My Family's Homeschool

One of my original reasons for starting this blog was writing about my family's homeschool and the role I play in it. I'm a second-generation homeschooler, meaning I was homeschooled and now I'm homeschooling. Homeschooling my siblings, yes, but homeschooling nonetheless. It's a little bit norm-defying - trust me, I know!

A Little Backstory

I always had a thing for teaching. As a young teenager, I went through a season of working with two of my preschool-aged brothers. I had my own teacher's corner with a bookshelf, a table, and a little chalkboard. I'd grown up on books like the Little House series and Anne of Green Gables so the small classroom feeling was one I loved. And, like I said before, I did like the idea of being a teacher

when I grew up.

That desire morphed and changed as I got older. I know enough about public schools (and other standardized methods of education) to know that I don't agree with the methods, I don't agree with the process. I believe that children learn best one-on-one (or at least in smaller groups) with a teacher that tailor-makes their curriculum to best meet their needs. No two children are the same. They should not be forced into cookie-cutter boxes and assigned labels. Thus, my preference and love for homeschool.

But that's a ramble for another day!

Why I Love Homeschool

I believe that homeschool is the best thing for my siblings. I don't believe that children should be sent to state-run schools and spend the majority of their childhood and life away from their families and their home.

I love seeing that spark in my little brother's eye when he finally gets something. I love watching him gain new understanding and branch out in his creativity. I love introducing new things to him and watching him grow. I love exploring history with him and learning about new places on the map. I'm learning so much even as I teach him!

It's very rewarding (albeit challenging). And, not for nothing, but I'm not blind to that fact that I am a) getting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enjoy a unique and special relationship with my brother, one I hope he cherishes for all time, and b) garnering priceless experience and knowledge that can later be applied in my future - wherever God takes me.

Homeschool, in a single word, is a blessing. And it's one I hope more and more Christian parents embrace, especially considering the times we are in.

The Role I Play

With some recent changes that my family has undergone, I have found myself assuming more and more responsibility. My mother has always run things, for the most part, but we used to have roles assigned to different members of the family. I was never in the managing position of homeschool, but with things being the way they are now, I've found myself managing a whole lot more than I used to!

My main role is being teacher to "my little humdinger" as I call him. I've been teaching him since last

year, when he was finishing up third grade. I'm going to write a little more about my experience working with him in another post; it has been quite a journey!

Now I've taken on overseeing the rest of my siblings' work. I'm monitoring their progress and setting up their curricula for next year. I'm helping my mother iron out certain details and trying to track down good deals for books. It's a lot of fun!

I don't always feel like I know all that much. I feel more incompetent than anything, to be honest. But I know that if God hadn't had me doing what I'm doing right now I would be lost. If I wasn't working with my brother right now, he wouldn't be getting all of his needs met. My mother has been handling a lot lately; being able to relieve her of this responsibility has been a relief for both of us.

To be honest, homeschooling has helped me in so many ways. I was in a dark place for a long time. I felt purposeless and broken. God gave me this task right when I needed it most. Pouring my time and energy into homeschool has given me back my purpose... it has kept me in a place of active servitude, rather than idle pathos. And I'm not sure if its right to admit this, but I like being needed. I like feeling like I'm making a difference. It gives me a chance to do something of eternal worth. And I wouldn't trade that gift for anything.

Overcoming Resentment in the Home

As women, the majority of us are in the home, home-making. We're the ones in the crux of the diaper field, the ones with our arms elbow-deep in soap suds, the ones with sweat dripping down our brows as we scrub at that weird stain on the bottom of the fridge door. Home is our mission field. It's our domain. And with that domain often comes the little dramas and follies that prove whether we are of the Martha nature or the Mary. It's the ground where we become the Proverbs 31 woman - the woman full of grace, tending to her home, laughing as she looks into the future.

I was led to write about this topic last week as I faced a flood of thoughts tainted with resentment.

The Situation

It'd been a long, hard day. The kids were unusually loud and rambunctious. School was a series of exhausted lectures. Evening came and the kitchen was a disaster, my sister (who usually makes our bread for breakfast) wasn't feeling well, and it seemed like everyone was on their own planet, doing their own thing.

I was in the middle of doing some blog related work when my sister called me over to ask if I wouldn't mind doing the bread. I can't say my reaction (blank-faced stare) was very commendable.

I'd cooked a huge meal for lunch while cleaning out the fridge and supervising my little brother. (And then cleaning the whole mess up.) I'd spent the afternoon attempting to inspire my little humdinger (my 9 year old student of a brother) to apply himself in the learning about Earth's atmospheres - with little success. Four o' clock had come around and I had tiredly dropped in front of the computer, notes in hand, preparing for "my time."

My time, as in, my time to think. My time to work on my blog. My time to write. My time to make something of myself.

The request to make the bread infuriated me. Did I have a target sign painted on my forehead, beckoning for one and all to call on me for absolutely everything? Couldn't she have asked somebody else? Why did everything seem to fall on my shoulders?

What more, looking around me, I found plenty of people to resent for not stepping up to the plate. No one else had done as much that day, of that I was certain. In fact, I could have probably given a running itinerary for everybody in the house, proving how little they did compared to me.
Oh, the self-pity ran deep!

I marched myself back to the computer, sat down with a huff, and stared at my notes. Notes I'd written about blog posts I wanted to write, things I wanted to create - all rooted in Christian theologies and teachings. It shamed me. I sighed and went to the kitchen, surveying the mess that I'd forgotten I was supposed to clean.

In the end, I didn't have to make the bread. My younger sister stepped up to the plate while I wiped down the table, put away the food, and washed all the dishes. But as I was standing there up to my elbows in suds, I realized how intense my resentment was against certain people in the house who I felt weren't doing enough.

It was self-pity and resentment but also anger. And it felt awful. I'm no stranger to it - I've been struggling against this nasty combo since I was a young teenager - but I've come to a place of no longer wanting to indulge in it. My own relationship with the Lord suffers when I do. It's something I desperately want to overcome.

The Key

When the enticing urge to pity yourself arises, allow it no mercy in your life.
I fail here often, but it's an area I'm slowly growing in. Cut it at the quick. The moment it pops up and you recognize it, put the proverbial knife to its throat. A single moment of self-pity is a slippery slide downhill - and getting back up again is hard. Really hard. Silence it before it can wreak much havoc.
From there, change your inner tune.

Stop painting yourself as the victim whilst condemning everyone else, and think about what God is doing in your life at this precise moment. What could God be teaching you? (That's right - what is He teaching you while you stand exhausted at the kitchen sink, covered in soap and sweat, wanting to pass out from exhaustion, while everyone else seems to be doing less... What. Is. He. Teaching. YOU?)

The Lesson

My thoughts went a little something like this:

Well, He must be teaching me about what kind of reaction I shouldn't have when I'm interrupted from doing what I want to be doing. (You see the real root of the issue? I'd "done" my good works for the day; I'd gone above and beyond... and more was required of me? What about MY time? What about the things I had to get done? Despite the earnest appeal in that kind of train of thought, there's a great deal of selfishness involved there as well. A root that God will persistently reach for and dig at in order to uproot.)

In fact, He could be teaching me how to respond with grace and willingness when the call to go the extra mile is made. (Death to self.)

And to take it a step further, if God does indeed have a future for me that includes marriage, motherhood, and home-making, how intensely necessary would a lesson of this sort be to me in those years?

You see, when I take my eyes off self and I consider the eternal purposes of these little moments and lessons, the situation takes on a different colored hue.

If I can just perceive my private troubles and trials as training ground... if I can just look at the process of my stretching as a GIFT and not a curse... how much more of a benefit will I glean from it all?!

It may hurt now but how much grace could abound in me if I only would surrender and stop clinging so desperately to my rights? What kind of vessel could God be training me to be? How can I get out of the way so He can do His job more fully? These are the kinds of questions we must ask ourselves.

The Purpose

God desires to bring forth in us the fruit of the Spirit. Not of the flesh. And He uses these seemingly trite situations to do just that. He cuts away at the ungodly roots; He tills our soil and brings forth the kind of beautiful aromas that will glorify Him.

It's the heart of the Christian walk. Self-denial. Self-sacrifice. Self-forgetfulness.

If Jesus calls us to walk as He walked... to do as He did... to pick up our crosses and follow Him... then we must realize that such a walk is a blood-spattered road. We will not always enjoy refinement. We will not always want to abase ourselves.

But we have this hope: that God does a great work in us and through us. That we are His workmanship, the vessels of His HOLY Spirit. Our lives are not our own.

Embrace wherever God has you - in whatever phase of life He has you. And fret not: He is doing His work in you right now, in this very moment. Trust Him. Let go. Bow down. Relinquish. The resentment washes away. The exhaustion is forgotten. Joy takes it's place.

And fruit awaits you!

The Desire for Independence

At twenty-two years old, my life does not compare to the average young woman's.

I'm not in college, studying for a degree. I'm not working a job, supporting myself. I'm not married, having my first kid. I am not entrenched in foreign lands, doing missionary work.

I'm living at home, helping raise my siblings. I'm homeschooling my little brother and helping my mother manage the rest. I'm waiting, and learning to live in the waiting, surrendering to the refining.

"Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands."

Seasons

Last night, it suddenly occurred to me that I must learn to enjoy every season of the life that God has given me.

I often do this. I fantasize about alternate realities. I dream of easier days. I paint the kind of future I want in my mind and I breeze about life in the now, only partially present, putting off true happiness and fulfillment until everything looks the way I want it to.

In the same token, I realized that I often refuse myself the joy of truly loving and embracing my current circumstances because society has vilified it so extensively. Society says that I should be doing very different things at this stage of my life. Society says that I'm not where I should be. Society has taught me that my age is a window, which time is dragging me by all too quickly. Hurry, hurry, hurry, society cries. You are losing time.

Society

Silencing society's oppressive voice has been particularly difficult for me. I have a sensitive nature. I take very seriously - too seriously - what others think about me. I am crippled by criticism and I take accusations (which one of a more secure personality would probably dismiss) whether founded or not to heart.

It's oppression cleverly shrouded in a cloak of seeming truths. Selfishness and self-pity rear their ugly heads in time with the doubts and seek to overwhelm me. And I must resist them. I must overcome.
The Lord stands on His high hill and beckons me - "Come up higher." He waits, hand outstretched, for me to forsake the worldly voices that threaten reproach and revilement. "We'll reject you," they tell me. "You will be an outcast."

And Beauty, that traitor, taps insistently on my shoulder: "Youth can only be yours so long. You'll lose your chances of making anything of yourself the longer you wait on this God of yours. Surely He can't expect you to sit there forever while age and time ravage you. God helps those who help themselves..."

The voices of loved ones long gone echo in my mind as I survey their curse's seeming fulfillment: "You'll never do anything with your life. You'll never be anyone. You'll wile away your days on a bed with a book. And what good are you to the world that way?"

Dear Lord, my heart cries. How long? 

"When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love him."

Trusting God

I wait on You, do I not? I trust in You. My life is Yours. And You have chosen this "standstill." You have chosen this time for quietness and servitude. You have kept from me the typical reins of independence afforded so many women my age these days and You have kept me dependent. Dependent on You.

You are losing time, society tells me. I am the Keeper of time, You say. I will not always be young and beautiful, I say. Beauty is fleeting, You remind. I want independence! I cry. But I want you dependent on Me, You proclaim.

The war goes on and yet my Lord always wins. I have you here, He tells me. This life I have given you is one of joy and blessing, can't you see? Or are your eyes so blinded by the world's expectations? 

Do you see in the eyes of these little ones the happiness your presence gives? Do you hear in their marked comments how they dread losing you? Do you see the faults and the sins I once brought you out of now trying to ensnare them? They have ground in need of tending and I have given you them. I have you HERE. For them. For Me. For you. 

My Purpose At Home

God has given me my home as my missionary field. Why should God send me to the unbelievers and the lost when so many precious souls, with whom I daily reside, are as yet not totally won? Why should He thrust me into an ever-darkening world, wholly unprepared and wholly unrefined, when I am not ready? He weaves a tapestry out of my life and every day He threads new purpose, new substance.

And so I lay down my desire for independence and I put to rest my impatient cries. I surrender to His timing and I embrace this season of sisterhood and servitude. I will find joy in the stage at which God holds me and I will stop expecting tomorrow alone to bring fulfillment. There is work to be done in this time - God forbid I should neglect it.

Do with me what Thou wilt, becomes my prayer. To Thee I surrender.

"We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now."

Quotes by Elisabeth Elliot.