Finding Joy in Obedience to the Lord

So I’ve been homeschooling now for closing in on my fourth full year. Going into homeschooling, I was filled with tons of head knowledge from months and months of intense research into homeschool. The last thing I ever want is to not benefit my children, but after months of research, talking to others who have homeschooled, and a lot of encouragement, we stepped into something new and uncharted for our family.

There was never a moment it was easy, but in those first months and within the first year, I was filled with zeal and determination. I found the joy in each recaptured moment with my oldest as we navigated the best way for him to learn and absorb the information I was teaching him. When we added two kindergarteners a year and a half later, I was consistently starry eyed over watching them begin with no basis of reading and writing to watching them write their name and make phonetic connections. It reinvigorated me and reaffirmed what I knew God had put forth in my path – educating my children and soaking up every moment of them before they grow up and go on to their own futures.

But, if we’re honest, the newness and excitement of just about everything wears off over time and it seems like just another chore to mark off an endless to do list. Each day begins to drag on a little longer and the content you are teaching becomes a bit more difficult and the kids whine and complain increasingly more about how they “can’t do it” and it’s “too hard”. The nerves start to fray a little more and once again, your flesh starts to see the grass as greener on the other side of the road. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve had more of those days in the past year than I care to admit.

I was in a board meeting last night and told my other homeschool mama friends that I don’t know that homeschooling is necessarily something I WANT to do, but the Lord just will not release me from. I often cannot shake the idea that maybe it’s all a little too much and I’m just ill-equipped. Still, I find that there is something to be said about day in, day out obedience to God’s faithfulness and His call on our lives. It is truly asking the Lord for your bread for today and today only, putting your feet square on the floor and walking each step in the strength of God alone – just one foot in front of the other, trusting God to be faithful in each step. When I step out of that and try to take in the entirety of all the little pieces of my kids’ lives and what the future could bring, I become overwhelmed and defeated.

But when I do as God asks of me and worry about today only, He is ever faithful. I begin to see the joy in the fact that I can sit in the middle of the suck with a teenager who is struggling to learn how to divide numbers with decimals. I find myself less irritated reminding my 2nd grader for the 57th time to put a period at the end of a sentence. I find immense peace in a community that God has single-handedly and meticulously placed into mine and my kids’ lives.

I understand not everyone is called to home education, but we are all called to something. That something, while initially exciting and refreshing, eventually becomes more of the same thing everyday in the machine of life. But obedience is a gift given to us by the Lord. It reminds us of His faithfulness and that He sits in the suck with us, too. And in the midst of the suck, there is refinement and joy and the benefit of patiently waiting on the fruits of our good works through Christ. And that, my friends, is wondrous.