I got into a discussion yesterday about home schooling.  It began with the statement (as best I recall), “People home school from a position of fear.”  Being just about finished with defending my position to people who are coming at me from a position of judgment (never having homeschooled themselves, and perhaps wanting to justify putting their kids in the cesspool or should I say “government indoctrination camps” which are also known, unbelievably, as schools), I was perhaps a little more direct than usual.

I agreed that yes, many people do homeschool from a position of fear, from a defensive posture.  But, as I pointed out, they are still, more often than not, quite successful at turning out hard-working, independent-thinking, quality citizens.  I wish I’d said what my husband John said this morning when I talked it over with him.  “They may begin from a position of fear, their feet may tremble as they step out in faith, but they begin.  They step out.”

I am sorry for the myriad of Christians who will someday have to defend that “Let them be salt and light in the public schools” nonsense.  As John said, “You think a five-year-old (or 15-year-old) is going to stand against an institution controlled by an entity who was once God’s right hand man, an entity with thousands of years of experience to perfect his craft of stealing, killing, and destroying (John 10:10)?”

And anyway, I ask, how is that working for you?  As John said when I discussed the mental cruelty my granddaughter is receiving in public school (supposedly one of the “best” school systems in her state) John reminded me, “Oh, but she’s being properly socialized.”  I forcibly turned my thoughts away from all the other negatives she’s experiencing in the name of “education.”

The reasons to get your children out of the public school system are numerous, and I won’t go into them right now.  But I do want to come back to that fear assertion.  Perhaps it was fear on this man’s part that prevented him from home schooling –  fear of being ridiculed, criticized, outright persecuted.  Fear of not going along with the crowd, perhaps even fear of his own pastor’s opinion, or whoever it was that first fed him that “salt and light” malarky.

Fear.  Maybe it first gained a stronghold in his mind via his childhood training in following the crowd, in trying to fit in, in wanting to be accepted, popular, “cool” like everyone else.  Indeed, perhaps he is just another victim of the public school system, where we all (most of us at least) learned: not to rock the boat, to color inside the lines, and to judge.  To fear.

II Timothy 1:7 – “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Don’t take my word for it, don’t take anyone else’s word against it:  Get God’s opinion, and remember He said “Train up your child,” NOT, “Send them out for someone else to indoctrinate.”

Twice in the last week I have heard how women who don’t have college degrees aren’t “qualified” to home school.  Faith and Love, not pieces of paper given to 22-year-olds with no children and in many cases, even less than no wisdom, is what qualifies and equips us to train our children.

Faith in the One who made your child, and who chose you as the parent, faith working through love – that’s your ticket.  YOU’RE IT!  YOU CAN DO IT, AND DO IT BRILLIANTLY!  I like to turn the long-ago spoken words of a school board member around. When my dad asked why we (my brother and I) weren’t learning anything, he was told, “We don’t need no smartass city dude tellin’ us how to run our school.”  Newsflash:  WE DON’T NEED NO SMARTASS SCHOOL TELLIN’ US HOW TO RAISE OUR KIDS.

Does the very thought of even thinking about homeschooling make you sweat and gulp?  That probably means it’s time for you to get off the fear merry-go-round and get on the faith train.  What a journey it’s going to be!