Do you have a vision (mission statement, purpose) for your family?  (educationally and/or spiritually)? And is it important that you do? How do you fit your personal vision in with your & family vision? Are they the same? Do you have a one-size-fits-all vision for your children? Or do you have individual, tailored visions for each? What do you need to know in order to create this vision? Where and how do you begin?

Let me share some quotes from homeschool authors Marilyn Howshall (Wisdom's Way of Learning) and Barbara Shelton (Senior High: A Home Designed Form+U+La).

The details of our daily lives are made up of seeds that we are sowing.  Every decision, standard, value, method, spirit, or attitude is sowing a seed. What will it reap? It is important to begin asking this question of all we do until we acquire understanding. Our seed sowing must come under the Holy Spirit's search light. Then we will honestly be able to determine our purpose and to set goals and write them down. Once our long term purpose and goals are set in place, we will be able to determine our academic approach, child training methods, and even our lifestyle values - an area probably in need of attention, as well. Those things we choose to do on a day-to-day basis will become a natural outgrowth of the vision we hold in our hearts and continue to set firmly in our minds. (from the January 1997 newsletter and from the book _Develop Vision For Your Family_both by Marilyn Howshall)

Barbara says in Senior High: A Home-Designed Form+U+la (page I-21) The choices we make regarding homeschooling, whether at the beginning or throughout it as well, are going to be based completely upon our view of education. . . So it is vital that our view be correct, or we will waste a lot of time, money, and effort, not to mention create problems that will take a lot of God's redeeming power to correct.

In preparing our children for their futures, what is more important - head knowledge or their hearts? Consider Barb's "Wisdom's 7 Pillars of True Education for a moment. (pg I-21and 22 in the new 1999 edition of Form+U+La)

1) Revelation of the Knowledge of God and His will
2) Intimate, personal Relationship and Fellowship With God
3) Developing Godly Family Relationships
4) Preparation for Specific Life Calling and Purpose, and for Roles in Life
5) Character Development
6) Equip with Tools to Learn for Life
7) Basic Foundation of Knowledge to Function in Society

Here Barb demonstrates how lopsided today's educational system is because it leans heavily (pretty much completely) upon the last of these pillars (#7) to the exclusion of many of the others. Your goal or vision in homeschooling should be the perfect balance of these pillars as the Lord reveals them to you for your children/family. (And what constitutes a perfect balance for one family may look very different for another.)

Marilyn talks about six related terms that people tend to use interchangeably: destiny, vision, calling, purpose, goals, and planning. She says: Defining these easily interchangeable terms can help us get going with the immediate present knowing that we are headed in a direction that will take us to the fulfillment of our dreams.

1. What is the one thing you desire to see happen through you in the world? This may be your destiny.

2. Can you see any specific ways of making this happen? This may be a part of your vision.

3. When you see yourself making this thing happen, what are you doing?  This may be your calling.

4. What immediate action should you take to get on with your destiny?  This may be your purpose.

5. As you define your purpose, what are the first steps you can take to achieve it? These are your goals.

You may be thinking, Okay, so exactly how is all this going to help me in my homeschooling?  I believe these five things should be the basis of setting up your plans for your educational vision.  Let me show you what I tell newbies when I am approached to help them get started in homeschooling.

Before you run out and buy all that beautiful, enticing, prepared curriculum you should do something like this: 

1. You and your husband pray together for direction in your child(ren)'s education. Ask Him to reveal what He has in mind for them. (their destiny?)

2. You and your husband write down what things each of you feel are important for your children to know by the time they leave home. This should include school subjects as well as things like how to change the oil in the car.  (Remember: you didn't learn everything you know now by the time you graduated from high school so don't expect too much from your kids.)

3. Next, talk with your children: What things they are interested in?  What do they like to do?  Where is their interest? What delights them? (Hint: This is stuff they do without you pushing them.)

4. Sit down with your lists and pray again for guidance.

5. Now take the things you each listed and combine them onto one page in order of importance to each of you.

6. Identify which of those things are feasible to do in your homeschool.  Which will need outside help?  How can you accomplish them? (If you're at the high school level and are counting credits, then also ask: How much time (approximately) will each take? 1/2 credit, 1 credit?)

7. (High School:) Take that information and divide into courses to distribute over the number of years that you plan to take for high school.
(Younger Children:) Just write down your basic ideas.
(For whatever age) All this will cover and include many things that do not typically look like school.

Now you have a vision for each of your children's education. Continue praying and adjusting this vision as the Lord reveals ways to accomplish the goal. Be prepared and flexible as the Lord reveals His plan because He will most likely cause parts of your vision to change to more perfectly fit with His.

I have found that even though, over time, He has changed much of my original vision, just having it all laid out in black and white has helped calm and quiet my fears enough that I am able to hear Him better when He talks with me about our goals. He does not reveal the whole picture all at once, but when He does show me some part, I can go back to my vision and re-write it to His direction.

Let me sum this all up with a few more quotes from Barb's Form+U+La

We all have differing recipes for what we see as producing success.  If you read this book [Form+U+La] in its entirety for the meat of it, not just the forms, you'll eventually see what my recipe is. However, I believe that success is from the hand of the Lord! It comes only as we seek and get His heart and His goals for our own lives. We apply ourselves and we study to show ourselves approved of Him; He furnishes the direction and the grace to accomplish and personalize it for our family.

And about the stress you may have as you prepare your vision for homeschool, Barb has this to say: Actually, the main things that are stressful are beginning (and continuing!) to do the school at home approach, and being unwilling to let go of it! This is part of dying to Self... Once we catch God's vision for what we're supposed to be doing, that portion of the source of the stress can be gone in a flash! . . . Stress does not come from Him dealing with the junk in our lives. . . rather,
stress comes from our resisting what He is trying to do in our lives.

Ó 1999 by Donna K. Heck

(Donna is the List Shepherdess for the Senior High Form+U+la
List nicknamed SHF-L -