A common cry from Christian home educators up and down the country is that they are do not know any other like-minded families in their geographical area. I can identify with this heartfelt cry to some extent. We moved to a new city several months after the birth of our fifth child due to my husband’s work. We knew nobody. I was extremely low for a long period of time due to external situations beyond our control. At our previous home and church, we had good friendships and although we may have been alone in our choice to home educate, I feel sure that some of those relationships would have continued as our children grew.
Now we were beginning again. My oldest son was five and without the government school system we lacked the “normal” means of making friends. With five small children I did not feel confident enough or mobile enough to visit any local groups where we may have been able to build relationships. We had our hearts set on Christian classical education without the living breathing models in front of us to emulate and I was holding onto God for dear life as I battled discouragements on several fronts.
Fast forward seven years later and we are part of a thriving home educating community at our local church. We have been richly blessed by friendships on our street and the children enjoy swimming or football as well as meet-ups with friends in other parts of the country. God has been good to us. I still remember those painful years and while I wish I could guarantee that all home educating families could find a community like mine, I acknowledge God’s sovereignty in the matter and can share some of the principals I learned along the way.
1. Standing Firm
God convicted us of the importance of Christian education by the time our first child was a few months old. We prayed about it, read about it and listened to sermons on the issue. I recognise now that holding onto God’s word helped us stay the course. Giving up was never an option. While there were some days when I questioned whether or not we should be home educating, I could never even entertain the idea of putting my children in a government school. Since home education was the only option available for us, I would mentally travel in a full circle back to what we were already doing.
To have left the back door open to the option of government education would have been self-defeating. I would have tracked the National Curriculum rather than know the joys of classical education; I would have counted every difficult day as a reason to give up rather than learning from my mistakes and I would have spent too much time worrying about what other people thought. The Lord helped me to fix my eyes on him and encouraged me through the writings of his faithful servants across history.
2. Noting the Providence of God
I stopped looking for families who were the exact same demographic as us and instead watched to see who God put into our lives. I praise God that he knows better than I and one by one, little by little, God brought people and families into our lives who showed faithful friendship to us. We prayed for our unknown neighbours from when we moved into our home and I wonder whether God honoured that prayer by giving us relationships that we highly value on our very doorstep. We valued every individual who the Lord brought into our home, whether or not they had children, whether or not they had children the same ages as ours (after all, it takes a special kind of person who wants to spend time in a house full to the brim of little ones!) and slowly God built up our network of friends and relationships.
3. Learning the Lessons of the Valley
One of the greatest trials for the home educating parent is the fear that our own child is lonely. We don’t like to think that our educational choice might be causing suffering for our child. First of all, we need to acknowledge that attending school is not necessarily a cure for loneliness. Many children (although not all) are miserable, lonely and bullied at school. We do not need to second guess ourselves.
If our child is lonely, we pray and use the normal means to meet others. First and foremost, we make sure we are attending a local church and looking for relationships within that community. We look to see whether there are any local groups or activities the children can take part in. If we have tried these paths and found them wanting, we need to rest on the (albeit painful) knowledge that at this particular point in our child’s life, God has allowed for some loneliness. This does not mean home education is a disaster. Instead, it may well be one of the life lessons that God is using to draw our child to himself and to sanctify our child. We continue to pray for friends, but above all we pray that God will reveal himself as the only perfect friend, Saviour and Father.
Conclusion
I am certain that God is convicting parents across the UK to give their children a Christian education. My husband visits churches across Britain as part of his ministry and more often than not meets a single home educating family walking in faithfulness to their heavenly father in their educational decisions. My point is that while on a local scale many families feel alone, on a national scale they are not. We do not know what God is doing in the hearts of families around us. Who knows but God may be using your family to convict other families in your community. Staying the course may just mean that you are joined by families who see and appreciate your example. God does not owe us a happy ending, but he always looks after his children. If our heart has been convicted to home educate then we can rest in the certain knowledge that he has the means to sustain us, even when the walk is lonely.
