Good Morning — and Happy Monday! Praying that God QUICKLY removes you from the horns of this dilemma!

First: What are you reading in Scripture that is stirring you up to homeschool? Got a verse that just constricts your heart with conviction?

I didn't — but I had this uneasy feeling that my time with our kids was spinning out of my hands — that others got to enjoy their company — and I was "worried" about academics. Not very spiritual, huh? However, I began asking those women, who had formerly been the butt of some of my jokes, why I should not homeschool — Don't tell me why I should; tell me I shouldn't. To a woman, about ten women said: "Don't homeschool if you are unwilling to lose control of your time."

[Now I gotta tell you — I had just gotten my youngest into full-time school and I was getting "a LIFE." — ladies' Bible studies, ladies' lunches, uncomplicated strolls through the grocery store aisles — even one or two uninterrupted conversations with my husband. I also have to confess: I am not DOMESTIC! I am not nuts about the confusion that comes with children. I don't play games, dress-up or like little league. I battle self-centeredness and an overwhelming urge for my OWN space, and peace. "Mother of the year" is never a title someone would associate with my name!]

But the dearness of these little ones that God gave me seemed to be evaporating into the Christian School schedule!

My eldest child is and was a handful — intellectually, spiritually. Then I found out my precious youngest was equipped with unique challenges: totally different — but just as dangerous! And those dear saints at the school were trying to teach dozens just like them. THEN I read in some hs guru's treatise on the joys of homeschooling — all of which attracted me, like a DUMB moth is to a flame — that on the average, our children experience about 1 ½ minutes of the classroom teacher's personal attention. 1 ½ minutes? Even I could give the kids more than that!

But I prayed — my husband prayed — for almost six months and God only kept fanning the desire to be with them — to be with them — to be with these precious children. And no, I did NOT have a CLUE what I was doing. (I thought I did but I didn't. This is a true statement for 99 & 99 /100% of my life, too!)

The first couple of years were tough. I will spare you the gory details. BUT I will tell you what my friend — an older sister in Christ, though she was younger than I — said when I wondered if I should chuck homeschooling. She reminded me that I would always be responsible for the training of their characters, no matter where I placed my children — always. That is what I would give an account of before Christ: not algebra or fine arts — but did I tell them what I know about God?

So — where should you keep or bring your kids to learn reading, writing and arithmetic? Maybe figure out where you can best train them to fear and serve the Lord — for that is what God will ask you what you did. Homeschooling is not necessarily the only place to do this — so, NO guilt trips if God has called you to choose another education tool, like traditional schooling!

Wrestle with how you are doing what God requires of parents. Where's the BEST place to do that? *IF* HE calls you home to educate your kids in the ABC's — He will redeem your time, strengthen your marriage — and even tell you it is time to log -off this great board because you got stuff to do!

Now consider praying through this and tell God you — and your husband — are willing to do whatever HE tells you. Then get busy with the very next thing on your to-do list!

Deut. 6:1-9
1 "Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded {me} to teach you, that you might do {them} in the land where you are going over to possess it,
2 so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.
3 "O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do {it} that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, {in} a land flowing with milk and honey.
4 "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!
5 "And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 "And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart;
7 and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
8 "And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
9 "And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

© Barbara W. Smith 1998, all rights reserved
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