We Haven’t Changed Our Minds . . . or Hearts

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Getting to work is easy for Ray and me. We walk out of our room, down the stairs, across the room we call the parlor (because it’s fun to call one room the parlor when you live in an old house like this), and into the office–no warming up the car on a cold morning, no getting stuck in traffic. Now, getting away from work, that’s a bit more tricky.

After wonderful years as a stay-at-home homeschooling mama, I’m now a stay-at-home “Little” who gets to write curriculum for homeschooling mamas and their children. I love to sit down at my desk to write. Explaining what we do to other people–now that’s a challenge. People don’t quite know what to do with us.

“You write homeschool curriculum?”

“Yes.”

“A lot of people are doing that now. My wife’s cousin’s nephew’s next door neighbor in Albuquerque homeschools. Maybe you know them.”

“Well, maybe.”

Sometimes when we tell people what we do, they wonder why we only write Christian homeschool curriculum when there is a giant public school market available. “Could you take out the Christian content and sell to public schools, too?” Well, no, we couldn’t.

When we started homeschooling in 1990, most homeschooling families fell into two basic categories: hippies (and former hippies) and parents who wanted to give their children a Christian worldview while protecting them from a worldly worldview.

The world of homeschooling is very different today. There are many options now for what is called “secular” homeschooling. I have no intention of ever walking out of our room, down the stairs, across the parlor, and into the office to write secular curriculum or to pull the Christian content out of what we have written already. I have no interest in how big that market is. Our intention from the beginning was to help parents provide godly training for their children, and we haven’t changed our minds. No, let me say this instead: we haven’t changed our hearts.

Satan wants us to believe that there is such a thing as secular and that secular is neutral. The idea of secular is not neutral. In truth, there is not one atom in all of creation that has not been touched by the hand of God.

“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power;
for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”
Revelation 4:11

For by Him all things were created,
both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–
all things have been created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:16

At the root of the issue about how children should be educated is an understanding of who children are. They are human beings created in the image of God. Each child has a body, a heart, a mind, and a soul. To leave out the education of any aspect of a human being is short-sighted. Each child has the precious opportunity to stand before Jesus someday to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Any education that does not prepare them for that question, which is of far greater importance than the questions on anyone’s standardized test, is short-sighted–with an eternal definition of short-sighted. Every child deserves an “eternal-sighted” education.

Colossians 2:3 teaches that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ Himself. Paul stated why he wanted Christians to know where the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden:

I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception,
according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world,
rather than according to Christ.
Colossians 2:3-4

Eternity-sighted teaching–that’s what matters.

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