For Worthy Friends

"A friend is someone who knows the song of my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails."

This is just a blog post to sing the praises of great friends. They make the homeschooling journey more interesting, fun, and EFFECTIVE! I can't imagine taking on homeschooling without the dear friends I have made along the way.

In fact, a good friend who decided a few years back to homeschool asked me when she was still in "consideration phase" if my choice to homeschool ever caused me to feel lonely. Having never sent my kids to school, I can't compare my social experience in both circumstances, but my honest answer was that I rarely felt lonely, and had the best friends I could imagine BECAUSE I homeschool.

Some friends have become so close. We have met at park days, or because someone organized something and everyone who liked that same "fun" showed up. Sometimes our kids ages and phases have matched and we have compared notes. I have learned from these mothers patience and confidence. I would not and could not love homeschooling as much as I do without them.

Other friends I know from the distance of crossing busy paths. But still I can find so much that is admirable and inspiring from the things they share. I love hearing their stories as we project together, or watch the kids take in some new experience or adventure. I am strengthened by constantly witnessing the great love these mothers have for their children.

Sweetest, perhaps, are the friends who have been friends from before we had children, who followed their own path to homeschooling, and now homeschooling is yet another experience we can share and hold dear. I love discovering some of the people I admire most have also decided to homeschool. I feel like I am rubbing shoulders with greatness.

I love finding mothers with whom to share the special joys of homeschooling. Joys like noting that my two year old thinks of himself as the best friend and companion of my 10 year old. Or like seeing the kids' odd expressions as we learn some mind-blowing fact together.

With my friends, I can brainstorm fast, healthy lunches, engaging ways to teach grammar, or what to do when your kids insist on doing nothing. We have strengthened each other when doubt threatened our cause. There is ALWAYS a lot of laughing together. And we have shed tears together too.

If you are finding this blog, but have not yet found such friends, I hope the blog can fill in the gap for now. Homeschooling can be intimidating. It can feel like walking out of the circle of light of all that we know. I hope in your homeschooling journey you find that just outside your circle is a bright world full of loving and inspiring friends, ready to show the way and discover it with you.

Our beloved Culture Club friends, all of whom make the homeschool journey sweeter!