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Hello Reader,

Somewhere along the way in our homeschooling journey, we all seem to start believing that if we use the right curriculum and teach it in the right way, if we listen to the right experts and stick with the right amount of consistency, then we’ll finally get a handle on homeschooling.

We’ll finally feel satisfied with the job we’re doing.

We'll finally be enough.

We get to checking boxes and making sure there are no major gaps in our children’s education.

We start looking at homeschooling methods and curriculum plans more than we look at our actual kids.

We forget we’re teaching children, not books.

We’re teaching humans, not lesson plans.

We let false expectations crowd in and take over . . . expectations to do more and be more.

We struggle to live up to expectations we were never meant to take on.

And then when we make changes to those plans, when it's February 29 and we aren't as far along in our homeschool as we'd hoped, we lower our expectations and then promptly feel disappointed in ourselves.

But what if we're not lowering expectations?

Whose expectations are we trying to live up to, anyway?

I'm pretty darn sure that the Holy Spirit isn't the one telling us, "if we only just _____," we'd finally be enough.

He hasn't us to make sure our kids memorize their times tables by a certain age.

Or make sure they've read a particular list of books before they graduate, get a certain score on the SAT, or perform any other such feat in order to prove that they're learning at an expected pace.

No.

This is what He asks of us: to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

And to love your neighbor as yourself.

Education, then, is for love.

Somehow, I don’t think God is impressed when our kids outperform their peers.

I’m not sure He’s concerned with whether our kids can translate Latin to English or read the fattest books with the greatest ease.

I’m pretty sure He doesn't want math curriculum to keep me up at night, as I toss and turn and worry about whether my child is doing enough, becoming enough, excelling enough.

But He is pleased beyond measure when my child loves and is loved.

That’s what He asked me to do, after all. It's what He's asking from you, too.

So I invite you, on this final day of February, to rest in the knowledge that you are exactly the right person to homeschool these kids, in this world, at this time in history.

You love your kids more than any other human walking the face of the earth loves them. I'm 100% sure of that.

So all that other stuff? It comes along for the ride. The memory work, read-alouds, math drills, paragraph edits, history timelines, science experiments, spelling words: it's all good, but it isn’t nearly as important as we usually think.

But YOU? You are.

And He's got you today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your days.

So of course you aren't enough. You won't be, no matter whether you use the right curriculum in the right way, whether you're oh-so-consistent, or anything else.

The good news is, He wasn't asking you to be in the first place.

Sending you a giant midwinter hug.

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