Posted on 09/23/2004 7:04:45 PM PDT by SLB
She lives in a small town in Tennessee, or in a subdivision in North Carolina, or on a ranch in Montana .
She may be 15. Or, she may have graduated from college. Either way, the odds are no boy has ever paid much attention to her. She may wonder if she will ever get married. She is lonely.
What’s her problem? The answer is simple: She is different.
She doesn’t particularly like being different. She may tell you that she doesn’t care; but she does.
Her peers think she is a snob. Her mom says the reason other girls don’t want to be around her is because they are jealous. That doesn’t help much. So she tries to be friendly and kind but that doesn’t help much, either. She may be shunned by other girls and ignored by boys.
She is different. And who wants to be different? Nobody likes others who are different and nobody likes being different.
I have met hundreds of homeschooled girls like this around the world. Each girl thinks she is the only one who is having these experiences. But, there are thousands just like her. If they ever find one another, there would be a huge group hug. And, yes, probably lots of tears. They would finally have found others like themselves who aren’t interested in what girls normally think or talk about. Their talk wouldn’t center around boys or movies or how stupid some other girl is. They would talk about their families and about what interests them and about God and about Jesus. They would pray together and for one another.
That girl from Tennessee who is 15. She’s actually 15 going on 21. She seems to have skipped the teenage years altogether. The girl who has graduated from college without meeting her future husband has been told many times not to worry. “Mister right” is just waiting somewhere in the future. She struggles to believe it and to trust God for her future family.
These girls are different. Not because they wear Christian hairdos or clothing. It really has little to do with externals. But it has everything to do with their Father and what He has done inside them. They are just different, whether they like being different or not. Everyone can tell.
One day I was trying to understand this regarding a young girl who was a friend of my son. All at once the Lord showed me a kind of vision about this girl. Here’s what I saw:
The girl was in her Baptist Sunday school class. All the kids were sitting in a circle. Just then I saw Jesus open the door to the room. He walked directly to this girl and held out His hand to her. She took His hand and got up from her chair. Then Jesus took her out of the class and closed the door. I understood Him to be saying, “This girl doesn’t belong in the same way other people belong. I have made her exclusively Mine.”
I knew this didn’t mean she would never have a family or always be by herself. But the Lord made me understand that He is using the home schooling movement because it is the easiest context in which to raise young people who can be truly “different.”
Why do I keep using the word, “Different”? It is because of the origin of that word. The word “different” is the most exact translation of the Greek work, HOLY (hagios). These kids are different in that the Lord has placed in them something which makes them holy unto Him. They are not really trying to be this way. It’s something He has done. He has separated them from the kind of things normal young people find important. They may struggle with what God has done. They may be terribly lonely. But they ARE different and it is the work of God, Himself.
It is not easy to encourage these girls. Loneliness is no fun and being different can be a real bummer, too. Telling someone to “have faith” can sound pretty shallow, even though it’s the truth. The girl who graduated from college and never had a boy who was a friend ended up meeting “the man of God” she had always dreamed about. They are married now. Another is still waiting, praying for faith to believe it will all turn out as her heart hopes it will.
This is a holy generation. It is a generation set apart unto Him. It is a generation of young people the world has not seen in so long it doesn’t remember what real holiness looks like. The purposes of God rest on our children being willing to walk “in the world” but, at the same time, separated from it. The world waits for a people to show them that a relationship with Jesus isn’t a religious put-on, but is worth giving their lives to, too.
Our girls have been created by the Lord to show everyone what the Bride of Christ looks like, sounds like, acts like, believes like. It can be a burden, but it is precious. We need to deeply respect our girls for what they have been called to be. They need to be encouraged to understand who they are to a world (and, yes, even to a Church) who desperately needs to see the kind of “Lady” Jesus is returning for. We need to give them a vision for who they are that is deeper than simply saying to them, “the other girls are jealous of you.”
BTT.
Bump!
Home School ping
Aren't you the ones who have been telling us 24/7 to embrace diversity....respect the differences of others....exhibit toleration?
Hmmmmm?
Homeschooling was the greatest thing that I was able to give my son. He did well, he learned alot, and so did I. :)
Dig'n it.
Excellent article. My children will NEVER attend school EVER. As for being different, well I can only say that at home I would never had my hair cut off or have kids tease me for being smart, heavy or my mother's home cooked lunch. School is HELL, and I didn't even go to a public school so what does that tell you about public school? They're ten times worse.
How about their sensitive concern for children's socialization???
Thank you for the article...we're North Carolina home schoolers in our third year and there are many times I feel like we're in the Matrix. You know, looking at the world that everyone is wondering through and we are separated by the grace of God and able to see the system. Chris Davis has been a source of encouragement for us.
We are in our 18th year. Hang in there the results are beyond words.
I guess I'm in the minority, in that just about every family I know homeschools their kids, and the homeschooled kids have LOTS of peers.
I suppose there are lonely homeschooled kids....
I'm a member of Sovereign Grace Church in Chesapeake, Virginia, and while the pastors have made it clear that homeschooling is absolutely not "the only way to educate your children," most parents (probably over 80 percent) in fact *are* homeschooling their kids. There's a nice homeschooling enrichment program at our church, field trips that kids can do with each other, more advanced classes taught by members of our church, and a community college that accepts high school-aged homeschoolers. The kids I know who are homeschooled are VERY well socialized, and have lots of friends.
Again, perhaps the non-loneliness of homeschooling that I witness here is the exception....
Why would someone want to raise a socialist?
I don't know, but everytime homeschooling comes up, I always hear about the whole socialization aspect. Give me a break!
Yes! Isn't the thought of that coming true for this generation simply breathtaking!
A friend of mine home-schooled her two boys---they were never lonely. And talk about smart boys with excellent characters. You couldn't ask for better!
Home-schooling makes all the difference! Keep up the good work, parents.
Hey -- aren't you supposed to be cutting back on your Freepering?
:-D -- just a reference to the thread BibChar started....
You are obviously a newbie and don't realize I can't keep my mouth shut for long :O)
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