Homeschool Prayer Challenge Week 2: Handling Trials in Homeschooling
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The following is the second post of my 52 week series of prayer for our homeschools. You can learn more about the series (and sign up!) here. This week’s prayer focus is on our response to our weaknesses and trying situations we face in our homeschools.
What are some of the difficulties you struggle with as a homeschool mom?
Maybe it’s continual doubt that you are doing enough for your kids. Or trying to balance working from home and homeschooling, plus keeping up with normal household duties. You feel overwhelmed constantly.
Perhaps you fall into the trap of comparison, and it has a hold on you. Or friends and relatives that don’t understand your decisions to educate your kids at home.
Maybe no curriculum feels like it’s working right now and some days you consider throwing in the towel and sending the kids to public school. Teaching to your kids different learning styles can just be so hard, especially when you are trying to entertain a toddler at the same time.
Whatever your pain-points are, you are not alone! So many of these things I struggle with too, daily. Along with my attitude about them.
But friends, I have good news for you. Wherever you are experiencing weakness or hardship in your homeschool right now, you are in the exact right place for the display of God’s power in your life.
What a transformative truth!
The Resting Place for God’s Power
In 2 Corinthians 12:7, Paul shares that he was given a thorn in his flesh. This weakness was something that Paul prayed three times for the Lord to remove, to no avail. He explains that the thorn was given to keep him from becoming conceited, and as the truth of how God works is revealed to him, we watch Paul change from distressed to blessed. To delighting in what formerly pained him.
The change in Paul’s attitude came in verse 9, after he prayed. “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
My power is made perfect in weakness. You see, God doesn’t use our strengths to showcase His power. In fact, it’s typically in my strongest moments – when everything is going right – that I forget just how much I even need His presence in our homeschool.
No, it’s our weak moments that God chooses to use as a vessel for His perfect power.
God is At Work in Our Homeschools
We have a very real enemy who wants nothing more than to destroy our efforts in homeschooling and raising our children to know and love their wonderful Creator.
But the truth is that Satan is not the only one at work – God is in ultimate control, and has purposes for those struggles of ours that Satan intends for harm.
We don’t always understand our struggles or our circumstances, or see how they can be good. Why is it so hard for my kid to learn how to read – what am I doing wrong? Why is doing schoolwork a constant battle? Why can’t I find a math curriculum that won’t end the day in tears? Maybe this is just too hard.
But (as my bible study teaching leader says as a constant reminder), God is good, and can be trusted. We have seen time and time again in scripture where God does sanctifying work through trials of His people. And in Isaiah 55:8 we are reminded that God’s ways are not like our ways. He is sovereign over all things, and He is always at work in ways that our finite minds can not understand.
The important thing to remember, fellow homeschool moms, is that any trials and hardships we experience as we homeschool our kids – and really, life in general – God can use to display His power.
The enemy wants us to feel defeated, but in our weaknesses we have an opportunity to experience the same power Jesus faced in His seemingly weakest moment – on the cross.
What a privilege.
Our Response to Weakness
I want to see God move in my homeschool, but to rejoice in hardships and weakness? I can’t say that is often the focus of my prayers. Now I’m not saying that I don’t think we shouldn’t pray for relief from our circumstances (Paul certainly did, as did Jesus for that matter), but we need to be mindful of the answer to our prayers and our attitude towards our situations.
If God has chosen to use my weaknesses to display the power of Christ for His glory, how can I argue with that?
This requires diligence in prayer, and daily intentional bible study (like you are doing with me in this series!) so we have a different response when we are feeling afflicted. We can trust God more that He will help us live by His perfect power.
Whatever hardships you may face this week, remember that you are seen and loved by God. Go to Him in prayer for strength; He promises that His grace is sufficient for you.
Sovereign Lord, I am so thankful that you are in control, and that no weakness will touch me that you have not ordained for my good. You alone are good and trustworthy, and it gives me comfort to know you know what is best for me.
Thank you for the weaknesses in my homeschool that keep me dependent on you. I pray that you will go before me in my weaknesses and be glorified through them. I’m sorry for sometimes feeling discouraged in tough times. Your grace is sufficient for me; help me to have a content heart for the sake of Christ with whatever you allow me to face.
I don’t want to rely on my own strength. Help me to surrender my will and experience your perfect power in trials. You alone are what I need!
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
This week, I’ve created this beautiful wallpaper for your phone, to help you keep this week’s scripture verse at your fingertips. Click here to grab it!
Join the Challenge
Finally, if you want to join in on the challenge from the very beginning, make sure to sign up below, and you’ll receive a printable prayer and journal pages each week, right to your inbox. Join in any time, and you’ll start the following Monday with Week #1!
Simply click below, follow the instructions, and you’re in.
You’ll also be signed up for the Blessed Homeschool Newsletter and receive my FREE Scripture Memory Cards (designed to complement the prayer challenge) as a bonus.
I would love to hear in the comments below: how have you seen God work through weaknesses in your homeschool?
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God has been so very good to my family and our homeschool! He points me to the curriculum that is a good fit for us. He helps me to find wonderful resources that I would have never found on my own. He has lead us to Christian art classes, and he has put Christian homeschooling moms in my path as a support. I am leaning on Him so much because I have a daughter with Aspergers who will be graduating this June, and she is going to commute to a university near our home. She would not have gotten into the university if the SAT/ACT test scores were required, however, the university isn’t taking these test scores into consideration. My daughter is not a test taker. God provided a way for her to be accepted into college!!! God makes a way when there seems to be no way!!! God is so good, and I love Him so much!!!