Homeschooling, a higher calling

Have you ever heard these words: "I've been called to do ___________." ? I've heard that sentence from time to time. Often, I'd think to myself, I wonder what that is like. To really KNOW that what you are doing at this time in your life is God's calling. He drew you out of something you wanted to do for yourself and called you to do something for his glory. I've actually experienced callings of sorts in my short Christian life. My first calling was to salvation. A second calling in my life was for discipliship. I believe Jesus set up paths in my life for other callings he had planned for me. He called me to go on mission to Puerto Rico and had he not put in my path a desire to advance my wimpy Spanish speaking abilities, not so sure I wouldn've been able to communicate much on that trip *ahem* 12 years after college. He put me on a path of choosing education as my major in college when, in fact, 2 years into the program I had my doubts about teaching. He knew he would later call me to homeschool my own children. I must confess that homeschooling was so completely NOT on my radar. As a matter of fact, Kevin told me on numerous occasions, "You can just homeschool. You're a teacher for goodness sake!" And I'd reply, "I can teach 25 other people's kids but I DO NOT want to teach my own." That was the end of that topic. Here's the real excuse, I didn't want to loose my "me" time. I enjoyed the time with just one of the boys while the other was away at school. I liked being able to join "groups" of other moms with children the same age as mine and crazy I know, have adult conversation! So when the Lord started tapping at my heart's door about homeschooling, I completely put up a firewall. I actually made excuses and one of them was his blessing of another baby in our family! My first heart tapping came when a friend I hadn't seen in a long, long, long time said something about getting our kids together to play. And out of the blue (we Christians know there are no coincidences under Heaven) I blurt out, "Oh, I don't want to homeschool." Yes, she homeschooled but she hadn't even mentioned I should try it. Second tapping came when Jordan entered government school grade 1. I found 1001 things wrong with the situation. The teacher, the class size, the work load, the fact he was at the back of the classroom, the fact he was sitting beside a trouble maker, the fact he was falling behind in reading/language arts and I had to work like a dog to catch him up. Third tapping came when I asked my small group in Bible study to pray for "our situation with Jordan" and my friend said, "Have you thought about homeschooling?" Fourth tapping came when I started praying for direction and made this 'deal' with God (you like that don't you), "God, you know how I am and you know I don't want to give up Bible study. Right now, Jordan can't attend bible study because of childcare issues, if you open a door, I will bring him home." I call up a friend later (prayed on this for 6 months) and mention our schooling issues and she says, "You know CBS (the bible study group) is opening up classes for homeschoolers." Right then, I surrendered to his calling. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt this is my calling. In God's word, penned by Solomon, he says "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Prov. 22:6. God's teaching is more than just homeschool of course, he's referring to training in God's holy word and keeping his rules and walking down the paths of obedience. Didn't I want that for Jordan anyway, how would I have been able to do that when he was in someone else's care for the majority of the day? Not that I'm sure at least one of his teachers probably did care for his spiritual health, but she didn't care about it as much as I did, his own mother. I hear lots of moms say, I could never do that [homeschool]. I was like that too. I'm still like that when it comes to moms that homeschool 4 and 5 kids. However, surrendering and letting God work his power through me is better than me just doing it on my own. I know I'm not doing this for Jordan, God is. And since God called me to this, I know it won't fail because "all things work together for good, for them who love the Lord, and are called according to his purpose." (Rom. 8:28) It's definitely a higher calling.