Knowing Your Homeschool Why

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Ray and I struggled month after month back in 1990. We wondered: “Should we homeschool? Are the problems we are seeing in public school bad enough that we should make this radical decision to bring our children home? What should we do?”

Being such organized people and always planning far ahead and always knowing exactly what we are doing, we decided to homeschool — in August! We scrambled to get ready. If anyone had asked us why we were doing it, we could have given several answers.

• We didn’t like the negative attitudes we saw in some of the teachers our children had in school.
• We didn’t agree with godless beliefs our children heard sometimes.
• We didn’t like public schools teaching about things we thought parents should teach at home.
• We believed it would be good for our children to advance at their own pace.
• We wanted our children to be safe.
• We wanted to train our children according to God’s Word.

All of our reasons were based on real issues we had experienced. All of our reasons were valid and all were deeply important to us.

However, in the summer of 1994, we boiled our purpose down to one simple statement and we wrote it down in black and white. When Ray and I made this statement our only homeschool purpose, we became homeschoolers. We embraced homeschooling with our whole hearts.

Homeschooling can fit like a glove and become a joy when we find our true why. This was our why statement:

We believe that we should spend our lives praying for and pursuing our goal:

That we, our children and their spouses, our grandchildren and their spouses, and every succeeding generation live as Christians on earth and live forever in Heaven with our God and with each other.

We want to live our lives working diligently for the realization of this goal with all the strength He gives us.

We continue to pray for this goal — for our children, for their spouses, and for our grandchildren and their spouses, and every generation from Ray and me forward. We trust God with this prayer because we know that He loves every person — even us — and we know that it is what He wants, too.

It isn’t enough to homeschool to keep children safe, to protect them from godless beliefs, to keep them away from a negative teacher, or to give them an opportunity to learn at their own pace.

This summer is the 25th anniversary of our prayer. It will be our prayer as long as we have breath.

The works of His hands are truth and justice;
All His precepts are sure.
They are upheld forever and ever;
They are performed in truth and uprightness.
He has sent redemption to His people;
He has ordained His covenant forever;
Holy and awesome is His name.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
A good understanding have all those who do His commandments;
His praise endures forever.
Psalm 111:7-10

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