Above is a pic of my youngest daughter and me.
My Husband, My brother in Christ
Homeschool or DIE???
In regards to Challies posts on why he doesn't homeschool ( part one and part two ). Here is my response. (and by the way... My husband and I really like Challies and just think his latest string of controversial posts are his crazy way of promoting his book on discernment. ;-) ...
We homeschool all 6 children and love it (most of the time)... but I have run into parents who literally might murder their children if they homeschool them. They don't seem to get that their children are gifts from God and that life is a blip. There are other reasons I do not believe homeschooling is for every family, nor even for every Christian family. I am not a homeschool or die mom. I have met too many ...people.
I do respect Challies reasons, though I do not completely agree with them for our own family and through our own experiences with public school, private school and homeschool. We have done them all at various points, but to date, I have been homeschooling for almost 6 years now.
I do understand Challies convictions and also respect that he knows that the Lord may (or may not) change them in the near future regarding how to educate his children. It also hit me when he wrote that someday homeschooling may not be an option. He's right.
What stuck with me and appears to be one of his main points is that God is powerful and will not allow His children to fall out of His grasp. Boy that makes me think of my own childhood, my life, and how amazing it is that I am adopted into HIS kingdom.
What else stuck with me in his article is the word deliberate. Whatever way we choose to educate our children, there are deliberate things that we must do as parents to be lights in this dark world. And this world is only getting darker... until the Lord comes again.
In light of the word deliberate, all that Challies writes about in regards to his reasons to educate his children via public school can be achieved in the homeschool enviroment as well.
Such as his statements: I want them to see and know and understand and believe in the superiority of Christianity to any other religion or way of life. I want them to see what the world has to offer and to see that it quickly loses its lustre. AND I want them to experience the joy of sharing their faith and to grow in their ability to do this. AND My wife and I feel called to reach out to the people in our neighborhood and our community.
All those things can be accomplished as homeschoolers. How do I know? Because we are deliberate, for the glory of God, about such things. I could fill a book with all of the ways the Lord has worked in and through our family to be lights that shine as a beacon on a hill. I could fill it with all the letters we have received, the e-mails, the comments that have been made by neighbors, by strangers in the grocery store, by people who have come into our home or just watched us at the park. People who have witnessed our genuine heart for the Lord, our brokenness for the lost, our sincere repentance when we fail... I could go on. But all of this is achieved based on the merit of Christ and what HE did for undeserving vile wretches such as I.
Whatever way you choose to educate your children, prayerfully consider the consequences (good and bad) and the desperate need to be deliberate in your involvement in your children's lives in teaching them in word and deed about Christ.
Bottomline: Do you live out in word and deed what you proclaim to believe? I am not talking about perfectionism. I am including even how you respond WHEN you fail to be Christ-like. This really isn't about homeschooling, public schooling or private schooling. Some do not have a choice. This is about being teachable in the school of Christ and uncompromising in HIS truth and HIS love for HIS glory.
