Loving Our Children

It’s September again, that magical month when the excitement of a new homeschooling year fills our hearts.  New curriculum, eager students, a well-planned schedule… Our spirits, energy, and zest for educating our children are high.

How can we maintain a passion for learning throughout the school year? Is it possible to live a joyful life despite the daily grind of laundry, math facts, and dishes? I think so, especially when we homeschool with purpose.

Why are we homeschooling our children? In Titus 2 the younger women are admonished to love their children. Our number one obligation, then, to our children is to love them.  We must homeschool because we love our children.  If we are trying to homeschool children we can’t stand, we will not succeed.

As homeschooling moms we have to want to be around our children twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week!

But what if this doesn’t come naturally to us? What if our children grate on our nerves? Does that mean our case is hopeless? I assure you, there is hope. The fact that loving our children is to be taught, suggests that it doesn’t just happen. We have to PRACTICE loving our children. We have to WORK at it, we have to WANT it.

How does loving our children translate into homeschooling them?  We homeschool our children because loving them requires time, lots and lots of time.  We want every day to be chock full of Christ. We want to be an example that they will want to follow.

“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

We must be homeschool moms who purposefully love our children and purposely choose to keep them at home where we can spend time with them, growing them, nurturing them, helping them reach their full potential.

Homeschooling with purpose is not about charts, lists, schedules, or the perfect curriculum. Although, they do serve a purpose in helping us juggle our load.  Homeschooling with purpose is about the heart behind all that. When the going gets tough, the stamina that we need to keep going won’t be found in those things. We will have to dig deeper.

It comes back to loving our children.  “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  We are called to sacrifice our lives, our time, our wants and desires for a worthier cause.

 

We are God’s hands and feet to our children. Every moment we spend with them is a sacrificial act of obedience to our Heavenly Father.

We teach them math because God created numbers and order, and in order to glorify Him in their everyday lives, they need to master this concept. We teach them reading so they can read God’s word by which wisdom comes. We teach them writing so they can communicate to the world intelligently and effectively what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

How do we love our children? By searching out who they are, the way they learn, because each child is unique and gifted by the Almighty in different areas.  We encourage our children to do each task “as unto the Lord”, using our words to edify and build up.

We are patient with the interruptions to our schedules, viewing them as Divine appointments from God himself. We have committed our days to Him, and we are willing to be used by Him in whatever way He deems best.

We keep our focus on Him, who blessed us with these little ones. When we aren’t sure how to proceed, we seek the Master.

We can homeschool our children successfully. We can live a joyful, albeit, busy life. We can love our children because we love our Creator, and He has commissioned us to “Train up our children in the way they should go”.

The God who called us to homeschool our children has also equipped us with everything we need to succeed. He will love our children through us.

I Corinthians 13 for Homeschool Moms

If I speak in the tongues of French or Spanish, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of spelling and can fathom all mysteries of histories and all knowledge of arithmetic,

If I have a faith that can move mountains of laundry and dishes each day, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the purchase of good curriculum and give over my body to hardship of long nights of lesson preparation and research that I may boast of how well my kids are educated, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient with slow learners.

Love is kind when they forget how to multiply again.

It does not envy my friends whose kids were born knowing long division.

It does not boast when my kids can sing well but my friend's kid does not.

It is not too proud to admit to my friends when I’m tired and discouraged.

It does not dishonor others’ homeschooling methods.

It is not self-seeking and unwilling to invest in the homeschool culture around me.

It is not easily angered when my kid declares he doesn’t like science.

It keeps no record of wrongs- in me or in others.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth and teaches my kids the same.

It always protects my family and friends.

It always trusts that God has a plan and cares what is happening.

It always hopes that I will be able to hear God and obey His will for my family.

It always perseveres- even on LONG days.

Love never fails.

*I credit the scores of authors of books and blogs I have read for inspiring this post.  I have tried not to plagiarize, while remaining true to what those authors wrote.