HomeSchooling

Approximately four weeks ago I was giddy with the anticipation of sending my kiddos to school. Summer was horrendous. I could not wait to get rid of my little urchins, if only for a few hours a day. Around that time we met some friends for lunch and I told them that I thought they were crazy. "Most of the time I admire you homeschoolers, and I can see where it would be great. But at this time of year I think you're all nuts!" They took it with good humor. Little did any of us know that God was possibly giggling while we ate our rice bowls and nachos. My husband and I just recently made the decision to pull our kids out of the public school system and leap into the world of homeschooling. We start next month.
The same friend we had lunched with told me last week, "Wow! When God works on you He does it fast!" Below are some of the events that led to the 180 degree shift in educational philosophy.
President Obama was to give a speech to the nation's children in school and many people freaked out. I was not entirely impressed with the idea, myself. It seemed highly political. President Obama has a history of not always doing what he says he will. The speech was to be live and at the time of most of the hulabaloo, the speech had not been released. It was scheduled a day before his speech to joint sessions of Congress pushing his healthcare... on and on. I watched it. My kids watched it. It was fine. However, one of the emails I read during the commotion prior to the speech was from a homeschool mom to a group of moms who mostly homeschool. She said it was a moot point because the public schools are government run schools. Why shouldn't the President be allowed to make a speech? She also went on to reference the scripture (Matthew 22:19) where the Pharisees were trying to trick Jesus and asked Him about paying taxes. He asked them whose picture was on the coin and the answer was Caesar. Jesus told them "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's." This lady in the e-mail said that when you put your children in public schools you are giving them to the government and relinquish all rights to their education. (For the record, I still disagree on some of her points.) It made me mad and I was in a fighting mood anyway, so I Googled, "Christians public schools." I was anticipating finding oodles of evidence to support Christians sending their kids to public schools and I was going to list those in an e-mail back to her. What I found instead were blogs, articles, opinions expressing just the opposite. It stopped me in my tracks. I immediately started questioning Just why am I sending my kids to public school?
I think God has been sending me hints for a long time that we are to homeschool. I just haven't been listening. Now that I am listening I am amazed at how clear He has been. I will continue later this week with verses from Bible study, laundry room revelations, and sermons that pointed our way to educating our children in our home.