There are a multitude of reasons why we have chosen to homeschool our daughters, but the number one reason has nothing to do with academics and everything to do with the hearts of our children.

Homeschooling is discipleship. It is a way of life. It is not waking up in the morning, opening up our school books and then being “done with school” by lunchtime and then being free to do whatever for the remainder of the day. It is a lifestyle of constant learning. And I am not talking about constant learning of academics; I am talking about constantly, all day long, pointing my girls to Jesus in everything we do, school work included. That is what homeschool means to me.

It’s about being present in my children’s life and knowing their hearts.

(I want to stop here and say that I am not saying to be present in your child’s life and to know their hearts you have to homeschool. I was not homeschooled in elementary school, but my parents were both extremely present in my life and knew my heart.)

I count it a tremendous blessing that I can choose homeschool for my girls. It is not going to be the easy road; that is for sure.

As you know, Little Bug attended preschool two days a week for 3 hours each day this past year. It was the right choice for this past year. Little Bug loved it and it was a wonderful experience for her. Next year she would go into the preschool 4 program which is a five day, 3 hours per day program. I debated long and hard on whether Little Bug would attend one more year of preschool, or not. (There was never a doubt in our minds that we will homeschool come Kindergarten.)

To make the decision even harder, the preschool program is absolutely free (state funded) and, since our move, her preschool is literally within walking distance to our house! Talk about convenient. At one point in my mind as I was trying to decide, I told myself, “If we get the house, I will send her!”. Well, we got the house, but in my gut it just didn’t feel right – even though it would be SO easy to wake up five days a week, get Little Bug dressed for school, walk her to school and then come back and enjoy 3 hours of taking care of my easy, go-with-the-flow Sweet Pea while the ball of energy and stubborn Little Bug is away at school. So, basically, three hours of freedom!

It was tempting. I will not tell a lie. But in the end, I couldn’t sign her up. God gave her to me. I take my role of training and disciplining her and bringing her up in the Lord seriously and sending her away like that just didn’t feel right. Children are sponges and they are soaking up whatever is influencing them – good or bad. When an opportunity arises to mold her heart for Jesus, I want to be there to do the molding.

When I look at my lifetime (average is 75 years, so we will go with that) I have 18 years to mold their hearts to Jesus. So that amounts to 24% of my lifetime to raise Little Bug. That is not a lot of time when you compare it to my lifetime! I must make the most of that time and I don’t have time for my children to be in school half the day (or more!).

At the convention one of the speakers said that if we haven’t already heard it, we will hear it soon, “I just don’t have it in me to homeschool!”

They are absolutely right!

It is not me that is going to homeschool my children – it is Christ’s strength within me that is going to do this!

At the end of this homeschool journey I think what they said at convention will be true: Homeschooling is the hardest, best thing I ever did for my children.

- Elaine