In the desert – Homeschool blog
God has His hand on His plan in our lives
I was recently thinking how grateful I am that I can look back and see how God has had His hand on our family as we stumbled along the rocky road. There have been some hard lessons – we’ve walked through the desert. We are still trundling through that dry, arid ground in some areas of our lives. But I can honestly say that He has provided for us when we’ve cried out to Him.
This metaphorical ‘being in the desert’ is a very uncomfortable place to be. Aside from the basic metaphorical needs – water, food, shelter, a place to call home and what these symbolise – it is also a place of temptation. Doubt and deceit trickle into our thinking, and we have to make the choice to believe in what is not there, or what can’t be seen.
But, when we cry out to God in the desert, He hears us.
Our social desert
In our desert, where we have lost so much of our social network around us, we cry out to God for likeminded friends for our children. And He answers. For example, a ‘chance’ meeting that gave us hope – we found ourselves on a train (a week earlier than was in the calendar) where we met a family with similar aged children as my youngest son, who has so many shared interests, and who lives just round the corner from us.
But also, we increasingly begin to value what we do have. So much content previously surrounded us, and beguiled us. Now, with so much gone, we begin to lean on each other. There is something very valuable there, in this desert that we can still uncover and appreciate while we wait. There is His timing to wait upon. We will trust in that.
And we find that the desert that surrounds us, that seems so harsh, is actually not dry at all. With God as our pillar, a presence and our guide, water can flow out of stone (Numbers 20:1-13), food can settle for us each day (Exodus 16:31-35), and in our deepest shame, God will provide us clothing (Genesis 3:21).
Before committing to homeschool
We’ve tried the way of the world – we invested heavily and without doubt in our country’s institution of education. After years in the system I began to notice the common denominator – what was causing so much discontent, and what was causing them to react to their very core. There were a lot of tussles where I became more and more uneasy with where I was sending my child daily.
Waves of discomfort
We could call them the plagues – or at least the difficulties we experienced before stepping out into the desert.
The event of Moses and the Hebrews coming out of Egypt was preceded by waves of plagues and disasters, each more severe than the last (Starts from Exodus 7.)
My children weren’t learning, they resented education, they resented one another, themselves, and us as parents. My children were becoming anxious, depressed and withdrawn. They were learning topics in school that were not in keeping with truth. They were becoming less resilient, not more resilient.
The children that I once knew as vibrant and engaged, curious and enthusiastic, were losing so much of themselves that we were simply experiencing one issue after the next battle. The school would describe one problem after the next, and the children would be struggling with such a bombardment of issues it was very difficult to disentangle what to address to begin with. But one thing was clear – there was a common denominator. And there were not all these problems before school started. Every day after school I was seeking to provide for them experiences that I knew were therapeutic and healing. I could go on.
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/as-a-parent-in-the-school-system/
Leaving Egypt
Well it hasn’t been easy – we’d just moved house 9 months earlier and lost our immediate community around us. I certainly already felt ‘in the desert’ – it was a prolonged period of several relationship breakdowns and pain.
Now, 9 months later, just April last, we walked away from the Red Sea, and started our journey away from the water and into the desert: We withdrew our children from school. We withdrew them from the institution of instant manufactured community, the conveyor belt of ‘child tagging’ for their acquired levels of success, and stepped into the desert together as a family. And now I can allow my boys to run around, and goof around, make up plays and stories, do funny impressions and recite amusing poems by heart. I can talk to them freely about God, and I can call women ‘female’ and men ‘male’.
We are told this is normal – children and their attitudes, teenagers in their rooms. Perhaps it is. But for us, and for now, this has largely dissipated since we started homeschooling.
6 months into our journey and my children are so much more who I knew them to be. I truly perceive no more of the problems that were previously flagged up all around me. I mean, are they perfect? Who is? Would you want them to be? And we are still a family with neurodiversity, which is less straightforward in an art gallery or a train journey for example. But curiosity and engagement, kindness and compassion (and some brotherly love!) – these are all a normal part of our day.
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/should-you-homeschool/
His hand on His plan
However, as I said, being ‘in the desert’ isn’t a comfortable place to be. But in the circumstances, it could have been so much worse. God has sheltered all our hearts during this time. I waited for my children’s protests – finding likeminded friends has been a slow process, and that’s the truth – but they have been more measured than I could have hoped. And when they have complained, and I have cried out to God – He has provided.
My children are so grateful that we now homeschool. And I am so grateful for God’s timing, that it happened at a time when they were all ready and up for this journey. He truly has had His hand on His plans for us, long before we thought of it.
Still, small voice
In fact, He showed me about it a year ago on a walk in the hills, and I became expectant and waited, wondering how this could happen. In the end, after a time of sudden clarity, we all as a family became assured that homeschooling was in fact the way God wanted for us. We have come off the highway and walked the path, and we have tried to listen to His voice.
Rejecting doubt
Rejecting doubt might sound like burying my head in the sand, but I think it’s more a case of putting feelings to the side, and taking a pragmatic look around – noticing the incremental changes.
There’re always thoughts of doubt, from within, and from others around us. Sometimes I try and distance myself from sources who I know will tempt me in my doubts. And there are times where I wonder where to turn – the doubts seem to surround on every side.
But I wait on His still, small voice. I look back on His timing, and I think on that moment of conviction. I notice the improvements in my children’s mental health. I notice their attitude and care for one another. I notice their increasing ability to concentrate on a challenge or a project. I notice their inspiration and creativity soar, and their inhibitions lift.
The gains are incremental. Like the growth of a child. It’s hard to notice when you’re in the valley. But when I take the time and choose to notice, and choose to reject frustration, it is there, and they are taller, and need new trousers, and they are more present.
Wait
So I wait. I wait for the storm to pass, and the fire to pass, all the doubts plaguing me, and I wait for His still, small voice. He chooses to be humble, so we must be humble. His way is not usually the highway, it’s usually an untrodden, rocky path. I cannot guarantee my children immediate success (as schools seem to do). Can the school system guarantee this? I have to trust His way, be humble and wait on His timing.
Being thankful
And through this I can honestly say I am so thankful for His plan. I am glad to be in the desert. “Let My people go, so they may worship Me in the desert.” Exodus 7:16 He is so faithful, and humble enough to have mercy despite where we’ve been.hy
I am st67o aware of the desert – everything is stripped away, or it seems that way. But in God, there are rivers of water in the desert – so much providence. If only we’ll go His way, and cry out to Him in faith.
https://thelisteningbook.org.uk/jamess-blog-the-desert-is-good/