For When You Feel Like a Homeschool Failure - Intentional By Grace

For When You Feel Like a Homeschool Failure

ByLeigh Ann Dutton

For When You Feel Like a Homeschool Failure - Intentional By Grace
The day breaks, the sun streams through the windows still bare of curtains or blinds, and you roll over to see your toddler staring back at you. Over his bubbly, smiling face, you hear your husband snoring and you think, “I wish kids came with a snooze button.”

Alas, they don’t, and you do have to get up and change the diaper, make breakfast, and if you’re like most moms in the first trimester, throw up a time or two. I am not that mom, but I am the mom with overwhelming exhaustion and extreme hunger that cannot be abated by any amount of food. Nevertheless, the day moves on whether you want it to or not.

After breakfast, you cry as your husband leaves you with the kids for the day, and then bemoan the need to walk the dog because your neighbor threatened to call dog control if you let him out without a leash again. And then there’s laundry from last week…and the week before. Then there’s that doctor’s appointment and overdue library books.

All the while your stuffing your face with buffalo sauce and a side of chicken and feeding Cheerios (genetically modified and all) to your toddler while he watches the 100th episode of Blue’s Clues for the second time today (do they have 100 episodes of Blue’s Clues?).

This is my life and in my head I’m a failure of a mom – a homeschool drop out. Where did the toddler trays and the learning toys go? When did the iPad become as regular of an occurrence as hot sauce, and when will we ever start learning our ABC’s?

So if you’re with me on this, may I encourage you?

You are not a homeschool failure.

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. ~Isaiah 40:29-31

God is committed to you. He is pleased with you as His daughter. Your efforts and even perceived failures do not change His everlasting love for you. As your circumstances consume more and more of you, it is tempting to revert to self-sufficiency and works-based righteousness. Yet, God calls us to lay it at the foot of the Cross. To allow Him to walk with us, carrying us where He must, and trust in Him – lean fully into His loving embrace.

Your current circumstances are not lost on Him. He ordained this season right down to the number of hairs on your head (or rather how many you’re losing), and He will be with you, quickening your Spirit when needed, and teaching you that He requires nothing from you. He simply wants you to learn to trust Him in all things.

So be encouraged fellow homeschool mom. You are not a homeschool failure. This is just a season, and this too shall pass. Choose grace.

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8 Comments

  1. Thank you. I am not pregnant – but some days I feel overwhelmed, a failure, selfish, and I flirt with the idea of putting them back in school…. until something amazing happens in our home – and I am again reminded of the many reasons why we chose this lifestyle.

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  2. Thank you so much for this post. I’m a mom of three with one on the way and am thinking about starting homeshooling with my oldest but feel so overwhelmed with just being a parent already that it feels impossible. This encourages me to think that if I seek to do what is best for my kids, leaning on God’s strength rather than my own will enable me to do it!

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  4. Wow! i really needed to hear this today. School has started for most kids, and we not quite ready yet 🙁 I feel like a failure! I feel that everything should be ready and set to start a new year! But we are not ready! I really liked the way Brooke said it in a earlier post ” that if I seek to do what is best for my kids, leaning on God’s strength rather than my own will enable me to do it!” I really need to lean on God and trust that even though i may not be quite ready, i know that He is in control, and will help me this school year.!!!

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