How well do we love other home-educating mothers? We are on the same team after all. The more families who give their children a true Christian education in the home, the greater the benefit to the children, the church and the nation.
As I watch my five girls grow up together, I often reflect on the fact that relationships between women hold an incredible amount of power. Women tend to communicate with one another more than men do and good relationships may bring forth much fruit whereas petty jealousy and squabbling draw lines where they most likely do not need to exist. Women who love one another, are devoted to one another, who work together and who pray unceasingly for one another could, quite literally, change their little bit of the world. Women who backbite, squabble and compete not only tear one another apart but drag their own families into the mess.
I would say that home-educating mothers tend to be by nature fairly strong women. We have firm convictions that we are prepared to act upon and relatively thick skin as to the opinions of others. It is easy for strength to lack love. It is easy for strength to become self-serving and it is easy for strength to be used against one another rather than to build one another up. But the truth is that anybody can be a faithful friend.
Little Victories
Think about David and Jonathan. David was brought to Jonathan’s attention during Saul’s interview with David after he had killed Goliath. Something in this conversation must have drawn these men to one another and the Bible says Jonathan “loved him as his own soul”. This faithful friendship made the path easier to David’s eventual kingship. Had Jonathan, as the rightful heir to the throne, shown bitterness and jealousy towards David he would have hindered David’s rise to rule the kingdom as God’s anointed one. As a faithful friend he recognised God’s plan unfolding and never once did or said anything to make David’s path more difficult.
As the Lord draws our fellow home-educating mothers into their own respective paths, do we naturally cheer them along the way on or do we allow envy to rise up? How quick are we to rejoice over one another’s little victories? We can make their paths easier by allowing encouragement to flow from our lips or we can stew in envy when they rejoice over little successes.
It is so easy to rejoice with others when they have success in an area that we know nothing about, and a little harder when there is success that might look like the success we would want for ourselves. Faithful friendship delights in another’s progress as though it were our own.
Common Ground
David and Jonathan shared common ground which no doubt helped to draw them towards one another. David famously slew Goliath but Jonathan had already encountered the Philistines in 1 Samuel 14. I wonder how often their conversations must have touched upon their respective stands against a common enemy.
Think how much common ground we share with fellow home-educating mothers. We all have children for a start! Most likely we have been convicted by the importance of the family in education. We have taken big and bold moves, researched curricula, fretted over details, cried at the end of bad days and rejoiced over little triumphs.
Are we not then perhaps best placed to cheer along another struggling mum? We understand the conviction she has to walk a path that marks her out as different in her family, church and neighbourhood and perhaps something of the besetting loneliness and the discouragement she may face. We know the struggle when a squabble between children breaks out in a moment when we are feeling vulnerable anyway. We also know that home education brings forth an abundance of low-hanging fruit. When another mother is blind to the blessings for a time then we are best-placed to minister encouragement and lift her eyes out of the valley.
God-ordained Differences
God chose one path for David and another for Jonathan. David went down in the history books as a king of Israel who was a man after God’s own heart. Jonathan is remembered as a faithful friend. In the same way we need to remember that God has made no two mothers the same. We have varying strengths, weaknesses, circumstances and responsibilities. This is a reason to rejoice rather than a reason to divide.
I wonder whether we may sometimes be tempted to draw lines against other home-educating mothers where it is not really necessary. We are, of course, inherently self-centred at core. We can put a tremendous amount of worth on our smaller decisions and then take it personally when another chooses a different way. It is difficult to pray for another mother to thrive when we our own self-worth is bound up in our decision to start work at a particular time while she makes an entirely different choice.
God’s truth is unchanging but it takes wisdom to apply it different scenarios. Can we believe that what looks like wisdom in one family might not be wisdom in another? Can we defend our friend’s choice to follow a different Maths curriculum to us or are we slighted that our excellent choice has not been recognised? Can we explain our decisions on perhaps diet, screen time or dress whilst acknowledging that another mother we love has chosen a different course? Isn’t it better to honour one another’s choices as wisely taken before the Lord rather than allowing them to divide us?
Honour Where Honour is Due
There is so much to love about another mum who has chosen to teach her children at home. She has defied the culture and the expectations of those around her. She has most likely suffered put-downs for her conviction about Christian education. She has perhaps become a master of various areas of knowledge whether that be her own household, a particular academic subject or a skill. She makes selfless decisions as a matter of course.
The question is whether this mum is enriched by our friendship? Do we encourage her, cheer her onwards, refuse to backbite or take her down? Do we enter into her struggles and petition the King for her prodigals? After all, we have one supreme example of a friend who never leaves us or forsakes: very God, begotten not created, who stepped down into time and lay down his own life for his friends (John 15:13)
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17)
