The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

While life was hard, we still schooled. We just did it very differently.

As my dad’s illness progressed quickly, the importance of spending quality time with him became more important than keeping up with schooling. God brought a desire to my heart to show my daughters a different kind of lesson and that was one of serving others. Dad lived in our house until the day he died. My kids learned in all those months how to care for someone who was very ill. They kissed my dad’s bald head and hugged him and told him they loved him. They read books with him, and we also did a number of lessons in The Mystery of History together. Even after my dad lost the ability to speak, he still fumbled through the pages of his Bible in search of the perfect verse to share with my kids about what we had just studied. It was awesome!

When Dad couldn’t feed himself or when he had food dribbling down his face, the girls learned to help feed him or gently wipe his face. When his final days on earth were here, my kids and their cousins boldly stood at the foot of his bed and sang to him. They held his boney hands and they kissed his sunken cheeks. They told their grandpa how much they loved him and they spoke of the lessons he had taught them. Lessons of God’s grace, mercy and love.

While life was hard, we still schooled. We just did it very differently. Math and reading happened some days, but our main focus became our family and the place the Lord had us at that moment—smack dab in the middle of my dad’s illness. Dad needed his family, so we studied life lessons that taught strength and character. My kids learned how to be compassionate and caring in the most difficult of circumstances. They watched as our family did their best to glorify the Lord. But most importantly they learned that God has a purpose in everything and that He is always good.

Catherine didn’t plan for her school year to go in such a direction, but God did, and she is thankful for the refining He has done in their family as a result.

The lessons learned this year by their entire family are life-changing and lifelong.

And then there’s Dana, who has been
homeschooling her four children for the
past ten years. Last year her sister’s chil-
dren suddenly came to be in her home,
and she instantly had three new students.
Dana had to rethink everything, includ-
ing the curriculum she had chosen for
her own children. She’s had to relinquish
control and learn to listen to God:
Yes, I have had to learn to depend on
Him. Homeschooling alone will do
that to a person. But it takes the tri-
als and harder times to really cement
what you know is true. That the one
true God is dependable, in control,
and will write on your page what is
His best for you.

And that’s always the key, isn’t it? In the toughest, most trying times, when we feel we cannot possibly do what God is calling us to do, He refashions, remakes, rewrites, and redeems. We have to remind ourselves that in and above it all stands the God Who loves us more than we will ever love ourselves or each other, and that He has written our stories for His glory. Our plans are good if they are a means to an end, but if they become the means that undo us because we cannot rejoice in the afflictions that change the course of those plans, we are in bondage to a dream of homeschooling that was never God’s intention.

He loves you unimaginably, and maybe most especially, because when you are weak, He is strong.

Deuteronomy 7:9: “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments . . . .”

Kendra Fletcher is the homeschooling mother of eight, aged 19 down to 4. She has never known what it means to homeschool without the presence of preschoolers and loves to encourage other moms who are beginning their homeschool journeys with little ones underfoot. Kendra reviews for the TOS Homeschool Crew and is the author of a popular E-Book about creating a Circle Time for your homeschool. Her website and blog can be found at www . preschoolersandpeace.com.