A Prayer for Moms on the Cusp of a New Homeschool Year

September 5, 2023

by Missy Andrews

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (2 Cor. 4:6-7)

I’m thinking about you homeschool moms this week and remembering my own years in the trenches with my kiddos. So, I dug out some old journals from my 25 years of homeschooling to remember what filled my thoughts and heart in those Septembers past.

It’s funny how everything takes on a rosy glow in retrospect. I romanticize. I forget about the dirt and the muck. I remember closeness and contentment and the satisfaction of the work — the good in the tasks of raising and educating my kids. I forget the hardness, the uncertainty, the overwhelm, and the sin that kept me dependent upon God to accomplish my work. There was plenty of that — especially the sin part.

But I recall the good: boxes full of new books and shiny curriculum that gleamed like a promise of knowledge and goodness from our homeschool table. Charts and schedules that lent a degree of order and certainty to the amorphous and overwhelming task of educating my children. Meal plans to ensure that we didn’t go hungry as I worked long days with the kids. Housekeeping schedules and chore lists so that our stalls were clean enough. And a proliferation of laundry plans so the kids had something clean to put on their bodies before the school day began. (Oh, the laundry! It nearly ruined my life!) I recall read-aloud afternoons, phonics lessons, and quiet industrious mornings. I recall Bible classes with Adam at lunch and silly songs that helped the kids with memory work. I recall co-op classes, my house overflowing with kids and a tight circle of mothers around the coffee pot in my kitchen, problem-solving together.

I had forgotten, however, my impatience, my struggle to mind my mouth, to speak words of encouragement from a tender heart even as I dished out the necessary discipline. I had forgotten the very early mornings, getting a jump on the day while the kids still slept, struggling to sort through the trials of family life with the Lord before the school tasks began. I recall the failures to keep up with the schedule I had laid for myself – for the kids – and the fear and frustration that this job might just be bigger than I was. Those were real too. Really hard.

Here’s a snippet from one of my journal entries from Sept 3, 1999, on the cusp of beginning a year of homeschooling with what was at that time five children: a 9-month-old baby, a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, a four-year-old son, a five-year-old daughter, and a seven-year-old son:

“I just finished my ‘to-do’ list in prep for a good start tomorrow. So much to be done and so little time to accomplish it. Homeschool begins Tuesday, and so I’m scurrying to get prepared. In the meanwhile, it’s still canning season, and the house projects remain pressing. I often feel I have so many tasks to accomplish for the benefit of the children each day that I haven’t any time at all left for them… I am a wreck and a wretch. I see my shortcomings as a mother and wife and friend–as a person–so clearly. I fear. I fret. I fume. I forget. What do I do right?

Lord, minister to my family through my hands, I pray. May they know Your love and care expressed through me as wife and mother. Cover my shortfall and shine out of this jar of clay…Won’t You help me, Lord?”

I look back on that me of yesteryear, and I am filled with compassion. Of course I couldn’t do it all. Canning the week I began homeschooling? Are you serious? House projects while prepping to teach? Did I think I was Wonder Woman? I had such high expectations; I would never live up to them.

I wish I could have told myself to relax, that it wasn’t really all up to me to bring those kids into mature adulthood and faith — that I was not alone. This last I must have known because of that prayer. I looked up. I asked. I depended. So maybe it’s a good thing after all that I didn’t know then what I know now — that I walked by faith and not by sight. The immensity of the task and my smallness forced me to depend upon the source of all hope and strength, to know Him and to look to Him for my children’s future.

I can tell you that it all worked out. I can tell you that I homeschooled all six of my kids from K-12, that they all attended college, found good work, support themselves and their families, and that they, in the face of their own smallness and the immensity of their tasks, have learned to look to God for strength and hope. And I suspect that you will find, just as I did, in the very midst of your overwhelming work, maybe even because of your own overwhelming work, that you too are being drawn, forced to your knees, led to the River of Life that is Christ Jesus. You too are being compelled in this difficult and blessed work to ask – to cry out – to look up.

Today I pray my prayer of long ago for you, a petition from my past self for you present friends, working in the same field and laboring under its attendant difficulties.

“Lord, minister to these mothers, I pray, and minister to their children through their hands. May they experience the love and care You faithfully bestowed to that me of long ago, a needy wife and mother. Cover their common shortfalls and shine out of their jars of clay…Won’t You help them, Lord?”

I’m here to tell you, He will.

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:3-6)