Assignment: This would be a good week to tell about your worst struggles with a lifestyle of homeschooling. Tell about something you’ve struggled with and how God’s mercies gave us the strength to get past it. Also, share any curriculum/homeschool methods that have been a relief to you, i.e., a particular Teacher’s Manual or Homeschooling method that’s been easier for your family. Talk about how you felt when the burden was lifted and Oh, What a Relief it is!
Oh, goodness, the struggles have definitely varied year to year. Everything from trying to become a morning person, which is a losing battle:), to new baby fatigue to what to do with a toddler. The hardest fought struggle was last year though. My oldest son was 12 and in 6th grade. He started youth group at church and no one there homeschooled. Talk about peer pressure being made real to us. I just never expected it to come from our church family. Derek was fighting my husband and I fiercely to go to school. I truly didn’t know what to do. I was waffling on the issue. In the winter I caved internally and fully expected him to go to the middle school this year. I certainly didn’t feel any peace about the conclusion I had come to. But, nonetheless, it was the only solution I could see.
When I gave up trying to figure out what to do the Lord stepped in!
I don’t recall when the following happened but it was a real eye-opener. I was at our local library/park just as schools were letting out. Jr. High and Sr. High school students were gathering around. I was disgusted with their conversations. I observed one girl call her mother and lie and then get off the phone cursing when she didn’t get her way, their language was filthy. I began talking to one group of kids about their language and asked them some questions. Do you think there is anything inappropriate about talking that way around small children? What would your mom say if she heard you? What about your teachers? We sat and talked a little bit and when I turned to leave I thought,”There is no way my kids are going to that school!”
Then God spoke to me a message that shook me to my core. He was telling me to be prepared. To study His word and teach it to my children. That it is what’s important. He is what is important. It is something that resounds in my spirit since. That was when my purpose on this journey was shown clearly to me. I am raising up warriors for Gods Kingdom. I believe God is raising up a generation unto Him and I have a small role in this.
Then in May I went to our homeschool convention. The keynote speaker was Voddie Baucham. I had never heard of him before but let me tell you…The Lord used him to confirm some things to me and to bless me. When he spoke of kids getting older he said something along the lines of, “Don’t ship them out, don’t give up on your kids during the time they most need you.” That really touched me. I had been ready to give up.
With the Lords help I had a new resolve and I was digging my heels in.
Now can I tell you that this year has been a complete turn around! Yes, there is still attitude from time to time but my son has given up his fight for “real school.” I really feel that during my time of indecision, the enemy was attacking on all sides. Once I had a new resolve and committed it to the Lord, peace returned.
This year I started a new curriculum that fits in perfectly with my new goals and ideas of what homeschooling really means to us.
It’s not about academics, even though I wholeheartedly believe I can teach my children better than the p.s. It’s about being a family, living life…real life, and learning as much as possible about our creator.
Our load is lighter but I don’t think my kids will learn any less. I put off higher level science for my oldest so that we can still all do science together. I put off pre-algebra a year so that I am sure his foundation in math is solid.
But the real purpose is to make our foundation in God solid. To know that he is the core of our family and each one of our lives. Matthew 7:24-27 says it best….
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
Oh, Lord Jesus, I am sooo thankful for your ever present help and guidance and grace!
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