A Tough School Decision During Our Son’s 3rd-Grade Year

Honoring my husband’s leadership means I trust the Lord to lead me through my husband even when I don’t agree with his decision at the time.

Would I trust my husband’s leadership or would I try to control things and force my way?

When our son was in 3rd grade, I talked with Greg about wanting to homeschool him or put him in a private Christian school. My motives were primarily fear for my son’s safety because of school shootings and concern for him being exposed to unbiblical teaching.

Greg listened very carefully to all of my concerns. Then he considered the issue privately for weeks.

He brought up the advantages and disadvantages he saw for each possible option. He thought of a lot of important things I had never considered. What he shared made a lot of sense, and he helped me see that making a decision solely out of fear wasn’t wise.

In the end, after much prayer and discussion, he believed it would be best for our children to be in public school at that time.

I decided to trust God to lead our children through my husband’s leadership. And the Lord has been faithful!

Our son just graduated from high school last week!

Our son as a toddler

And as I look back, I see God’s hand leading the whole way. We had some issues, at times, but God worked through it all to help strengthen our son’s faith and our faith in Him.

He faced issues like…

An atheist teacher

In 9th grade, our son had an atheist biology teacher who enjoyed insulting Christian students. On the first day of school, when she announced, “We all know that evolution is 99.9% proven fact scientifically,” our son respectfully countered her statement with data about maternal mitochondrial DNA that shows there was a biological mother, (Eve), for all humankind about 6500 years ago (www.answersingenesis.org).

He respectfully stood for his faith in Jesus and in the Bible in the face of someone in a position of authority. She backed down and treated him with respect for the rest of the year.

I can’t begin to describe how pivotal that moment was in his spiritual journey.

A gun on his campus

When our son was in 11th grade, my friend and I met to pray for our children’s safety, for salvation for their classmates, and for their schools. At that very moment, a resource officer found a gun in a student’s backpack and was able to confiscate it. No one was injured. I still praise God for that!

I realized that I couldn’t possibly protect him from all danger and I would have to trust God. There is danger at stores, in movie theaters, during storms, from disease, at home, on airplanes, in cars, and everywhere. God was with him that day. God will be with him wherever he goes. God alone knows how long my son’s life will be and how it will end. I trust God to do what will bring Him the most glory in our son’s life. And I know God will accomplish His good purposes.

My faith was dramatically stretched and strengthened through the experience of learning to trust God to be with our children at school.

So when our son had the opportunity to go to Europe last summer with a Christian leadership group, I wasn’t worried or anxious at all. I had learned to trust God with whatever may happen. Not that we do foolish things or take crazy risks. But I can entrust my children to the Lord’s care.

Major mistakes by the administration

God also gave our son many opportunities at this school that he would not have had anywhere else that have prepared him for the major he wants to pursue.

Three times, God used serious scheduling errors and blunders by the school to end up leading our son in the best way.

If it had been up to me, I would have pulled our son out of that high school and sent him to a charter school in our district. But Greg and our son believed he should stay where he was. So I cooperated with Greg’s leadership again.

I prayed and trusted God to bring good from the situation.

Things turned out so much better than we could have imagined.

God opened up unique opportunities for our son that weren’t even in the realm of possibility ahead of time that no other student got to experience because of the mistakes the administrators made. God is SO good!

He can lead us even through imperfect authorities like school administrators, bosses, government leaders, etc…

Wow!

I am beyond thankful for Greg’s leadership—and God’s—on this and so many other issues. It’s amazing to get to see God working and leading us through my husband as I trust God and trust Greg.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

Prov. 3:5-6

Related

How God Led Me Through Greg – to do ministry and write my first book

Biblical Submission and the Minivan Battery Incident

What Biblical Submission/Headship Look Like at Our House

A Wife’s Great Faith and an Old Truck

The Violin

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Note- This issue is a very personal decision that each couple must make for each child. There is not a blanket one-size-fits-all answer. And the answer may be different for different children in the same family or for the same child at different stages. It is a matter of prayer and personal conviction. So I am not endorsing one type of schooling over the other.

Our school district is in an area where there are still quite a few Christian teachers. Almost all of our kids’ teachers in elementary school were believers. And many of them are in middle school and high school, as well. Things here are very different than in some areas of the country and the world. No one has pushed a sexually immoral agenda on them. No one has abused them. No one has pressured them into godless ideologies.

Our children have remained very strong in their faith and haven’t been swayed by unbelieving friends. If they had been, we may have had to make other decisions.