The blogging hiatus is ending!!
I wrote a while back about the painstaking process we were going through in trying to decide to send our daughter to public school or to homeschool next year for kindergarten. As we prayed for clarity it was funny to watch the resounding "YES" creep in everywhere. It seemed every news story, every article, and every Bible verse gave me more and more peace with homeschooling. Now I know not everyone has the means or opportunity to do this, but it quickly went from "Why should we homeschool?" to "Why not?" I'm a stay at home mom, and we have younger kids that I'll be home with anyway.....so why not? Looking at it from this point of view, I realized most of my "why not" reasons were either selfish or based on fear.
-It would be nice to have just the two little kids home during the day.
-Running errands would be easier.
-I love her to death, but this kid talks from the minute she wakes up to the minute she goes to bed, the break would be nice and probably good for the other kids to play without the mastermind.
-I don't know what I'm doing.
-I wont be a good teacher.
-How can get everything else I normally have a problem getting done and teach on top of it?
-It would stress me out.
and of course it sounds bad to say and for lack of better words:
-Everyone else is doing it, and they seem just fine. (going to school when their 5)
What became evidently clear to me is all my "Why not" reasons weren't very good ones. Then in one week I learned our county was starting sex education with kindergartners, other school systems are taking stands to intensely blur all gender lines, kids are getting suspended from school for saying they believe homosexuality is a sin, and kids are being punished for praising God after athletic events with unsportsmanlike conduct. It seemed like God was opening my eyes to the world I would send my 5 year old into. Just like fighting wars has changed and communication has changed in this present age, so has persecution. Our government may not be boarding up the doors to churches and throwing people in jail, but make no mistake "modern persecution" is happening in very subtle ways all around us.
Does my 5 year old have a foundation strong enough to withstand? I don't know.
Then I battle. We're supposed to be lights in a dark world. Why is the dark world surprising me? We're supposed to live IN it and not OF it. Can my 5 year old do that? I don't know.
Can my 5 year old be a light in a dark world? I don't know.
But, I'm not prepared to send her out there until I do!
Decision Made: Homeschooling!!!
It's not about protecting her from the world, it's about preparing her for it!
If you asked me 10 years ago if I thought I'd be doing this, I would've laughed in your face. If you would have asked me 1 year ago I would've laughed in your face. I never in a million years thought I would be adding "formal educator" to the long list of things that mothers are and choose to be out of love. But I am.
Now that we're not struggling with the decision anymore, I'm actually kind of excited about it. I have an entire colorful laminated wall in my "formal dining room" to prove it. You know you're officially a homeschool mom when you spend hours online trying to find a certain book spiral bound!
And, as the start date gets closer and closer, I'm just getting more excited. I pray this next year will be a sweet time of time, that we will embrace the bad days with the good, and that we all will come out of it little more Christ-like on the other side. (and to be honest that we just survive!)
