The Call to Homeschool
Homeschooling isn’t for the faint of heart, nor is it just for the grand or the highly qualified. It is not just for the mother who has been burned by the public education system or who doesn’t particularly care for the more “woke” agendas that tend to run within the school system. It is not just for the child who lives in a rural system with less resources with homeschooling as the superior choice; and it is not just for the mother who is anxious and afraid to let her babies go off into the real world. Homeschooling is and can be about making a conscious effort to take back the years of childhood, the lost hours, the wild and free, and the simple. The reason behind why some families choose to homeschool, doesn’t have to be anything other than the fact that God just led them there. There’s not always some extreme story or circumstance that led them to their decision other than just God.
Sometimes homeschooling does come about because of drastic or unfortunate events or situations, usually out of our control, but often times, homeschooling enters a home, a heart, and a mind, because parents want to take back the innocence of childhood; the freedom of time; the simplicity of lifestyles; and the ease of our days. We see a rushed society; a childhood lost in the demanding hours of school and sports; and little bodies that are told they need to sit still more often, and we know that we can do something differently to make our children’s childhoods much more like the childhoods of the yesteryears.
Homeschooling isn’t about some crazy assumption that our way is the ultimate way, or even that we are smart enough to teach everything from phonics to advanced chemistry, but it is realizing that no one can love our children like us or want success more for our children than we do. God isn‘t going to leave us alone. His grace and mercy are endless, and despite our shortcomings in things like Algebra, chemistry and even just pure patience, God equips us for what we cannot handle and for where we fall short.
Homeschooling is realizing that children can use more: more time, more freedom, more love, more innocence, more nurturing, more nature, more faith and more family. It’s realizing that our modern society isn’t always fully supportive of the family unit and that holy families are the beginning process of changing the world. Homeschooling brings the family together and can provide more time to instill a solid faith within your home, and maybe even the world. There’s more laxed mornings and more meals together; there’s even stronger sibling bonds. There’s less rushing (although that never fully goes away) and there’s more moments together in the stillness of the days.
I didn’t originally set out to homeschool my children. I didn’t plan this from the beginning or have any reason to begin desiring it other than realizing that I wanted more slow days and more time with my children. I wanted that ease of and simplicity of their childhood and education. I wanted them with me more, not to keep them in some sort of bubble, but because they deserved all of my attention, love and time. I wanted their sibling bonds to be stronger, their mornings to be less rushed, their bodies to get the right amount of rest, and for their little minds to learn in the way that God uniquely designed them.
Homeschooling isn’t always easy, and life will always have seasons of hard. It is also not the right route for all families, but there’s many more out there that are desiring the call to homeschool. While homeschooling is the fastest growing form of education right now, parents still hesitate to make such a bold leap of faith into the world of home education. But more and more parents are feeling a call to keep their babies home and let them run free in the grass, develop passions of their own, engross themselves in rich literature and learn at their own pace and abilities. Families are feeling the call to return to a form of education that existed from the very beginning. Sometimes, it just takes a little nudge to make such a gigantic leap that can feel so intimidating. Sometimes , you just need a mother like myself, heading into my sixth year homeschooling, that tells you that you will be okay. You can do this and more than likely you will experience the fruits of this beautiful vocation. Will you experience hard days and rotten fruit? Yes absolutely, but anything worth fighting for will always have a battle.
God will refine you, stretch you, and chisel away at you as you begin to understand that the journey is completely worth it; and can be so rewarding if you just let the Lord guide you. If He has put the call on your heart to homeschool, then perhaps it is time to see what that call is all about. There’s no better day than the present day. Don’t be afraid to give something a try, especially if you feel it’s the Lord stirring something inside of you.
He will see you through it.
