So I have been silent.
Somewhere in proverbs, a verse says, for you it is wisdom to be silent. Lately I have been making this choice more and more often.
But I am thinking a lot and learning so much, especially when it comes to how to raise and school my family so that we honor God. And I've had a fairly insightful breakthrough and change that is worth sharing or chronicling so that I don't forget it over the years ahead.
I'm going to confess something now. When I first felt drawn to homeschool, I think a large part of my motivation was that I wanted my children to be smarter than everyone else's. I didn't have the money for private education, but no matter, I was so smart I would think, who better to give them an Ivy League education than me, right? I know, don't laugh...
Seriously, though, besides the pride at the heart of this assumption, what I found when I started to dig deeper is that I had an underlying belief that education was about knowing stuff, and not even possibly important stuff, but just more stuff than everyone else. Because of my strong belief that education, knowing things, was one if the most important things in life, I would give my children the absolute best I could. This meant a classical education of course. Latin is essential to life, not because it provides a great foundation for understanding so much of the English language, but because I like the way it feels when people hear my child talking about declensions. After all, she is only in kindergarten!
Who doesn't love to impress people? What mother doesn't want to hear others praise her kids, seeing as how they are a direct reflection of her hard work, amazing intelligence, and gracious parental wisdom. Okay, now you can laugh! I just did.
I recently found that the heart of my homeschooling had become, me. Oh, God was in there, certainly. I mean, what God believing mom doesn't worry about what her children might be exposed to in the public school system? What christian homeschool would be complete without a child who can recite whole books of the bible, not to mention obey all Ten Commandments and outshine every other child in her amazing character? After all, the best compliment a mother can receive is to hear one of those other moms saying "why can't you act more like those Peel children?" Right?
We could all get a good laugh if I continue to point out my serious character flaws, but let me tell you what I've realized recently. If I give my children all of the best education this world has to offer, but they choose not to follow God, I haven't done my job as a parent. The bible is not some subject to be mastered like Latin, but it should be the guide to which they will turn for the rest of their lives. Prayers from memory are only a stepping stone toward an intimacy with God that they will need to develop in order to walk in truth, love, beauty and wisdom in this fallen world. And the scary part of recognizing these truths is that some of this, I can't "teach" them.
When I started looking for more "challenging" curriculum and I thought I could search for classical, christian, or classical christian, those search terms played again and again in my head. And God spoke to me and said, "which search term would you sacrifice for the sake of the other?" Would I be willing to teach a secular curriculum because deep down I believed it was higher quality or more important than the christian version? And that's when I repented.
I do not want to give my children the whole world only to find that they haven't found God and therefore are left with nothing of value in their lives. I don't want them to see God as an a la carte course to tag on to their superior education. And I am not saying that giving them a schooling that is not explicitly christian would keep them from knowing Him. Truly, they see their mom seeking with my heart to follow and serve God and that is the best way I know that they will find God.
But in obedience to God, I am changing my beliefs about what constitutes a superior education. I am so grateful to Him for showing me now, before I am in over my head, where my values were and where they should be. I am free now to teach my children what is important to God, not what makes mom (or them) look good, and I believe that teaching them to value things the way that God does is the best education I could possibly give them.
Somewhere in proverbs, a verse says, for you it is wisdom to be silent. Lately I have been making this choice more and more often.
But I am thinking a lot and learning so much, especially when it comes to how to raise and school my family so that we honor God. And I've had a fairly insightful breakthrough and change that is worth sharing or chronicling so that I don't forget it over the years ahead.
I'm going to confess something now. When I first felt drawn to homeschool, I think a large part of my motivation was that I wanted my children to be smarter than everyone else's. I didn't have the money for private education, but no matter, I was so smart I would think, who better to give them an Ivy League education than me, right? I know, don't laugh...
Seriously, though, besides the pride at the heart of this assumption, what I found when I started to dig deeper is that I had an underlying belief that education was about knowing stuff, and not even possibly important stuff, but just more stuff than everyone else. Because of my strong belief that education, knowing things, was one if the most important things in life, I would give my children the absolute best I could. This meant a classical education of course. Latin is essential to life, not because it provides a great foundation for understanding so much of the English language, but because I like the way it feels when people hear my child talking about declensions. After all, she is only in kindergarten!
Who doesn't love to impress people? What mother doesn't want to hear others praise her kids, seeing as how they are a direct reflection of her hard work, amazing intelligence, and gracious parental wisdom. Okay, now you can laugh! I just did.
I recently found that the heart of my homeschooling had become, me. Oh, God was in there, certainly. I mean, what God believing mom doesn't worry about what her children might be exposed to in the public school system? What christian homeschool would be complete without a child who can recite whole books of the bible, not to mention obey all Ten Commandments and outshine every other child in her amazing character? After all, the best compliment a mother can receive is to hear one of those other moms saying "why can't you act more like those Peel children?" Right?
We could all get a good laugh if I continue to point out my serious character flaws, but let me tell you what I've realized recently. If I give my children all of the best education this world has to offer, but they choose not to follow God, I haven't done my job as a parent. The bible is not some subject to be mastered like Latin, but it should be the guide to which they will turn for the rest of their lives. Prayers from memory are only a stepping stone toward an intimacy with God that they will need to develop in order to walk in truth, love, beauty and wisdom in this fallen world. And the scary part of recognizing these truths is that some of this, I can't "teach" them.
When I started looking for more "challenging" curriculum and I thought I could search for classical, christian, or classical christian, those search terms played again and again in my head. And God spoke to me and said, "which search term would you sacrifice for the sake of the other?" Would I be willing to teach a secular curriculum because deep down I believed it was higher quality or more important than the christian version? And that's when I repented.
I do not want to give my children the whole world only to find that they haven't found God and therefore are left with nothing of value in their lives. I don't want them to see God as an a la carte course to tag on to their superior education. And I am not saying that giving them a schooling that is not explicitly christian would keep them from knowing Him. Truly, they see their mom seeking with my heart to follow and serve God and that is the best way I know that they will find God.
But in obedience to God, I am changing my beliefs about what constitutes a superior education. I am so grateful to Him for showing me now, before I am in over my head, where my values were and where they should be. I am free now to teach my children what is important to God, not what makes mom (or them) look good, and I believe that teaching them to value things the way that God does is the best education I could possibly give them.
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