I often tell people that I could have been the poster-child for the "Anti-Homeschoolers of America." (I don't even know if such a group exists. In reality, I hope not.) But God changed my heart. Completely. It wasn't easy. And it didn't happen overnight. It was a process . . . like so many other things the Lord accomplishes in our lives.
It started with a friend - who wasn't even a homeschooler! - encouraging me to pray about homeschooling . . . (My kids were 1 yr and 3 yrs old at the time!) and with me responding, "Um. No." For at least a year, I said, "No. I don't want to pray about it. I won't pray about it. I don't want God to change my heart." (Are you liking how that worked out for me? Yeah, I'm a slow learner. Ever been there?)
About a year into this conversation, I said to the Lord, "Ok. If you want me to homeschool, you're going to have to change my heart." Little did I know that He had the whole operation lined up and ready to go. The short version of that story is that, for the next year, over and over in infinitely creative ways, He put me face-to-face with people who were unknowing but powerfully and beautifully sweet refutations, in living color, of every argument I had against homeschooling.
So then I said to the Lord, "Ok, you've changed my heart. But now you'll have to give me a vision for it." And in His faithfulness, He did. And He gave me this . . . this thought turning in my head, this anthem for my heart, this foundation and framework for our days . . . "because I want them to be trained by My Word not by this world."
Will we always homeschool? Will we homeschool all the way through high school? I don't know. I'm learning not to make grand proclamations about what I will and won't do in the future. I can only say what we'll do now, in this place, today.
And I can pray that the Lord will keep my heart tender toward Him and willing to obey His call . . . whatever and wherever that might be.
Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. Psalm 86:11, NLT
Pin It
