Am I Doing Enough? (Part 1)

A Summer Re-run (originally posted 7/22/07)


This question has been resounding in my spirit for a few weeks now. In separate conversations with home educating moms, this question was a heart-cry of three different people.

“Every night when I lay down to sleep, I just worry."
‘Today, have I done everything I could to direct and teach my children?’”
“How do I know I’ve covered everything that needs to be covered?”
“Am I doing enough or requiring too much?”

These are legitimate questions, but also ones that can bind us up in frustration and insecurities that will only pull us and our children down. Most of us are concerned that we’ll forget to teach some subject or an area that will end up being a hindrance to our children’s future. We feel that deep responsibility to make sure we’re “covering it all”.

Guess what? We won’t cover it all. We’ll leave gaps. There will be things we forget, don’t know to teach, or don’t do a very good job teaching. And if we’re fearful and concerned at night or at the end of a school year that we somehow failed, maybe our focus is on the wrong thing.

Is our real goal as home educating moms to raise superior academics; straight A students; cum Laude college grads?

Or has God called us to raise children whose hearts are completely turned toward Him? To guide them into a heritage of love and godliness that will continue long after we’re gone?

At the end of the day, or the end of 12th grade, my goal is to have poured my love into my children’s hearts. To have shown them the importance of choosing for themselves a life dedicated to a relationship with Jesus. To make opportunities for their character to be challenged to become the men and women that God has called them to be.

I’ve seen the fruit of that goal lived out in the lives of my five oldest children. What a blessing!

Did we leave gaps in teaching our children? Of course. Plenty. But God is faithful to teach them everything we didn't or couldn't. After all, He loves them even more than we do!

EVERYTHING that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. 2 Peter 1:3 NLT

But he said to me, "My grace is all you need. My power is strongest when you are weak."
2 Cor. 12:9 NIRV