For years Ansley has asked to be homeschooled. Why, I really
don’t know. Maybe because she knew I had been homeschooled in Middle School and
High School. I would tell her that if God wanted me to do it, I would have to
obey. And then I would silently say to God, “but surely you aren’t going to
tell me to do that right?”
WRONG!!!!!
At the beginning of 2016 we got our re-enrollment paperwork
for school. There was a tuition increase that was a bit larger than normal. Once
we spoke to the principal and found out the reasons we were fine with it. However,
we wondered if we could handle the increase financially. At that point we began
to think about our other options. It was then that I really started to think
about homeschooling. And when I say “think about it”, I mean I tried to think
about it as little as possible because it just wasn’t something I wanted to do.
And full disclosure; my reasons were extremely selfish. I had a mental pros and
cons list and while the pros list was quite long the only thing on the cons list was that I would lose my days to
myself. I was in such turmoil it was kind of pathetic, almost embrarrasing. We began praying about
whether or not to keep the kids at PCA. I was probably not praying as genuinely
as I should have because of my strong desire to keep them there. When we received
a financial blessing we jumped on it as if that was the answer we were looking
for. We went ahead and re-enrolled and I thought things were great.
WRONG AGAIN!!!!
The last 6-8 weeks have been ridiculously stressful mentally
for me. The battle between my selfish desires and my desire to obey God has
been worse than it’s ever been in my life. I’m not trying to be melodramatic.
There were days I could think of nothing else. I had no peace whatsoever.
Zilch! Nada! I kept thinking, “but I can’t do BSF anymore, I won’t be able to
go back to ILC, etc”. I wanted to spend my time doing good things, but God was
asking me to do something even more important.
Slowly, like s-l-o-w-l-y…God began to peel back the layers
of my heart and my mind. He used His Word, music, sermons, Sunday School lessons,
BSF lessons and wonderful friends and even people I don’t know well to confirm
what I knew deep down He was telling me. I was getting downright annoyed at
times by all the confirmations He was giving me. I described it to one friend
as if I was sticking my fingers in my ears and screaming that I didn’t want to
hear, because I knew what it was I was supposed to do.
I very slowly began to reach out to God and tell Him that I
wanted to obey, but I was just petrified. A fear of failure is one of the
biggest weapons the Enemy uses against me and he was attacking with everything
he could. Friends of mine who I know were just being funny were unfortunately
helping him by joking with me that “I couldn’t do it”. Thankfully, God also put
a woman in my life who did nothing but encourage me and tell me that of course I
could do it. She will NEVER, NEVER know how meaningful that conversation on my
front porch was.
At this point my prayers stopped being about asking Him what
He wanted me to do, because I knew. They became “God, please change my desires”.
And ya’ll…He did!!!! Not right away. Again, this was a slow process because I
was still kicking and screaming as He was doing it. One friend told me last
night “your face today compared to last week is totally different. Last week
you were so conflicted and today you are so peaceful”. That is ALL GOD!!! I don’t
think I’ve ever in my life experienced such a transformation in my desires. It's like a total 180!
But, because I’m so stubborn, I still wasn’t able to take
that step. For almost a week I was just standing there on the edge. Starting to
move forward, but so scared…even though by now I wanted to take the step! How
God has patience with us, I’ll never fathom. This was still ALL I was thinking
about. It was so all consuming and I knew that if I would just take the leap I
would find the peace I was looking for. But I also knew that once I took the
leap, the Enemy would come at me even harder so that would scare me back off
the edge.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Finally, yesterday after more and more confirmations of the peace
that would come, the blessing that would come from obedience, the strength He
would give me for every moment He took my hand and led me over the edge. And
just like I knew it would…the peace washed over me in such an obvious way. I’m
not gonna lie, there is still some nervousness and apprehension, but the peace
is so much bigger than that is.
I am so excited about what the future holds and the freedoms
that this will allow us. I have so many ideas and plans and am so looking forward
to figuring out what curriculum we will use, what co-op we will join, etc. I
have gotten so much amazing input and advice and encouragement from homeschool
moms that I’ve reached out to and I just can’t wait to dive in deeper. I’ve
already got 3 different lists going ;);)
Obedience is so, so hard for me. Why it still is I don’t
know because He has shown me so many times the blessing that will come. I’m only sharing this to encourage anyone else who is in the midst of a similar
situation (not necessarily homeschooling) that it is so worth it to obey. It
always is.
Just this morning, once again, God used His word to
encourage me:
“She senses the worth of her work…” Proverbs 31
This is worthy work. And I’m so grateful He has called me to
do it.
