"Surprisingly lively, precious days.
What is there to say except: here they are.
Sifting through my fingers like sand."
-Joyce Carol Oates
Homeschooling has become a way of life for us. It hasn't always been this way.
I had very strong opinions, mostly negative, towards home education. Only radical religious folk, intent on sheltering their children from the world, choose to home school. Only awkward, socially inept individuals are home schooled. Or even worse...naughty kids who (gasp!) are kicked out of public school, are home schooled.
Right?
The day I went to register my eldest for Kindergarten, I had a sudden, strange, heart wrenching awareness: I would be sending my son to an institution, who neither knew him, understood him, and certainly wouldn't be expected to love him. I would be entrusting them to teach and instruct, guide and direct, influence and mold my precious son, for 8 hours a day. And he would be with nearly 30 other 5 year olds, ripe and ready to influence him as well.
Yikes!
Why hadn't I thought of it this way before? I left the school, papers in hand, and attempted to brush aside my new found attitude.
Only I couldn't.
I couldn't stop contemplating, pondering my feelings. Something I'd never considered before. A gentle nudging, that turned into a pressing and overwhelming thought...What if I HOMESCHOOL?
I was reserved about sharing this with Saul. This was, after all, something we had talked about before. I already knew what he would say. So I prayed. I prayed for God to lead me in a definitive way. Yay or Nay. Black or White. Yes or No. Just please, non of that grey, middle ground business that leaves me wavering one way to the next!
I searched the Word, looking for an answer.
"Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it."
-Proverbs 22:6
My time with my kids was already going so fast. How in the world was I going to train them in
the way they should go, if I only saw them a few hours a day? Plus, didn't I just come through over 5 years of heart wrenching infertility? The Lord had filled my empty aching arms with these beautiful children, and now I was to send them off to school all day?
That made my heart break even more...
Months went on, and my deadline for turning in the papers was getting closer. I felt stronger every day about homeschooling. I felt in my heart, in my head, and in my gut, it was right. To my surprise, when I finally told Saul, he listened and agreed! He had been feeling the same way. And that was it. We had our answer. And we haven't looked back since!
We don't know how long our homeschooling journey will last. Our hope and plan is with the Lord, and His leading and prompting us. For now we take each day as a gift.
We have four miracle children who we are blessed to raise. We enjoy our precious, short time with them, and delight in the day-to-day freedom that homeschooling provides. We are the ones to instruct, influence, mold, and guide. We get to foster the natural curiosity and creativity that they each have. We experience first hand, the result of their diligence, their achievements, and genius.
We mold their character, and polish their life skills simply through living life, and giving our time. And most importantly, we train up their hearts in the ways of the Lord.
And that is why we homeschool!
(smile!)
