Why we have chosen to homeschool

I always get asked, "are your girls in preschool yet?" I reply, "well..not exactly yet. We are going to homeschool." The response I always get is, "oh. I couldn't do that."

I never thought I would do such a thing either, but when the girls were about two months old, the Lord told me that's what I would be doing, and it's still the plan 4 years later.

Why, you ask?

The following is just me sharing my feelings. It is in no way to be judgemental, or to make anyone feel like the choices they have made are wrong. These are just simply our choices and I have chosen to share them with with you.

After the girls were born, my husband and I had a some personal marriage issues. The Lord really pressed it upon my heart that the direction he wanted us to go was to homeschool the girls. I have to admit, the thought is a bit terrifying, but I know that if this is what the Lord wants me to do, He will see me through.

Once I felt the Lord tell me this, I started reading more in my Bible. Yes, yes this is truly what He wants for my children!

Deuteronomy 6

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.



Deuteronomy 7
^6 
4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.

Proverbs 22

Train^[a] a child in the way he should go,
    and when he is old he will not turn from it.

These are just a few scriptures that speak to me. How can I follow these instructions if I'm sending my children away from me? They would be spending more time with a perfect stranger, and very influential children, than they would with me. I just wasn't happy with this thought. 

These are my perfectly innocent children. I cannot send them to a place where I have no control over what they are taught, what they are exposed to, what other children are teaching them. They are very impressionable, and it's my job to make sure they are learning what God wants them to learn. 

Today in schools, God is not allowed. Sex is talked about on the playground in the first grade. What? Sex? First grade? Yes people, it is! I didn't even know what sex was at that age. Some of you may be thinking, "you can't keep your children in a bubble, or away from the 'real world'."  You are correct, and I can't do that, but what I can do, is do my best to protect them from what I'm able to. I want to preserve their innocence for as long as possible.

I want my children to learn about their Creator, their Savior. I want to train them in the way they should go. I want to make sure I impress upon them the morals and values that God wants them to have. Not ones that they learn from other children, or their teachers. Deuteronomy 7 ⁴ for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This could not be more true. 

These children are a gift to my husband and I. My husband is more than supportive of our plans to homeschool. I'm sure many people don't agree with our plans, and that's ok. We don't have to agree. I'm not here to judge anyone on their choices, and I hope no one judges us on ours. This is what we feel we are called to do. 

These are a few comments from a blog I like to read, about why these parents have chosen to homeschool, I couldn't have said it much better myself: 

“To protect their minds from wrong teaching until they are strong enough in their faith to counter it!”

“I could probably write a book with all my reasons! But the biggest is for my kids’ protection (spiritual, emotional and physical). Kids these days are exposed to things children are not prepared to handle, and forced to make choices children should never have to make. Innocence is so no longer valued in our society, so in order to preserve it as parents, the best thing we can do is to shelter and nurture them until they are prepared to handle the “real world.”

“#1 reason so that my son has a place that has no restrictions on being taught about Jesus and to protect his mind spiritually, emotionally. To embrace every single moment of his journey. Having no restrictions on anything he wants to study. Most of all-embracing the lessons that the Lord is using my child to teach me ♥”

I do not have the patience of Job. I certainly am not the prime candidate to homeschool, I am not a teacher, but you know what? I'm certainly up for the challenge, because I have come to realize that it's not about me, it's about my children. They are the most important thing, and I want to do everything  I can to give them the best life possible.

Has the Lord led any of you to homeschool? Please share your thoughts with me! 



For further reading:

Public School is Not a Child’s Ministry
Reasons Why We Homeschool