Homeschooling Thoughts

A homeschool friend was cleaning out her supplies and gave away some old copies of a homeschooling magazine.  I was the one to grab the magazines.  One of the letters to the editor really spoke to me.  I am still processing this all, but I loved her thoughts.  

Here is her letter:

"Homeschooling is a ministry for me.  God called me to homeschool our children, and they are the ones I minister to.  If I do nothing else in my life but raise our children to be godly leaders who love the Lord Jesus and show His love and share His Word with others, I will have accomplished something wonderful.

I used to be very busy with ministries outside our home.  I sang at church.  I made the church bulletin.  I volunteered in the church office.  I was on an outreach ministry and on the missions board.

I really believe I was doing all that God wanted me to do.  But I was leaving out my husband, our children, and our home--the most important ministry that God will ever give me.

What good is a ministry if our children never see us or if our marriage slowly falls apart?  What good is a ministry if our family and home are suffering?

If we are involved in everything outside the home, will our children rise up and call us "blessed"?  (Prov. 31).  Will our husbands "praise us"?  Or will they resentfully say, "You were never there"?

I am not saying we shouldn't have outside ministries, but the most important ministry we as wives and mothers have is to our husbands and our children.

The Lord showed this to me one day as I was washing the dishes.  I was grumbling in my hear, think that I had much more important things to do than wash dishes and make dinner, dust, deal with the children, and make coffee for my husband when he came home.  But, then the Lord spoke to my heart, saying "Do this as unto Me."  I was stunned.  Wash the dishes as unto the Lord?

I realized that my attitude was not glorifying to God and that I was not honoring Him.  I was lowering the importance of the responsibilities He had given me, and I was not doing them out of love.

The Lord reminded me that He had created me for a special purpose.  He had given our children to us for a reason.  He had given me as a wife to my husband because I am perfectly suited to him.

The things I do daily -- wash dishes, home school, read books to the children, make coffee for my husband--are ministries.  They are important to God.  And my attitude is very important to Him.

If I approach the day with resentment in my heart and a wish to be somewhere else, doing something else, the children will see it.  If I don't do my best in the things the Lord has given me to do, then they will not do their best either.

I am not saying that I get excited about washing the floor, but it is a littler easier to do it when I know that it is a ministry to our family and is pleasing to the Lord.

The interesting thing is that when I gave up the ministries I had outside the home and concentrated on our home school, our children, and my husband, I found that I had a lot more joy in my heart and freedom to really enjoy what I was doing.

Our home is much happier now.  My husband is happier, our children are happier, and I am much happier.  There will be time plenty of time for other ministries when the children are grown and gone.

For now, the Lord doesn't want me to minister outside the home.  He is teaching me to minister to my family.  And it is my privilege and joy to do it."  Lisa Beaubien, Alberta, Canada