Yesterday afternoon I gathered my children around me like a coach in the locker room after a brutal, embarrassing loss.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, I would like for us all to rate our first homeschool day,” I spoke slowly and clearly, bent upon seeming less frazzled than I felt.
The ratings were as follows:
Boy 1: FIVE
Boy 2: THREE
Boy 3: TEN (This was an attempt at humor on his part, and he cracked himself up as he held out ten fingers while hanging upside down off the back of the sofa.)
The Lady: FIVE
Mama: SIX (I only rated it that high because we actually completed all of our work. It felt like more like a TWO.)
We made a list on our family prayer board of how we need more of God in our days together. Then we prayed.
There are people in this world who smile and enthusiastically talk about the joys of homeschooling.
I know many of them, and I envy their happiness. Many days I’m just trying to make it through and still like my kids.
Parents have many reasons for their education choices. Most of us Jesus-folks are walking in faith, trusting in a sovereign God who works and wills beyond our circumstances to bring about His will in our children’s lives.
No situation is perfect. No teacher or curriculum, no school or model is eternally responsible for our children.
You can’t guarantee your child’s success with a certain method or book. Life has never been that simple, and a wild, loving God cannot and will not let us box His character in and serve it for breakfast like Lucky Charms.
Grace is naturally delicious, but its sweetness comes to us when we kneel in desperate humility, not when we mindlessly follow a program.
As I teach my children syllable division, the Spanish word for rabbit, how God created the earth, and the best way to add three-digit numbers, I am learning how to live desperate for Him. And my children- they see it all.
They watch as bold prayers well up when I can’t open the file on the computer and I cry out to Jesus for help.
They hear me ask for Go to make them peacemakers when the grumpy fighting starts before the day has really begun.
They know I mean it when I declare that the fussiness MUST STOP NOW.
Because being a family means we are in this together, learning to love one another first so that we can know what love is, and from whom true love really comes.
Somewhere in the middle of this mess we learn the names of oceans, the plots of books, and how to write a cursive “Q”.
That’s what homeschooling looks like at my house. It’s not easy. It isn’t always pretty.
But by God’s grace, it is how we are walking by faith, trusting in His faithfulness.
And overall, after seeing all He has done in us the past five years, I rate it as a perfect TEN for the joyful lesson of grace.
Now who’s smiling and talking enthusiastically about homeschooling?
That’s right: this girl.
