Thursday, December 27, 2012

Homeschooling is a Calling

Well, I now have an official website at www.jalanafranklin.com! Actually, it's a work in progress, but if you go there you'll see a pic of me, and a link to this blog. That's a start, right? I've been mulling over my choices for the New Year, and I plan to blog at least once a week. I can't call it anything cutesie like Juesdays with Jalana. Just doesn't make the cut. I'll just post and see where it goes. Hopefully, we'll see a little bit of traffic, and I'll be able to post more often. At any rate, I wanted to post about homeschooling today. For some of you that homeschool, there are reasons, very good reasons, for teaching your kids at home. For me, it is a calling. I struggled with the idea for almost three years before I really took action and did something about it. I always wanted my mother to homeschool me, but she always said she couldn't. When I became a teacher, I thought that would be great to have kids and take them to school with me, and for a while, it was. But God began to speak to my heart, telling me that He wanted me to be at home with my children. Of course I ignored the suggestions for a while, telling God that He didn't know what He was talking about, you know, me homeschooling. I'd have to quit my great job that I loved, and go home to a bigger job with no pay, no insurance, and no retirement plan. Could I really sacrifice what I wanted for what God wanted? Evidently, not yet. I continued to give God all the reasons, or excuses why I couldn't do it, but still He nudged. I really thought that if I got my husband, Keith, "on my side," that God would be outnumbered, so I just talked to Keith one day, telling him about the nudges from God. Keith's reply? "So quit your job and homeschool. Just do it." Just like that. I lost my edge. I could hear God laughing at me, saying "I told you so." With Keith on God's side, I had to come up with other excuses. "What would we do for groceries? I mean, we have five kids. Food doesn't just "appear." What about clothes for 5 growing children? Insurance? I continued working, knowing that God wanted me at home. One day, I saw a book at Goodwill, and it jumped out at me. It was titled, "Women Leaving the Workplace," by Larry Burkett. Larry will never know how that book spoke to me because he died three years before I read it, but God spoke to me through that book. If you are reading this, and thinking of becoming a stay at home Mom, you need to find a copy of that book! Making a long story shorter, the end of the schoolyear was fast approaching, and I had a decision to make. I had shared my thoughts with only a handful of friends, but somehow, the principal at the school I taught at got wind of it. The day after the last day of school, he called, telling me that he'd heard I might not be coming back. He really needed to know in order to balance his teacher budget for the coming year. So..... I bit the bullet and told him I wasn't coming back! He told me that he hated to lose me, but I had to do what was best for me. I hung up asking God what we would be eating since I'd just kissed our grocery money goodbye. That call took place at 9:30 am. At 11:30am, the mail lady pulled into my driveway and began honking her horn for me to come out. I went to her vehicle, and she handed me a certified letter. I signed for it, thinking in my head that it was some bill I had forgotten to pay. My stomach was in knots as I turned the letter over, and the mail lady pulled away. The return address was from Keith's former employer from two years before. He'd been laid off. I called Keith at work, and he told me to open the letter. Lo and behold, he'd been called back to work, officially, two days before. The great thing is that the job came with full benefits, and the salary was twice what he'd been making. We would have grocery money after all..... The moral of this story is: When God tells you to do something, don't make excuses or question His decision. He knows what He has in store. He takes care of His children, and He has a plan. You just have to follow it and obey. It's that simple. And we still feel that if I hadn't "bit the bullet" that day, we never would have received that certified letter in the mail. I had to step out in faith, just as God had been nudging me to do all along........“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"

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