By Mrs. D

I am writing this post because of a personal conviction in my own heart. The Lord has pressed upon my heart to share some things His good grace has revealed to me, and my prayer is for all of us to consider these things. I confess that I can have a prideful attitude and it can show up in so many ugly ways. Does God care about the sin of pride in our hearts and desire a humble spirit within us? Absolutely! I recently did a search on the word pride in the Bible and 63 verses popped up. Here are just a few I found:

Proverbs 11:2: When pride comes, then comes dishonor, but with the humble is wisdom.
Proverbs 29:23: A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor.
James 4:6: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Now for those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sin there is no condemnation, praise the Lord! Still though, God desires to continue to cleanse His church and sanctify her. So for that reason I am writing this post, and I especially need to hear this message. I will start by just sharing a little background of my homeschool journey.

When my older two children were at the ages of three and one my husband asked me to consider praying about homeschooling. Oh boy, I thought he was crazy! I just had two more years at home with my son and he would be off to school. Homeschooling was not even on my radar. But I heeded my husband’s desire for me to pray about it and in time my heart was softened to the idea of homeschooling. I was blessed to have many women in my life that I could talk to and glean from who did homeschool and actually enjoyed it! When my son turned four I purchased some pre-school workbooks from Target and began to have him work on those. He took to them just fine and I thought, “Hey, this isn’t too bad!” It was actually kind of fun to bond with my son in this way. Well that was the start of my homeschool journey. Now my oldest son, Micah, is about to turn 11, my daughter, Abby, is 8 and my youngest son, Caleb, is 5. I am thankful that I am able to educate my children at home and for our family it has been a good choice for us.

I need to be careful though. I need to be watchful that my heart does not become proud. I need to not consider our family or my kids better off than other families who do not homeschool. I have friends that have chosen to either have their children in public or private school education and for them that may be what is best for their family. There are an overwhelming amount of opinions on how we should be educating our children. Personally, I agree strongly with some and I disagree strongly with some. What matters most though, is what God thinks. His word is clear that He opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. My prayer is for my heart to be humble before the Lord in every area of my life. I have to confess that I have seen the ugly head of pride pop up in my own life and others when it comes to the area of how we should educate our kids. May we be watchful and careful of our thoughts and attitude towards those who choose to do things differently.

How beautiful it would be to our Lord if we stopped the comparing and just encouraged and built up one another wherever we are at in this season of raising our children in the home. May we all consider God’s word in Philippians 2:1-5:

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.

I hope this message will be a blessing to you as it has me. Thank you for taking the time to read!

In this journey with you,
Katie D