While I hope this post is helpful for others who have recently made the decision to homeschool or are considering making the switch, I must forewarn my readers that my main motivation of writing this post is to help me work out our reasoning, so I can have a reminder of our “why” on the challenging days ahead. Writing really helps me process things. Spewing my thoughts and sometimes my worries and anxieties out in print form gives me understanding. If you are still with me after an introduction like that…bless you. Let’s dig in.
The Call….
My oldest, Grace Josephine, who prefers to be introduced as Grace outside of our home, but we affectionately call JoJo, started kindergarten right in the middle of COVID craziness. I will never forget her first day of school when I sent my precious first born in wearing a face mask that covered her smile. Sending your baby to kindergarten is hard enough when you aren’t concerned about a world wide pandemic. That was not an easy day. My little JoJo handled it like a champ, but my mama heart struggled hard. A few of my friends at the time had decided to homeschool or try private schools. Those ideas were nowhere on my radar as I had absolutely loved my public school years and wanted my kids to get to experience the same. But would it be the same? A seed was planted that day but we journeyed on with our public school course.
Jo’s first day of Kindergarten
Let’s fast forward to later in the school year. We were in the waiting room of our family chiropractors office when I noticed a sweet little girl with a tshirt that said something about “to know Christ and make Him known.” I told the little girl I liked the message on her shirt and she said, “Thank you, its for my homeschool group.” Her mom then chimed in and told me about the homeschool group they were apart of that was for Christian families and how their goal was to raise up children to know the Lord and His Word in order to one day be able to share the gospel with others. A light in my heart lit up. God even put the cherry on top of the afternoon when after that family went in to their appointment another woman walked in, sat down beside me and with no prompting from me bagan a conversation about how she homeschooled her children. God was up to something here, and it was clear he was trying to get my attention when it came to this homeschool thing. Another seed was planted.
JoJo continued to attend public school. She enjoyed school and was thriving socially and academically. For the most part I was pleased with our elementary school. We got a new principal when JoJo went to first grade who did an excellent job communicating and we were blessed to have wonderful teachers along the way. Still the Lord was talking to me about homeschool. He kept putting people on my path who homeschooled and even gave me two close friends, Brooke and Skylea, that successfully homeschooled their children. I just didn’t see the idea as a reality when my child was doing so well at school.
The summer before Ella, our middle daughter was about to start Kindergarten, I really wrestled with the decision of whether we should begin homeschooling or continue on with public school. Jeff was very supportive as I wrestled through my decision. After many conversations and much prayer we decided to send the girls back to public school. I knew in my heart we would be homeschooling in the future, but the timing didn’t seem quite right.
Ella’s 1st day of Kindergarten, Jojo 3rd grade
That brings us to where we are right now. It’s march of 2024. We are three quarters of the way through the school year and I have just sent a letter of my intent to homeschool to the superintendent, with a start date of April 1st. WHAT?!?! If it sounds a little crazy to you, lets just say I’m freaking out a little on the inside. So how did we get here? How did we decided to pull our kids out of public school when nothing major has happened and they are doing pretty good in their classes? Less than 2 months ago, I had no clue that my kids would not be completing the school year. Stay with me. Here is how it all went down.
God started talking to me again, this time a bit louder. However, I had pushed the idea aside as something we would explore in the future. For now, I was comfortable with my girls going to school and had my focus on other things. Once again homeschool conversations started popping up. I however kept thinking, “yes one day we will homeschool,” “the timing isn’t right.” Then, some things came up at school that began weighing on my heart. One afternoon while cleaning papers out of JoJo’s backpack I came across a packet on Greek gods. As I looked over the pages talking about the powers these so called gods possessed, their attributes and the attached coloring sheets of their pictures, I felt the spirit of the Lord grieving. There is no other way to describe it but I felt a deep sadness. To some it may seem silly that I was upset over my child learning about these mythical gods at school, but my heart was very troubled. God spoke to my heart and said, “it’s time.” I visited with Jeff about the situation and had good intentions but somehow in the busyness of life the urgency of the call was dimmed again.
The next week our cousin Colby sent me a text out of the blue. He said he didn’t know why, but he was listening to a sermon and the Lord told him to send it to me. He even had an exact time that he said I should really focus in on listening. I quickly listened to the sermon out of excitement for what the Lord wanted to communicate to me. As soon as the teaching began I knew exactly what it was for. The message was about obedience and about when God calls us to do something we need to be quick to obey. BOOM….Ok God, you could not have made that much more clear. I had confirmation of what God was asking me to do. Now I just had to figure out how to gather every bit of courage I had in me to answer this call.
Step one was getting Jeff on board. While I am married to one of the most supportive men on the planet, this was kind of a crazy situation. Praise God that he had sent the message through Colby who is Jeff’s cousin and also a close friend that we both trust. I showed Jeff Colby’s text and had him listen to the sermon. Jeff could clearly see how God was working but he needed time to process all of this information. I knew deep down God was asking us to do this now, but I also knew that if I told Jeff we are pulling the girls out this week and starting homeschool immediately it would be too much. So I prayed that God would give the timing to Jeff. I asked him to make it clear to Jeff when we would start. I kind of expected Jeff to decide that we would finish off the school year and begin next fall, what happened next blew me away.
A couple weeks passed, one of which we got to spend in Arizona on vacation. While on our trip, Jeff and I had lots of time to talk this homeschooling thing over. I did my best not to be pushy about starting immediately and I continued to pray God would give the timing to Jeff. We got back from our trip and sent the girls back to school. A few days later Jeff came home after spending time with our close friend Isaiah. They had been talking about the homeschool stuff and Isaiah had mentioned that it would be important for Jeff to be very present and helpful at the beginning so we could work out schedules and find what worked for us. Knowing that the Fall was his busiest time of year, and he would be gone for multiple days at a time, Jeff brought up the idea of starting April 1st so that we would have his help getting things figured out. BOOM, again. GOD GAVE JEFF THE TIMING. My prayer was answered! He is so faithful to answer our requests when we are committed to living for Him. This sign gave my heart so much courage knowing God was in this with us and he was working the details out.
So there it is. This is my proof of how God worked. This is my reminder for the hard days that will come. When I wonder why we ever decided to do this crazy homeschool thing, I will look back and remember that if for no other reason, it was because God asked us to. And that is enough.
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