one of the ten reasons was, "because we are fearful of the alternative!"
now i have to tell you that i was impressed with this mom's honesty. most people will not, or can not see for themselves, that sometimes fear is the motivating factor to homeschool.
the first 3 years i homeschooled, i had a plethora of fantastic answers about why we homeschooled. all the while though, the Holy Spirit knew what was controlling me... fear!
God has not given us a spirit of fear. PERIOD. so when we use fear as a reason for keeping us from doing something, or push us towards something, i can say from experience we are acting outside of the will of the Father. when i read an answer like the one above, i automatically hurt for this woman, these children, this family, because it appears that fear has such a strong hold on this mother's heart that she is functioning out of captivity not FAITH! as moms, we can easily excuse this fear away with convincing ourselves and others that we are making decisions out of our "motherly instincts". but the bottom line is, we don't trust God.
God, oh so graciously, called me out of captivity and directed our steps as a family so meticulously that there was NO OTHER place Katie was going to be last year other than public school. He stripped away my control and dealt head on with my stubborn unbelief. He taught me that He was not going to forsake my eldest child who was in public school, and He taught me that He is very present and very near regardless of where she goes... even the big, bad, public school ;)
i did not go without a fight. just ask mark :) but standing on this side of it, i wouldn't trade it for the world.
this year katie is back at home. and i can honestly say it's not because i am afraid of the public schools. she is home because our family is in transition for the next 3-5 years, and instead of having to move her and the other kiddos, in and out of different districts i want to offer them consistency until we can put our roots down.
i missed katie a lot last year. we all missed katie alot, but in particular julia missed katie last year. i do feel very "at peace" with everyone around the kitchen table again. katie and i diagramming sentences, teaching julia "more than and less than", helping Lucy straighten out her capital M's, and convincing Anderson that his name does not in fact begin with a P, rather and A, (pretty sure katie was reading by 3 1/2...poor, poor youngest children, but man he is cute!! ;)
i was able to catch this picture today and i would label it as #1 on my list of "why we homeschool"...
yes, yes, katie and julia are sitting in a moving box reading. actually, katie is reading out loud while julia follows along in her own copy.
i heart this picture.
happy long weekend,
~s
No comments:
Post a Comment