Decisions

Wow, didn’t realize it had been so long! But with 4 kids home schooling… Well, you can imagine all the things that has kept me from it, including looming questions in my heart that I have been earnestly seeking answers for. Which bring me to today’s post… I began home schooling 2 years ago and now that journey has come to an end. It was both the best thing I started to do and pray and trust it is the best thing I will stop doing. I enjoyed being my children’s teacher. I enjoyed even more being able to recognize their personalities shining through when given the opportunity to be “free” and express themselves in an environment the world sees as “unsocialized” yet when I decided to take this journey, my 6 year old’s desk had been moved into the hallway for socializing… Hmmm…The very thought of that stigma that so many, even me at one time, put on home schooling is completely WRONG! I posted before why I home school and I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already. I still completely believe in what I said 100%. But I am also strong enough in my faith to recognize when my work is done and know that God wants me to trust that He will be with them every step they take. In the realm of Christianity, we always say “if we can plant a seed, it was worth it”. In the last 2 years, I have seen my son go from a world’s view of “typical boy”, to being my son. He hugs us, even his sisters, and constantly tells us he loves us. Bryli-Kate was with me on a “school day” in the car, when the Holy Spirit convicted her of her sins and she need to be saved. She prayed right there in the car. With all this said, this home school experience was more mine and Matt’s journey than it was theirs. They were able to reap benefits “out of this world” through God teaching us. Matt and I had fallen into a routine of work, school and exhaustion. 2 working parents arriving home at 530 or 6 in the evening. One of us picking the kids up from an afterschool program, putting them in the school’s (aka government) care for 10 hours a day at times. Matt would work with homework, I would cook dinner. We would sit as a family to eat, because that’s what good Christian families do, right? After that, send them out to play, threaten them when they got in the way of house work, what little we would be trying to accomplish before bedtime, then off to baths, prayers and bed. I am NOT saying it was wrong for anyone else but me. God cleans his fish in the way He sees fit. This is my cleaning, and though it doesn’t sound convincing as to why I would put them back in school, I feel the need to share the journey in its entirety to get to where I am now and where I need to be, in hopes that you will encourage me when I question everything all over again. So here we are officially signing them up for school. I’m having a hard time because I can’t verbalize the reasons why I’m suppose to that are Biblical other than saying simply, its what God has told me to do now. I can give you reasons of “it’s a really good school system, the kids have become dependent on me, I’m exhausted at times and that can’t be good for them” Those reasons I had a year ago and I chose to keep them home. This time I’m at peace with God about this decision as hard as it was to make. Satan of course is coming down on me by telling me I have failed as both a mother and a teacher, but I learned that Satan’s language is lies! And I already know that God loves me so much to send His Son to die for me, He would not degrade me. Satan doesn’t want my Christian babies back in the school system and I am claiming today that they will be salt and light to a lost and dying world. I have seen so much improvement in their lives over these last 2 years that makes my heart swell. I also know it’s NOT because of me, it’s my GOD! Do I think my work is done? Yes I said it earlier, but only in a full time home school setting. I now need to figure out how to be the mother that God needs me to be when the school bell rings. We need to make more time for them and keep them close and talk often about what they are being taught in school. So many influences… I want them to be an influence instead of being influenced. Pray for my babies! Pray for me…