I distinctly remember the day. It is forever etched in my memory, and marked with a signpost indicating it to be a pivotal, moment in my history.
I sat, holding a baby boy who was just days old. I was 2 months off my 22nd birthday, I had just finished 3 years at University qualifying as a primary school teacher, and I was newly married. I looked down at this beautiful child and was all of a sudden overwhelmed with responsibility.
I looked at his huge brown eyes and long dark lashes and wondered how I, could possibly be trusted to raise a child, a child who I had fought to keep, a child who I had been told may be born deformed, a child who I did battle for in the night spiritually as I dreamt demons where cutting him from my womb.
I sat and asked God, about what he could have possibly been thinking when He allowed this gorgeous baby to be born to me.
I had no idea how we were going to do it. How do you raise a child of destiny, a child of Papa's?
As I sat there with tears running down my cheeks, all of a sudden I saw the picture of a boy-man in my mind. I looked again, and figured he was about 18. I hadn't met him, but he was very familiar, I knew that I knew him.
He was confident and assured of who he was. He had a tool kit of experiences that had made him who he was. I sensed that he was different to 'the mainstream' yet secure in who he was. Not afraid to stand firm, or swim against the tide. He knew what his gifts and talents where. He stood on an unconventional path.
I looked again, and I saw the same figure, this time a few years younger. And then again, younger still. It kept happening until I saw the face of the babe in arms.
I realized I had seen my son as a young man. As this knowledge registered I heard within me the words home school.
From that moment on, holding a son who was days old, I made the decision to home school him, and would until I heard again about the next phase of his education.
And so here we are... almost 18 years on, another 4 children added to our family, and we are still educating our children at home.
Not because we wanted to shelter them away, not because we had any hatred of institutions, not because we had read or understood anything about the home education movement. But because we were given a vision, and without vision, the people perish.
I wrote this poem, shortly after this experience.
A MOTHER'S FEARS
Today I took my little boy and held him in my arms,
I looked in to those big brown eyes and was captured by their charm.
Then all at once it hit me that one day he'd be a man,
It was with this amazing thought that all my fears began.
Would I teach him properly the way to love a wife,
The way to raise their children, and live a godly life?
How to listen to the voice of the Father up above,
And how to introduce to friends the wonders of His love?
Would he earn an honest quid, and put food upon the table,
And serve the Lord and others, the best that he was able?
Would he make a godly mark on the world in which he dwelt?
As I thought about these things, my fears began to melt.
God has given ME this child, because no other could,
Mold his heart and character, and teach him to be good.
Or show him how to read and write or how to play with others.
God had choosen ME to be his only mother.
So now I hold my child close and think of how I can,
Teach my tiny son, how to be a godly man.
My fears are healed by the knowledge that somewhere up above,
God had given ME the job of this little child to love.
© Maria Dowse.
