Category Archives: Homeschooling

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How do we do the impossible things facing us?

In an early morning outburst, I fled my schoolroom and barreled down the stairs.  Leaving my two homeschooled children behind, I shut the school room door, and my bedroom door, and my bathroom door, and then my closet door.  There, in the darkness of my walk-in closet, I fell to my knees and put my forehead on the bristly Berber carpet.

“Jesus,” I desperately prayed, “please let my children live until my husband gets home.”

I was exasperated, frustrated, and felt totally unable to homeschool my children.  I had no clue what I was doing and knew that I would go down in the hall of fame of homeschool teacher failures.  I didn’t know how to do the impossible things facing me.

how to do impossible things

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Surprisingly, I survived my mid-life crisis

I remember some sage advice given to me in a Target checkout line many years ago. I was a young mother, with an energetic two-year-old daughter and a precocious four-year-old son with autism. My life was crazy, with birthday parties and T-ball games and lots of therapy appointments. As I was frantically trying to hold it all together in line until we could pay for our purchases, an older, wiser woman who was behind me in line uttered something that is a familiar platitude:

“Enjoy it, honey. These are the best years of your life.”

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Actually, I wasn’t a horrible mother after all…

It was Saturday night. I was snuggled down under my covers and my eighteen year old daughter, Hannah, was sitting on the bed beside me. A freshman in college, she had just received a surprising grade on her English paper. Expecting an A, she received a C. Confused and upset, her tears slowly rolled down her face. Knowing she had to head back to ECU the next day, she said something I thought I would never hear.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go back to school.”

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In Spite of Me My Children Turned Out Well

It was a Sunday morning, and my teenage children and I were together at church. My son Gregory was in the worship band, rocking it out on his bass guitar.  He was swaying back and forth, almost dancing, and belting out the song lyrics with a strong confidence.  Later, during communion, I found a quiet place to pray with my daughter Hannah.  I let her pray first, and she prayed so long that I didn’t think I would get to have a turn.  She prayed a beautiful prayer that touched my heart.

It was later in the day as I was relaying these events to my husband that I realized that in spite of myself, my children had turned out well – they are hard workers, they have tender hearts and they unashamedly love Jesus.

In Spite of Me My Children Turned Out Well

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I Really Didn’t Want to Homeschool

Recently I went up to the Cape Fear Community College North Campus to purchase a gift for my daughter who was graduating. As I started to leave, it dawned on me that I would probably not return to that building. And then I cried.  I cried tears of thankfulness. The two years that she spent at community college as a dual-enrolled homeschooler were such a blessing in her life. And perhaps mixed in were a few tears of joy that my twelve years as a homeschool teacher were over.

I Really Didn't Want to Homeschool

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