48
  Audrey McCracken: Even my my middle son, he struggled because he was the kid who who would get up early, get everything done.
• 24:58
  Audrey McCracken: So he had a whole afternoon to do whatever he wanted to do.
• 25:02
  Audrey McCracken: He would get up at six o'clock in the morning and I'd be like, Why are you up?
• 25:06
  Audrey McCracken: You know, I'm trying to have a by myself, you know, and he's like, I'm getting my math done and I'm getting my, you know, I'm getting this done because he wanted to go tramps in the woods and do whatever he wanted to do.
• 25:16
  Judy Fulmer: Right.
• 25:16
  Audrey McCracken: So when he started public school, that was very hard for him.
• 25:20
  Audrey McCracken: He said, Mama, we waste so much time.
• 25:23
  Audrey McCracken: Yeah.
• 25:24
  Audrey McCracken: You know, we waste so much time, you know, because he wanted to just get it done.
• 25:28
  Audrey McCracken: And and I said, Well, honey, that's public education.
• 25:31
  Audrey McCracken: You you have to go with the group.
• 25:33
  Audrey McCracken: You don't, you can't jump ahead and do your so I and and that's an advantage.
• 25:38
  Audrey McCracken: I think sometimes, you know, when we feel like we're behind or we don't have enough time, you've got more time than you think.
• 25:44
  Audrey McCracken: Yeah.
• 25:45
  Audrey McCracken: You can you you can change things mid-year and still end up in a good place.
• 27:01
  Judy Fulmer: So I think there's a lot of reassurance that that homeschool mamas are doing a really good job.
• 27:23
  Judy Fulmer: And like you said before, they know their child better than anybody.
• 27:29
  Judy Fulmer: There's nobody that cares more that that child learned than their parent.
• 27:35
  Audrey McCracken: Yes, that's exactly that's you know, that's what I kept telling myself too.
• 27:39
  Audrey McCracken: You know, I I would say, yes, there are probably there definitely there are people who understand how to teach this curriculum better than me.
• 27:48
  Audrey McCracken: And there are probably homeschool mamas who could who would who could do this a lot better than me, but nobody loves them as much as I love them, and nobody is gonna spend the time to to find what they need more than I am, you know, and sometimes that means finding somebody else to teach them.
• 28:05
  Audrey McCracken: You know, we did that for tutors in areas where I didn't feel confident and and you know, and we found online classes in areas where I knew I don't want to, I don't want to, like you said before, I don't want to limit them because we're homeschooled, right?
• 28:22
  Audrey McCracken: I want homeschooling to be an advantage to them, not you know, I don't want them to look back and say, I really wish my mom hadn't homeschooled me.
• 28:29
  Audrey McCracken: You know, I want them to be like, yes, I'm so glad my mom gave me a jump on life, you know.
• 28:34
  Audrey McCracken: Right.
• 28:34
  Audrey McCracken: And and that's how I see homeschooling.
• 28:36
  Audrey McCracken: You know, we we were, I was very careful when we went into it that we're not doing this out of fear, we're doing this faith.
• 28:43
  Audrey McCracken: You know, this is a faith thing, this is a faith journey.
• 28:47
  Audrey McCracken: Like you said, God called you home.
• 28:48
  Audrey McCracken: You know, if God's asking this of me, he's gonna give me the grace to do it well.
• 28:53
  Audrey McCracken: And you know, and it may not look like everybody else's journey, but that's okay.
• 28:57
  Audrey McCracken: We don't look like everybody else's family, you know.
• 29:00
  Judy Fulmer: You know, my kids took art lessons from a professional artist, they took a physiology lab from a critical care nurse, they took um Institute for Excellence in Writing.
• 29:13
  Judy Fulmer: Man, I absolutely loved that curriculum.
• 29:16
  Judy Fulmer: IEW.
• 29:17
  Judy Fulmer: We loved IEW.
• 29:19
  Judy Fulmer: I loved it.
• 29:19
  Judy Fulmer: They took that.
• 29:20
  Judy Fulmer: I couldn't get my kids to write for me.
• 29:22
  Judy Fulmer: It was oh yeah, griping, complaining, whining, delaying, procrastinating, but they would do it for these women when my kids were babies and we were just thinking about homeschooling and you know, like they were preschoolers, right?
• 29:38
  Judy Fulmer: I remember looking at these women who had teenagers who were in our homeschool group.
• 29:45
  Judy Fulmer: This this was when we lived in Aiken.
• 29:48
  Judy Fulmer: We didn't even live here.
• 29:49
  Judy Fulmer: I remember looking at them and going, wow, she's so godly.
• 29:54
  Judy Fulmer: I want to be like her.
• 29:56
  Judy Fulmer: I mean, I remember thinking that those life goals.
• 29:59
  Judy Fulmer: I want to be like this woman.
• 30:01
  Judy Fulmer: I want to be like that woman.
• 30:03
  Judy Fulmer: They, their kids are amazing kids, and these women just love Jesus.
• 30:08
  Judy Fulmer: They are so godly, they just like radiate the love of Christ.
• 30:12
  Judy Fulmer: I want to be like that.
• 30:13
  Judy Fulmer: And you know what I learned?
• 30:15
  Judy Fulmer: Homeschooling all my kids, they got that way being in the fire every day and on their knees.
• 30:21
  Judy Fulmer: It's like there's nothing really truly easy about homeschooling, but it is the best thing I've ever done.
• 30:28
  Audrey McCracken: Well, I I tell people that my not specifically homeschooling, but my children and being home with them all day, they were like sandpaper for my soul.
• 30:38
  Audrey McCracken: Yeah, like they they polished the rough edges.
• 30:43
  Audrey McCracken: There were there were things in me that God worked out because I was at home all day with my children, and I didn't want them to have a mean, hateful mom.
• 30:54
  Audrey McCracken: Like I wanted them to have memories of a mom that smiled and a mom that liked them.
• 31:00
  Audrey McCracken: Yes, I thought, wouldn't you hate to be stuck home all day with somebody who didn't like you or somebody who's just mad all the time or irritable?
• 31:10
  Audrey McCracken: And so it it it caused me to be a better person.
• 31:14
  Audrey McCracken: So, Judy, what kind of like I know like right now my kids are preparing.
• 31:19
  Audrey McCracken: I have one who's in college freshman year, I have one who is preparing for college next year.
• 31:25
  Audrey McCracken: Um, it is uh it can be frustrating.
• 31:29
  Audrey McCracken: Like last night, he sat down with his laptop and he's filling out his applications, he's doing the things that I've asked him to do for months.
• 31:38
  Audrey McCracken: You know, he's finally, you know, his guidance counselors asked him to do for months.
• 31:43
  Audrey McCracken: What kind of things like do you run into when it comes to like um, you know, how do you help with that process?
• 31:51
  Audrey McCracken: Because it can be really.
• 31:52
  Audrey McCracken: It can be hard.
• 31:54
  Audrey McCracken: Like, I'm not sure that I we've started it.
• 31:57
  Audrey McCracken: I know we've not started it soon enough.
• 31:58
  Audrey McCracken: I mean, I know we haven't, but we've started it.
• 32:00
  Audrey McCracken: Um, you know, what what kind of advice do you have?
• 32:03
  Audrey McCracken: Or do you see that a lot?
• 32:05
  Audrey McCracken: Is it just us?
• 32:06
  Audrey McCracken: Like, what's what's the deal?
• 32:08
  Judy Fulmer: No, it's not just you.
• 32:09
  Judy Fulmer: I mean, think about it.
• 32:11
  Judy Fulmer: Anytime we're working, well, we were talking about it a few minutes ago when we were talking about teaching your kids to write and how they wouldn't write for us, but they wrote really well for somebody else.
• 32:21
  Judy Fulmer: I find that to be true in this situation too.
• 32:25
  Judy Fulmer: College admissions, this senior year is such an exciting year, and it's a busy year, but it can also be really stressful, you know, and and the parents have the wisdom and the forethought, the foresight to know that kids need to back up their schedule and you know, this has to be done by here.
• 32:46
  Judy Fulmer: So that means you need to start preparing for it here, and you need to get this done here.
• 32:51
  Judy Fulmer: And the kids are like, I'll get to it, I'll get to it.
• 32:53
  Judy Fulmer: Well, the the parent and the student often butt heads.
• 32:57
  Judy Fulmer: And that's a really hard thing because there's all the emotion tied up in senior year.
• 33:02
  Judy Fulmer: And, you know, mom's like, I just, I, I don't want us to fight, I don't want us to argue, they're about to graduate and they're gonna go off to college, blah, blah, blah.
• 33:11
  Judy Fulmer: Like, I get it.
• 33:12
  Judy Fulmer: Poor kids over here.
• 33:14
  Judy Fulmer: Um, but one of the things that I do is just like we were saying with the writing, my kid listens to them, they won't listen to me.
• 33:23
  Judy Fulmer: Well, that happens with college admissions.
• 33:25
  Judy Fulmer: A parent can tell their child the same thing and they'll completely ignore their parent.
• 33:32
  Judy Fulmer: I tell them and they're like, oh, really?
• 33:34
  Judy Fulmer: It's crazy.
• 33:36
  Judy Fulmer: But it's the fact.
• 33:37
  Judy Fulmer: It is a fact.
• 33:38
  Judy Fulmer: And the other thing is that I'm able to sit down.
• 33:41
  Judy Fulmer: If sometimes me just telling them, hey, we need to do this, we need to get this done.
• 33:47
  Judy Fulmer: I want you to work on it, and we'll meet next week.
• 33:49
  Judy Fulmer: And they do it.
• 33:50
  Judy Fulmer: Sometimes they either aren't sure how to get started or they're just not motivated.
• 33:56
  Judy Fulmer: So I sit with them one-on-one and we do it together real time.
• 34:01
  Judy Fulmer: But I'm able to get them to the goal where sometimes mom and dad can't help them, can't get them to realize the importance of these deadlines.
• 34:09
  Judy Fulmer: But they are important.
• 34:10
  Judy Fulmer: And you don't want to miss them because missing these deadlines can affect not only acceptance, but award money, you know?
• 34:19
  Audrey McCracken: So you can kind of act like the buffer, the go thing, kind of like the referee between like, I know we need to do this, but we're button heads trying to get it done.
• 34:30
  Judy Fulmer: Yeah, and it saves the parents a lot of time, it reduces their stress.
• 34:34
  Judy Fulmer: And also, you know, parents are having to do all this research and try to figure these things out.
• 34:38
  Judy Fulmer: And I just I know it because I'm talking to the schools and I'm working with the kids.
• 34:44
  Judy Fulmer: Yeah.
• 34:45
  Judy Fulmer: So it can save a lot of time and save a lot of stress.
• 34:49
  Audrey McCracken: Yes.
• 34:49
  Audrey McCracken: And well, well, Judy, I don't want, I know that we've talked a long time.
• 34:53
  Audrey McCracken: I don't want to keep you all day.
• 34:55
  Audrey McCracken: Um, but I do I have enjoyed talking to you.
• 34:58
  Audrey McCracken: This has been a blessing.
• 34:59
  Audrey McCracken: Um, what would you say to a mom that is um she's nearing that the end of her homeschool journey and um she's wondering what's next for her children, but also for her.
• 35:14
  Audrey McCracken: Like, how have you transitioned from homeschool mom to what you do now?
• 35:20
  Audrey McCracken: And and do you have any advice for that mom that's like this because for me, and I'll just throw this in there.
• 35:28
  Audrey McCracken: For me, homeschooling was being a homeschool mom was so much a part of my identity that when that was gone, felt like I was just kind of out on the island.
• 35:36
  Audrey McCracken: What do I do now?
• 35:38
  Judy Fulmer: I uh I that resonates.
• 35:41
  Judy Fulmer: So here's the thing.
• 35:43
  Judy Fulmer: We, you know, we went through a tough time with our daughter when she was in eighth, ninth, tenth grade.
• 35:50
  Judy Fulmer: She was very ill.
• 35:51
  Judy Fulmer: Um, and that changed.
• 35:54
  Judy Fulmer: She had so she was in cancer treatment and she had some challenges coming out of that.
• 35:58
  Judy Fulmer: And I had to completely change how I homeschooled her.
• 36:01
  Judy Fulmer: She's great now, but all that to say, I was I was getting tired.
• 36:07
  Judy Fulmer: I I was it was a lot to homeschool for high achieving students within five years of age.
• 36:16
  Judy Fulmer: It was a lot.
• 36:17
  Judy Fulmer: And so there was this part of me that was so glad to be done, but there was this part of me that felt completely lost.
• 36:26
  Judy Fulmer: I did not know what to do with myself.
• 36:29
  Judy Fulmer: Um I struggled because my husband has worked two full-time jobs for many, many years as a professor and a pastor, both full-time positions.
• 36:43
  Judy Fulmer: And I I I felt bad not having a job.
• 36:48
  Judy Fulmer: You know, like I need to contribute to this family, but I didn't know what to do.
• 36:53
  Judy Fulmer: I seriously considered going back to college because I am I love to learn.
• 36:57
  Judy Fulmer: I'm a lifelong learner, which is actually a great thing for the job that I do because I am a student of colleges.
• 37:05
  Judy Fulmer: I am constantly learning so that I can help my my families.
• 37:10
  Judy Fulmer: But I went through this period where I just I cried out to the Lord, I didn't know what I was gonna do.
• 37:16
  Judy Fulmer: I wanted to be productive, I wanted to help others, but I didn't know what I was gonna do.
• 37:23
  Judy Fulmer: And to be honest, I started a little like a little MLM kind of business, which I still have.
• 37:31
  Judy Fulmer: It's not my priority, but I believe in the product.
• 37:34
  Judy Fulmer: And that came kind of out of the cancer journey was, you know, I need to protect my child from exposures to toxins that could result in another cancer.
• 37:44
  Judy Fulmer: So I started working with Norwax because it gave me a platform, if you will, to be able to share with others about toxins in our environment.
• 37:54
  Judy Fulmer: But that wasn't that wasn't my home, if you will.
• 37:57
  Judy Fulmer: That wasn't, that wasn't my calling.
• 38:00
  Judy Fulmer: And so through a whole lot of prayer, really evaluating what what my interests are, my background, if you look at me, if you look at my history, it's funny when I look back at it.
• 38:12
  Judy Fulmer: You know, I have an engineering degree, radiological health engineering from Texas AM University and a master's in health physics.
• 38:20
  Judy Fulmer: Well, while I was in grad school, I was asked to teach a class called Becoming the Master Student.
• 38:25
  Judy Fulmer: And when I look back, I see how the Lord has just woven these threads together as a tapestry.
• 38:34
  Judy Fulmer: He he taught me and helped me teach others these basic skills that you need to succeed in college way back.
• 38:43
  Judy Fulmer: And then he gave me the opportunity to substitute in the public schools and to teach in a private school for a couple of years and to homeschool my kids.
• 38:52
  Judy Fulmer: So I have well over 20 years of education and then you know, the opportunity to guide my own kids into college admissions.
• 39:03
  Judy Fulmer: And, you know, when I look at this, I'm like, so I'm a college admissions consultant.
• 39:09
  Judy Fulmer: I'm an expert in SAT and ACT prep, and and all the different steps along the way to help a student from this early high school, late middle school stage until they're really even all the way through, they've received their acceptances and let's make decisions about what's the best fit and let's talk about transitioning to college.
• 39:33
  Judy Fulmer: But it's all these other experiences that flowed into qualifying me for that and a crazy amount of training.
• 39:41
  Judy Fulmer: I'm always in training, always, always in training.
• 39:45
  Judy Fulmer: And so I started learning some skills.
• 39:48
  Judy Fulmer: And I think you have to be a little bit uh patient with yourself.
• 39:52
  Judy Fulmer: But I'll tell you, I've learned two things that I think anybody in this position needs to think about.
• 40:01
  Judy Fulmer: The first one is if you don't quit, you'll win.
• 40:04
  Judy Fulmer: You know, you can do a lot more than you think you can do, but we give up too easily.
• 40:10
  Audrey McCracken: Yes.
• 40:10
  Audrey McCracken: You we we count ourselves done before we yeah, we kind of count ourselves as a failure before it's over, right?
• 40:18
  Judy Fulmer: And you can say that about homeschooling too.
• 40:20
  Judy Fulmer: But even this transition into into life after homeschooling is just remembering that there are there's more to you than you realize.
• 40:31
  Judy Fulmer: And there's there's much more ability, and and others need what you have to offer.
• 40:38
  Judy Fulmer: You have unique experiences that can really benefit others.
• 40:43
  Judy Fulmer: So you're evaluating, you know, what are my gifts?
• 40:46
  Judy Fulmer: What are my talents?
• 40:47
  Judy Fulmer: What what are my what do I have to share with others?
• 40:51
  Judy Fulmer: In my case, I realized my husband and I talked about it for years.
• 40:55
  Judy Fulmer: I could help other families get through this, navigate this process and successfully not just get their children into any random college, but their best fit college that's really going to help them thrive.
• 41:10
  Judy Fulmer: And I can help them understand the processes and find the scholarships and do all the things.
• 41:15
  Judy Fulmer: There's something in each one of you.
• 41:18
  Audrey McCracken: Yes, exactly.
• 41:20
  Judy Fulmer: Is amazing.
• 41:21
  Judy Fulmer: Let's let's pull that out and develop that.
• 41:24
  Judy Fulmer: But the other thing that I learned was that the answers are there and you just have to go find them.
• 41:31
  Judy Fulmer: And even now, I mean, there's so many, many more resources at our fingertips than than I had starting out, or think about 10 years ago.
• 41:41
  Judy Fulmer: So many more resources.
• 41:44
  Audrey McCracken: You know, just the way that you've pulled them together and gathered them for people, that's huge.
• 41:49
  Audrey McCracken: You know, the even the resources, there's a lot of those resources that were out there, but you've gathered them for people, like you've put them all in one spot.
• 41:57
  Audrey McCracken: And you know, and that's that's that saves so much time and money.
• 42:02
  Audrey McCracken: Oh yeah.
• 42:03
  Audrey McCracken: I mean, because you know, where I would have, if I was starting from scratch, I wouldn't even know where to start.
• 42:08
  Audrey McCracken: You've done a lot of that legwork, and then you have the wisdom that goes with the years that you've done that work for yourself, for your kids, and and for other people.
• 42:17
  Audrey McCracken: And that's invaluable.
• 42:19
  Audrey McCracken: I mean, it really is.
• 42:20
  Audrey McCracken: And it's very tailored.
• 42:21
  Audrey McCracken: I know you, I know you work with more than just homeschool students, but it's very tailored to what our needs are, you know, from transitioning from high school to college and and making those decisions.
• 42:34
  Audrey McCracken: It's hard to make the right decisions unless you have the right information.
• 42:38
  Judy Fulmer: Yeah.
• 42:39
  Audrey McCracken: And sometimes you don't even know the questions to ask, you know, and you know, that transition for for moms, because once you make those transitions, you know, like I said, I I struggled and and I'm still working through that.
• 42:52
  Audrey McCracken: You know, what am I supposed to be doing with my days?
• 42:54
  Audrey McCracken: Because so much of your our life is wrapped up in those kids.
• 42:58
  Audrey McCracken: And, you know, when they start to make those decisions on their own, and we have to back up, it's kind of like, well, where's my place now?
• 43:06
  Audrey McCracken: You know, where's my place?
• 43:07
  Audrey McCracken: And um, you know, I appreciate all that you do for moms, I appreciate all you do for the homeschool moms and the community and the homeschool community.
• 43:16
  Audrey McCracken: Um, just this week I had an opportunity to speak at um in Mullins, the Baptist Church in Mullins, the um WMU group.
• 43:26
  Audrey McCracken: Oh, and it was it was a blessing.
• 43:28
  Audrey McCracken: I have a friend who who who is a part of that, and she asked me to come speak to their group.
• 43:33
  Audrey McCracken: And and I remember thinking there was a time I wouldn't have time to do this.
• 43:38
  Audrey McCracken: Like there was a time I couldn't just go do this.
• 43:42
  Audrey McCracken: And then even as I was speaking to these ladies, I had an opportunity to share with them, you know, there's ministry all around us.
• 43:48
  Audrey McCracken: We just have to have eyes open to see.
• 43:51
  Audrey McCracken: And once we're released from one assignment, and that's how I feel.
• 43:56
  Audrey McCracken: I feel like homeschooling my children was an assignment.
• 43:59
  Audrey McCracken: And once we're released from that assignment or completed that assignment, you know, we have to have eyes to see where's where's my next assignment?
• 44:06
  Audrey McCracken: Where's God sending me now?
• 44:08
  Audrey McCracken: And um, and and he, you know, he's been showing me, Audrey, there's ministry all around you.
• 44:13
  Audrey McCracken: Oh, yeah.
• 44:14
  Audrey McCracken: It's not always packaged neatly, you know, there's not always a neon sign over it, but there are needs that you are uniquely created to meet.
• 44:24
  Audrey McCracken: Yeah, you just have to find, you have to find your people.
• 44:28
  Audrey McCracken: You have to find your people, you have to find, you know, what God, what what have you put me here for this time to do?
• 44:35
  Audrey McCracken: And um, and share that gift.
• 44:38
  Audrey McCracken: And like you said, that's a gift, that's a gift that God's given you, but it's also a gift, you're a gift that God's given us.
• 44:46
  Audrey McCracken: And um, and thank you.
• 44:49
  Audrey McCracken: Thank you very much.
• 44:50
  Audrey McCracken: Thank you for sharing with our group today.
• 44:52
  Audrey McCracken: We'll have you back on again and talk about other things.
• 44:56
  Audrey McCracken: And I tell you what, before we go, yeah, I'm gonna put you on the spot.
• 45:01
  Audrey McCracken: Um, why don't you pray for these ladies that are listening today and just searching for God's plan for their life?
• 45:07
  Audrey McCracken: Just pray that you know God would would open up the right doors.
• 45:11
  Judy Fulmer: Yeah, absolutely.
• 45:12
  Judy Fulmer: Heavenly Father, oh, we just love you.
• 45:15
  Judy Fulmer: And we thank you, Lord, that you are sovereign and you you have this plan, this perfect, perfect plan.
• 45:23
  Judy Fulmer: We just thank you that we can come before your throne of grace.
• 45:26
  Judy Fulmer: Yes, because it is a privilege and an honor, and we we bless your name.
• 45:31
  Judy Fulmer: We do thank you that you have this plan and it's a good, good plan for us, a plan to bless us and give us a future and a hope.
• 45:40
  Judy Fulmer: And Father, for a woman who may be coming to the end of her homeschool journey, wherever that is along the way of age with her children, Lord, I just pray that you would speak into her heart and give her some guidance and some direction, reassure her that you see her because you do.
• 46:02
  Judy Fulmer: Reassure her that you know uh the the call of her heart and that you will use her to bless and minister to others.
• 46:12
  Judy Fulmer: These transitions, even though they're uncomfortable, they can be very, very fruitful.
• 46:19
  Judy Fulmer: And Lord, I thank you that you give us the opportunity to rest a little bit in you and just come back come back to you and to sit in your lap and and uh be held.
• 46:35
  Judy Fulmer: So I just pray that you would do that for the woman who is uh who is in this position today, who's looking for the next step, because you you know what that step is.
• 46:44
  Judy Fulmer: And and you're faithful to show us.
• 46:47
  Judy Fulmer: So I thank you, Lord, that you guide and you direct, and I pray that you would do that for her today.
• 46:52
  Judy Fulmer: And I thank you so much for Audrey and her ministry.
• 46:56
  Judy Fulmer: Thank you for this podcast.
• 46:58
  Judy Fulmer: Thank you for blessing it mightily, and I just pray that you will continue to grow it and to bless it in Jesus' name.
• 47:05
  Judy Fulmer: Amen.
• 47:06
  Judy Fulmer: Amen.
• 47:07
  Judy Fulmer: Amen.
• 47:07
  Judy Fulmer: I agree.
• 47:08
  Audrey McCracken: Thank you, thank you, Judy.