I can\'t believe I have children old enough that I am typing up a post about them and college. Wow!!!! It wasn\'t so long ago that I thought this day was so far down the road that I would have plenty of time to worry about it and I "knew" I was going to worry. Because the thought of my children leaving home or even just being old enough to attend college just broke my heart. How would I let them go? Would they be mature enough? Would they make it? Well, our God certainly has a way of preparing us for life\'s journey and through the years, my heart is not so saddened at the thought of my children growing older and moving on with life. In fact, I would even go as far to say that I am excited to see my children grow into the fine christian adults their father and I are praying for them to be. Now, I do still have many questions, especially since I am the parent of soon to be homeschooled high-school graduates. I believe that homeschoolers tend to be watched a bit more closely and judged a bit more quickly. Many are looking for us to fail, to be able to tell us why homeschool might not be working. So naturally, I worry that, due to something I may not have taught my children that they might struggle in some area. Getting them into college, if that is what they should choose and preparing them for college has always been a big concern for us.   Did we teach them enough? What kind of paperwork will we need? I don\'t have transcripts, will that hurt them? They will have a homeschool diploma signed by Mom & Dad, will that also be a mark against them? And many, many other concerns.

It has always been understood in our family that if our children decided to attend college, they would be attending a community college, while continuing to live at home. Growing into an adult is difficult enough, without having to do it away from those who love you most and those you need around you as you mature into an adult. It is also our hope and prayer that our children not leave home until it is time for them to begin their own families. Now, please don\'t get me wrong, we aren\'t judging others who feel otherwise, and this doesn\'t mean that if one of our children were to set their hearts on a career and for some reason, they needed to attend a college away from us that we wouldn\'t consider it, but it would be a very thought out process. Thankfully, here in our beautiful town, we are blessed to have a very fine facility and when we began homeschooling, we checked into the policies of this place. We were pleased to find out that it is very homeschool friendly. We needed no transcripts, which was and is a blessing as we haven\'t ever done transcripts, or even kept track of grades and tests for that matter. Our children do the work and if they get it wrong, they do it again, until they get it right. Now I probably could have kept track of grades based on each child\'s first attempt at an assignment, but we chose not to. So we were very pleased to find out that we wouldn\'t be scrambling trying to come up with any of this paperwork.

Fast forward a couple years, and we are finally ready to celebrate the high school graduation of our twin daughters. Time to sit down with them and talk about life after schooling. Now, here again, I do need to take a bit of a side-note and mention that we are raising our daughters first and foremost to be wives and mothers. Both my husband and I believe that their primary focus should be to their family and if the Lord chooses to bless them with a mate and children, then they should be home fulfilling that role and not out in the workplace. Again, not judging others, just stating what our family believes.  However, should God\'s plan not be to have them married soon into adulthood, or maybe, even possibly to remain single for many or all of their adult years, we have left the choice of furthering their education up to them. And that is the point we are at now.....Our daughters have decided, that yes, they would like to learn more. They enjoy learning and would like to explore the possibility of a career. So, after much consideration our daughters have chosen to attend our local community college and begin taking classes. Their father has been busy working along side of them filling out the paper work, making the phone calls, setting up the appointments and doing everything that is required to get them to begin this next step in their lives. They have chosen their area of interest. One will be taking general business classes and her sister has chosen the field of a medical assistant. They have applied for and received financial aid. They just needed to conquer one last hurdle. The placement test. The college sent home a practice test for them to study and it looked to be very difficult, especially the math. Now I do have to say that I am terrible at math, so we really struggle to get this all in. My husband is the math whiz in our house, but he works outside the home for many hours a week and he does math with them when he can. However, we have always been worried that it might not be enough. So even though we know how important math is in today\'s world, we don\'t get to the many extras that they might need. For example: Algebra. Unfortunately, my daughters also didn\'t get the math gene that my husband seems to have been blessed with and have also struggled in this area. Oh my, I can\'t tell you how this one worried both their father and I. Yes,our daughters are very bright. Yes, their learning most always came easy to them. Yes, they did all their schoolwork in very fine fashion. However, doubts began to creep in, all around, in all our heads. Would they "measure up"? Would they know enough math? Would they pass? Or would they need the offered tutoring and need to re-take the test again? Yes, I know we aren\'t supposed to worry and that we are to pray and leave the rest up to Him. However, my sinful nature wasn\'t doing that and I have to admit, all of us were nervous when it came time for them to take this test. Both my husband and I were trying to be encouraging, "Do your very best?" "Give it all you got." "If you don\'t do well, it\'s our fault, we missed something somewhere." "It\'s our responsibility to teach you all you need to know, so don\'t blame yourselves." So the day arrives. Test Day. I drop them off and head back a couple hours later to pick them up. They passed!!!! They "blew away" the reading/writing portion of the test and "did very well" on the math section of the test. Oh the joy!!!! The relief.

Both my husband and I feel like we passed an important test also. Yes, we are capable of giving our children the education they need. Yes, we made the right decision in choosing to homeschool our children. Now if we only pass the biggest test of all and raise our children to love and serve the Lord for all their days on earth, so that they may rejoice in heaven with Him for all eternity.

Karen