If we abandon them for a second income, we teach them that money is more important than people are.
If we abandon them for our own “career”, we teach them that motherhood is not worthy of consideration as a career.
If we abandon them for their younger siblings, we teach them that it is okay to start something, something as important as a person, and then not finish it.
If we abandon them for the sake of our sanity, we teach them that God’s grace is not sufficient.
If we abandon them—or if we home school them—we teach them. There is no way out; we have to.
Hitler sent armies to North Africa into Egypt against the British
When we keep our children with us so that we can manage their social learning, we teach them that socialization can be done in right or wrong ways. Using the Ten Commandments (talk about mandates-based education!), we instruct as we model for them the only way that works: God’s way.
When they are teens and actually need to socialize, they will walk in right habits of socialization, while turning to us and ultimately, to the God Who guides us, for further instruction.
If we abandon them to learn socialization willy-nilly from the same-aged social misfits that become increasingly more abundant in this world, we still teach them—that no matter how they socialize, that is how to socialize. They will learn that whatever is socially acceptable to their peers is the social lesson for today, and to abandon any semblance to their parents in their quest for some socially “caring” model. They will learn that it is okay to have two mommies.
When we take time to reveal to our children the glories and the tragedies of the history of man, we teach them that we can and must learn from our actions. From Genesis to Revelation, we help them see that God knows the end from the beginning and always has His way.
When they are teens, and learn to care about things on the outside, they learn that today many make the mistakes that wise ones will learn from in the future.
If we trust worldly institutions to handle their history lessons, we still teach them—that the past is unimportant to us. They will not care much about history, either, and in anger, will care even less once it conflicts with God’s Word. They will believe that they came from slime and that the future is debatable, at best, and purposeless at worst and will wonder if Hitler was not right, after all.
When we continue their health classes and physical education into the rest of their childhood, we teach them that our bodies are temples for God. They learn the good stewardship that gives careful attention to the feeding and care of our bodies.
When they are teens, strong and healthy, excited about expending their energy for good purposes, they will be able to say to God, “Here am I…”
If we thrust them into worldly lessons about the body, we still teach them—that the purpose of exercise is to be famous or formidable, and that ketchup is a vegetable. They will converse casually about euthanasia, believe that hormones are insurmountable, and toil under assignments to pretend to be married or expecting. They will grow increasingly comfortable with those conversations, beliefs, and pretenses, too.
No matter which decision we make, we will teach them.
When we keep them at home to educate them, ourselves, we teach them one thing.
If we send them away to receive their education elsewhere, we teach them another, ominous thing.
When we bother to keep our children with us where we can smile at them and watch over them daily, we teach them that we value them.
When they are teens and begin seeing many childhood things from the outside, they learn how important they are to us. They learn how much we cherish them. They learn the value of a child, the value of a parent, and apply this value to their own children, to all children in general, and to themselves, someday.
If we ditch this responsibility along with our children at the front door of some worldly institution, we still teach them—that they are important to the world, which has bothered to take up our slack. They learn to measure the value of a child with the only measuring stick that we have given them and to translate this to the value of all children, foreign, handicapped, and unborn.
When we keep our children with us so that we can give them the gift of reading, just as we gave them the gift of speech years before, we teach them the importance of literacy. When we carefully couple that with reading Scripture, we teach them the reason for literacy.
When they are teens and can read like adults, they learn how important and valuable literacy is, in God’s eyes, and how blessed they are to have Scripture to read.
If we turn them loose to acquire their literacy lessons from the world’s schools, we still teach them—that we do not mind if they learn to read in order to escape reality, to investigate immorality, or to accumulate prosperity. They will read things we do not approve, indeed, do not have a chance to approve. They will not read anything Godly coming from these people who value them enough to educate them.
Have you been wondering about beginning or continuing to home school your children?
Allow me to let you in on a secret:
You have to.
Yes, whether we like it or not, we have to home school these little blessings with which God has blessed us.
How do I know? I know it simply because all parents home school their children.
Actually.
You home school yours already.
Think for a minute:
Who taught your darling that Mom is the best in the world? Did you take him to a state institution to learn that?
Who taught him to walk? Did he receive private lessons on that subject?
Who taught him to stay seated in the high chair and grocery cart?
Who toilet trained him?
Who succeeded in teaching him to pick up after himself?
Trust and obey: This duo is one of the most important lessons in all of life. We have taught these most important lessons. Yet, do we somehow feel we would not be good teachers of minor things?
We have taught our children nearly to master speaking the English language, one of the toughest on earth, as if they were natives, and yet, do we somehow feel that we are inadequate to teach the ABCs?
Or is it only that home school seems like too much work? Were we ready to be at ease and to pass them on to some other mother (oops—I mean, teacher)?
View of the peak of Puy de Sancy and cable car station above Mont Dore.
I don’t know how we got to the top, but we were inside a very small building atop a tower, like a firetower in a forest. My memory of many of the details of that day are lost in the cobwebs of childhood. I do remember a row of windows around the entire building, and a telescope of sorts.
I know it was a tourist attraction because there were other people up inside this building with us. In fact, it was somewhat crowded. Amazing what we do and don’t remember. I remember the floor was unvarnished hardwood and dirty, and my dress was red.
And I was wearing patent leather shoes with slick soles.
The attraction in this room on stilts, besides the magnificent view, was the ride back down to earth in a sort of passenger car on a cable. Great fun, like a zipline for civilized folks with small children. People ascended and descended regularly, and we viewed the view while awaiting our turn.
I was so little. Yet I remember a sense of needing to hurry. I suppose the quicker people loaded and unloaded the cars, the more money the owners earned. Finally we approached the doorway where the car was dangling, waiting for us to board. I watched this car swaying and heard it creaking while the owner reminded my parents of the huge space between the building and the car, with about a hundred feet of space below it. My parents cautioned me and explained the extreme danger in stepping wrong.
I froze. Anyone could see the gap was far larger than my tiny feet, and, in fact, my whole self could fit easily right through that gap. Of course, it was too huge a leap for a terrified little one.
I dug in. I was scared and wanted down. I cried.
That’s when my parents lifted me. I still was terrified, but they overcame my will with their own strength and jointly lifted me over that yawning hole, down into that cable car. I still was terrified. They had seen it was too hard for me and, after warning me not to struggle against them in my fear, had mercifully done it for me.
I am sure the view was spectacular on the ride down, but I don’t remember that part.
I do remember my parents’ loving mercy and surpassing knowledge and strength.
And I think of the gap between this world, that we think is so real, and the other world that exists all around us, that is really real — the Heavenly Kingdom.
The step we must take to leap from this world into the other is terrifying and too far, in our eyes.
But the loving mercy of our Heavenly Father and the Jerusalem Above, which is our mother, stand ready to bridge that gap for us, if we only will not fight it.
Love lifted me.
Love lifted me.
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”
But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.
Home's Cool! 