Homeschool Mom You Are Doing a Great Work
Homeschool mom, you are doing a great work! Don’t let any discouragement, criticism, busyness, your own inadequacies, or anything else distract you from the purpose God has put in your heart to raise your children in the Lord. Whatever is sidetracking you from your mission, don’t look to the left hand or the right. Put on blinders, keep your focus straight ahead of you and move forward. You are doing kingdom work!
Video: Homeschool Mom You Are Doing A Great Work
Example of Ezra and Nehemiah
I’ve been encouraged in our purpose as homeschool moms as I have been reading through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah recently in my personal Bible reading. These men lived during a time when their people had been living in captivity in Babylon for several years. Their capital city, Jerusalem, was in ruins having been burned to the ground by the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar. God put it into the heart of these two men to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the city, and strengthen the people who wanted to return to the Lord.
Nehemiah’s mission was to rally men to rebuild the wall around the city so that people could live and build homes once again in Jerusalem. Ezra, a scribe and priest, wanted to restore the people to the Lord by reading and teaching the law of God to all the men, women, and children of the land.
Opposition to the Work
During the rebuilding process, they had much opposition to the work. Certain men mocked the Jews saying, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it [Jerusalem] for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish…and burned ones at that?! Yes, what they are building-if a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall!”
In spite of these taunts, the people of God continued to build. The Bible says, “the people had a mind to work.” After these critics tried again and again to discourage and distract them from the work, they moved to a different tactic by asking Nehemiah to leave the work and come down to meet to talk with them about the matter. I love Nehemiah’s answer to them. He said, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?“
Nehemiah says of them that “they wanted to frighten us, thinking, ‘Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.'” Then he prays to God asking, “But now, O God, strengthen my hands.”
Homeschool Mom You Are Doing a Great Work
I think this story is a great analogy for us as homeschool moms. Just as God put it into the heart of these two men to restore the land and people to the Lord, God has put it into the hearts of many families to restore our homes by discipling our children. We have a big job to do! Generations are growing up in front of our eyes and there is no time to lose.
You Are Influencing the Next Generation With the Gospel
Like many families, one of the key reasons why we homeschool is to be able to pass down our faith to our kids. I hope you are reading the Bible to your kids as well as helping them develop a habit of reading the Bible for themselves. With our children at our side, we have many opportunities for conversations about the world around us. We can point back to our Creator and His plan in all that we do, “when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up.”
You Are Spreading Truth
In a world where truth is hard to find, you have the opportunity to present the truth to your kids unfettered by curriculum guidelines or state standards. Because we homeschool, we can teach them about life from a Biblical worldview. You can show them God’s beautiful design for marriage and sexuality. We can teach true history by being selective using books that rely on primary sources and original documents.
You can read more about this here. 5 Opportunities Unique to a Christian Education
You Are Building Your Home
When you homeschool your children, you are making the home the center of life and activity. When we go for a walk in our neighborhood during the day, it discourages me to see showcase houses that for most of the day are empty. Everything is quiet, like a ghost town.
When we have children in our homes, it brings life back into our communities. It’s beautiful to see and hear children outside during the day. I love watching the generational gap close as children interact with elderly people, learning from their experiences and gleaning their wisdom.
Opposition to Our Work
Just as Nehemiah and Ezra had opposition to their work, we as homeschoolers often face setbacks as well. Whenever you do anything that is counter-cultural, you can expect pushback.
When I think back over our 13 years of homeschooling to the things that have discouraged me, stalled the work, distracted me from the mission that God put on my and my husband’s hearts, I realize that I worried about so many needless things.
- Will our kids have friends?
- Am I doing enough?
- What if they have gaps in their education?
- Is this a good curriculum?
- Am I going to mess up my kids by homeschooling them?
Sometimes we faced opposition from our school district. Other times the comments from family, friends, or people in our neighborhood would get to me and I would wrestle with doubt.
With the perspective that I have gained from our many years of homeschooling, I can now see these types of fears for what they really are. They are obstacles, hindrances to distract me from the work that God has given me to do.
Keep Your Focus
What is it in your life that tends to distract you from the work you are doing with your kids? Maybe it’s worry over finances as you struggle to live on one income. Perhaps you have family and friends that question or minimize your decision to homeschool. Often our own insecurity and discouragement can be the biggest challenge.
Whatever is sidetracking you from your mission, I want to encourage you to get your eyes off of the opposition and put your hand to the plow. You have kingdom work to do! We have a generation of kids growing up before our eyes. There is no time to lose! Look straight ahead and move forward. Homeschool mom, you are doing a great work!
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Hi Sherri, I appreciate your encouragements! I am constantly wondering if what we are doing is enough, but I know that we want to homeschool. Even though local school seems enticing at times! Anyways, the thing I do struggle with is scripture/Bible reading. I want to be continually reading a little bit, nothing complicated, let the Word do the work. I also enjoy some liturgy for the main Christian holidays and for some sort of flow of time/series of events to be a part of our reading. We do a Community Bible Study on the school year that includes the kids, so that helps give us something tangible to do through the week but can feel more like a chore at times then a simple reading.
What do you do?How do you choose what to read for yourself personally (and when do you do this?) and how do you choose what to read to the family?
Hi Amanda! Thank you so much!
Over the years we have consistently read the Bible to the family at breakfast (when we have Morning Time) and dinner. I usually read a chapter from the Children’s Story Bible in the morning and then my husband will read straight from the Bible after dinner. We don’t sermonize or ask many questions, just read and let the word itself sink in and take root.
For personal Bible reading, I don’t necessarily read at the same time every day. With babies, pregnancies, and the unpredictable nature of having lots of children, I can’t always depend on doing things at the same time each day. Instead, I have made this question my motto. “What is the first thing I do when I get a moment of free time?” Thinking this way helps me to seek Him with the first part of my time. What we run to when we get a free moment is a good predictor of what we value! Currently, I am reading through the Bible in random sections copying my notes from an old Bible that is falling apart.
Not sure if you read the post I wrote a few weeks ago on helping kids develop a habit of reading the Bible, but it gives a little more description of our family Bible reading if you are interested.
https://ourlifehomeschooling.com/2023/05/24/how-to-help-kids-develop-a-habit-of-reading-the-bible/