Dear Homeschooling Mom

If you're anything like me, you're on the lookout for perfect people. Well, in your head you know there has been no one perfect but Jesus to walk this earth, but your heart tells you that some people, particularly women, get awfully close. You read their books, or hear them speak, or observe them from afar at church.  And what you see doesn't look anything at all like what you live.

Look at her. She glows when her husband speaks. With her children she is patient and creative. She is fashionable and beautiful and never seems to have a hair out of place. God has given her purpose, He's even given her a platform to share her wisdom, and she is serving Him with joy.

Then you look at yourself. You see the ring around the toilet. You remember wanting to ring your kid's neck this morning. Your head rings with more doubt and insecurities than you think you can bear. As you think of her, your head bows lower.

I don't know about you, but it's dangerous for me to read too many books or blogs because what begins as an attempt to collect ideas can end up throwing me into a pit of condemnation. Because I can't see the full picture of these women's lives, I assume they are doing everything (or nearly everything) right.  Me?  Not even close.

You've probably already figured it out, but Mrs. Perfect is not writing the posts on this site.  I have convictions and ideas to share--as do you--because God has been a faithful teacher.  He has generously given me gifts for the good of His people--as He has you. These convictions, ideas, and gifts are what ooze through each post. But if they show anything about me, it's only one-dimensional. They don't announce the other dimensions that are just as true--like that I'm hesitant to cook for people outside my family and that sometimes my kids are hesitant to eat what I cook, that I can't think fast, that I am ignorant about many things.

I still wrestle with insecurities. I hear the critic squawking in my head, telling me I can't. I write a post, only to wonder if I'm telling readers what they already know. I mean, if I know it, everyone else does, too, right? I grapple with the irony that I am a writing teacher who isn't much of a writer.

If this site encourages you to truly enjoy learning with your kids, I will be most happy. If, as more women stumble onto the posts here, a conversation develops and we can learn together as peers, I will be ecstatic. Never do I want you to leave this site feeling discouraged or condemned.

Our strengths and weaknesses are different, but we all have something in common: we need God to lead us to tomorrow and beyond, for without Him we can do nothing.

May God bless you as you follow Him.

Sherri

From Mary DeMuth on Inferiority:

A blog is not a proper medium
For a heart splayed here
But I feel it still
This insidious beast
Strangling my voice
Stammering my speech
Holstering what little reserve left
And carelessly shooting my will to the stars

***

I see others superior
And me beneath them
So very very far below
A submarine me looks up
Through warbled waters
At their staid massiveness
Their casual assurance
Their wit and intelligence

You stoop, dear Lord, to earth
Not once
But twice
Once to fit my shoes to your sacred feet
Twice to lift me from the dust
And set my feet on a rock
The kind of rock making
Us all the same

So when I cower beneath
Another’s magnificence
I’m forgetting the stoop,
The shoes,
The lifting,
The rock my toes wiggle upon
And I’m forgetting all You’ve done
To set me free
From my own insecurity
And the tyranny of others’ betterness.

Forgive me.
Yes, forgive me.