I've wrestled with God for over a year about bringing my oldest daugher home to homeschool. After much prayer and a plan in mind, we set on the course and finally started homeschooling her this fall. But in my fear and reluctance to trust God's provision, the PLAN that was set was changed. And now I am looking at something that is not at all what the PLAN was suppose to look like.
Our goals, reasons, passions for homeschooling are as follows:
To build our relationship with God
To build our relationship with each other
To build opportunities to serve each other and outside of our home
To build my child up in their talents, abilities and allow their personality to shine
To build a model of learning that creates a DESIRE to learn
To build a foundation of HOW to learn
To build on the passion I have for the mission field, adoption, the needy, the friendless, the fatherless
To build on the life skills needed for their future
And the PLAN was for us to do a unit study on Countries and Different Cultures from My Father's World. The money was not there to do so this fall, but I did run across a free one at.............. Along with Wordly Wise, Writing Strands, Easy Grammar, and a math program (possibly Teaching Textbooks and IXL for review). Art and PE classes included. Time to have read alouds and snuggle time on the couch. Time for meaningful devotions. Time to create. Then fear caused me to change our plans and now it looks much different.
Now? We are in a 2 day a week alternative learning option, where she goes to a public/homeschool option 2 days a week to recieve her core subjects. It seemed like a great option to keep her up on her math and reading ( she is moving out of her IEP, but won't have a review until Feb/March). And now every minute is spent on doing public school "homework" in our home. So as of this week I do not even call us "homeschoolers" but "public at home schoolers"! And the reality that this is NOT what the PLAN was, hit me hard. Am I being obedient to all that God has put on my heart? NO. And that came thru to me in a very unique way.
Maybe because I'm stubborn God has to get me to my weakest point and then use an object lesson to point out His will. So as I'm in bed sick the last couple of days with a cold the babies shared with me, God used that time to teach me the errors of MY ways. It started with reading the triplets their nighttime story and of course it was on Jonah. Our emphasis with the babies is that we tell them that Jonah said NO to God and we need to say YES to Him. Ok, that struck a cord with me. Then my hubby was desperately searching for a lost computer cord while I was dealing with babies that didn't want to go to sleep. I had had the cord in my hands the night before so it had to be close. And as I was searching for it I began to pray for God to please help me find the cord. But I felt guilty. I knew God always helps me find missing things. I don't remember a time where I haven't found a missing item. I feel it's because I pray about it. But I felt God calling me to obedience re: homeschooling His way. So as I'm searching for the cord, my heart is wrestling with God. I surrendered to His way and told him I would make a change. After a few more searches in the office the missing cord was found. But as I held it I heard God say, "How much more do I care about Miss A?" "If you can trust me to find this cord, can't you trust my WAYS to homeschool and the plans I have for her?"
So here I am. Trusting and knowing that His WAYS are ALWAYS higher than mine! ALWAYS!
