Sunday, March 30, 2014

Mission Impossible Or A Possible Mission?

Your mission, homeschooling mom, should you choose to accept it, is to train, equip, and teach your children all they need to know for life. It will require waking early, making lesson plans, teaching, reading many books, relearning math equations you'd hoped you'd forgotten, delving into the sciences and history of all grade levels each day, giving and grading tests. You will even have to teach your child how to hold a pencil, penmanship, and how to read.

You will need to learn all of the different philosophies to home school, and the varied curriculum so you can choose what is best for your child/children.

Your home will be filled with more books than you have room for. You will have art projects hanging from every window or cord as you choose to hang them up. Science experiments are a must! From caterpillars to butterflies, tadpoles to frogs, raising chickens, beans on wet paper towels, and generally whatever your children find the curiosity to discover.

You will need to be involved outside your home as to give your child an opportunity to learn from others and 'socialize.'

You will not have time to sit on the couch to read your own favorite novel, or eat bon-bons and watch television. Your children will be around you all day long, morning until night asking question after question. You will need to be a teacher, referee, coach, school psychologist, nurse, chef, maid, Bible scholar, and prayer warrior. Your day will not end until you have actually fallen asleep.

You will be rejected by many and oft times feel like a failure. You will be tired, confused, and generally unsure of yourself, but God will be with you and with Him you will succeed.

As always, should any member of your team be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions. This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, home-school mom.

I took the home school mission eleven years ago and have another fifteen to go. In describing the home school life to a friend, he said, "So, basically what you're saying is, "Home school means: Immediate death to self." How perfect are those words.

When I first started to home school, for example, my son, Pre-k 4, we schooled for 2 hours, three times a week. It was so easy. As child number two began her interest in school there was still no problem. We were done with school by 12 noon and we had the rest of the day to go out, go to the park, meet with friends, shop and enjoy life outside of the house. As the children have grown, so has our day. There is much more work now than in the early days and we just aren't finished as early as we used to be. No more quick stops to a local store. No more getting together on a whim with friends. Life is school and it is all day long. .

Each year I become more excited about what God has called me to do and with that I find my selfish ways dying off. Dying to self has been very real in my heart. I've held onto the old days of a three hour school day as long as I could, and other selfish desires, but had to let it go.

It may seem like I'm complaining, but I'm really not. I'm just stating the truth. The easy home school life is not that anymore and my days of easy planning, easy everything attached to home school are gone along with my own selfish wishes, like being alone, or having quiet for several hours in a row, and it's a good thing. I'm doing what I am called to do: to be at home, teaching and training my children. I have been challenged over the years and there were times it was hard because it seemed like my friends were living a very different life then me, and I wanted to fit in. Accepting my calling, and living it out has brought much growth in my heart, to my relationship with my children and our day together.

God keeps calling me higher and higher. Challenging me. And I am better for it. Scared at times, (most times), but I come out of it all the more stronger, happier, and closer to Him. What more could I ask for? So, for me, it is a possible mission, that is, with the Lord.

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