Wow…… the end of year is within sight. We made it through our first year of homeschooling—something four years ago I thought was impossible when God first started to call me to homeschool. My thoughts were, “God what are you asking me to do? I can’t do that—I barely made it through school myself! This is something I feel completely incapable of succeeding at.” The whole time God was saying, “But I am. I will do it through you. I will give you what you need.” My greatest heart’s desire was that my children would know and love Him. So when He called me to homeschool I thought it was for the hearts of my children. I have come to find out it was for mine as well. I needed to trust Him with one my greatest weaknesses. I decided I was going to step out and trust Him to provide and equip me with everything I would need.

Adam and I have been married for almost 13 years and have four children, Kaylin (13), Brittanie (10), Madison (4) and Nathaniel (3). I am so thankful for the support and encouragement my husband has given me on this homeschooling adventure. He knows my weaknesses and me more than anyone, and yet he had complete faith in me.


Along with our decision to homeschool came the decision to pull Kaylin and Brittanie out of public school—something Kaylin wasn’t too happy about and something Brittanie was very excited about. Would Kaylin become resentful towards me for doing this? Was I going to survive all day at home with my kids locked away in a small two-bedroom townhome? Well, I am here to tell you I did survive and that God did amazing things in all our hearts! I can’t say it was always easy. We sailed through the first eight weeks fueled almost exclusively by excitement. I was getting the opportunity to learn. This had been one of my prayers for years, and God was now answering it. I was building better relationships with my daughters. I was seeing a heart change in Kaylin already. They were enjoying playing with each other.

Then week nine hit, and, for a time, it became an uphill battle and I wanted to quit. I was spending all day with Kaylin and Brittanie, teaching school while Madison and Nathaniel ran around like monsters destroying the house. I was starting to get tired. Nothing seemed to be going like it was supposed to. I cried out to God telling Him how unequipped I felt. I ran into so many happy homeschoolers who loved it and their children loved it. I thought my homeschool should look like everyone else’s. What was wrong with me? How come I didn’t love it?

I came to find out that I had too many “good things.” Every time I heard of a good thing in homeschooling, I thought I needed to do it. So we were getting weighed down with doing all of the huge variety of “good things.” I am so thankful for those of you that God sent into my life at just the right time to tell me to relax and to tell me that I didn’t have to do it all or know it all—that what was most important was to build relationships with my children and to develop Godly character in them.

God never told me it was going to be easy. If it were easy, I probably would not depend on Him everyday like I do now. I so desperately need Him everyday, though! I am so thankful He takes the weak and broken and does amazing things with them. God is moving in our family as we lean more into Him everyday. He is changing all of our hearts. I can’t wait to see what He does in the years to come. I was doing my devotions the other day and read Galatians 6:9, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” My prayer for next year is to relax, to enjoy my children, to fall more in love with Jesus and when I grow weary and tired……I would rest in Him who is able to provide our every need. If God can use me in my weakness, He can use anyone!