The Gift of Grace by Sandra DeVera & Angel Alderson
We always start the school year with mixed feelings. We’re excited to have a fresh start but stressed by the increases in the family schedule. As you unpack the boxes of curriculum and bring home gifts of school supplies to distribute to your children, there is another gift you should be sure to open: the gift of God’s grace. Home education provides an opportunity not only for your children’s mental development, but their character development. Whether your child remembers all the state capitals or masters quadrilateral equations will not impact their eternal life as much as having a genuine, practical, understanding of the Christian meaning of grace.
What is grace? The 1812 Webster’s Dictionary defines Christian grace as "The free unmerited love and favor of God, the spring and source of all the benefits men receive from him." Some of those benefits are forgiveness, humility, compassion and unconditional love. Most people struggle to understand grace because it is a concept that is not natural to humans, but rather a quality of God’s divine nature. The amazing thing about grace is that God shares His grace not only with us, but through us.
So what does grace have to do with homeschooling? Shouldn’t such lofty theological doctrines be left for adult study if our children choose to go to seminary? It has been said that the Will of God never takes you to where the Grace of God will not protect you. If it is God’s will that you home educate your children, then you will need God’s grace to do it! You have an opportunity to model grace in your teaching and to explain grace in terms your children can understand.
How do you model grace to a young child? By letting them know that you love them unconditionally because they are the children God has graciously allowed you to have, not because they have earned your love. Because home educators serve not only as parent, but as teacher of all subjects, it’s vitally important that a young child knows that mistakes, difficulties with comprehension, and clumsiness will not jeopardize our love for them. Even if they misbehave and need correction, it is the bad behavior we disapprove of, not them. Jesus loves those the Father has given Him enough to die in their place for their sins. He does not condone the sin, but he loves the sinner. In fact, it’s only because He loves us that He corrects us. Madeleine L’Engle writes, "There is really only one purpose for punishment, and that is to teach a lesson, and there is only one lesson to be taught, and that is love. Otherwise, it is not punishment, it is revenge or retribution. "Your children need you to set the example of grace to them and for them.
Older children and teens need to see grace in action from you as well. They need to realize that every single person on the planet has fallen short of the glory of God but because of God’s character and will we can live in His grace. Children can become prideful and smug that God saves good people like them but abandons all the bad people of the world. Grace has to do with understanding our own brokenness. In the words of Eugene O’Neill, "Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue."In trying to explain grace to our children we’ve told them, "Love that reaches up is adoration. Love that reaches out is affection. Love that stoops is grace." We want them to study the Bible, literature, and social sciences with both a compassion for lost souls and an appreciation that the answer to everyone’s problem is God’s grace.
We tend to go into our new school year convinced that if our children just stick to our perfect plan for their school day, they’ll be geniuses by Christmas. From our experience, the perfect plan usually only lasts about three days (and we’ve had years where it only lasted three hours!) Sooner or later in your home education adventure, you are going to come to your wit’s end. Take heart. When you get to your wit’s end, you’ll find God lives there. If you can draw upon God’s grace when you have failed, and if you can extend that grace to others in the midst of difficulty, your children will be learning from your example how to thrive. John of the Cross wrote, "One act of thanksgiving made when things go wrong is worth a thousand when things go well."
While we’re aware that God’s grace is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" card that means we can sin without concern for the consequences, the fact of God’s grace gives us a foundation from which we can grow godly children despite being flawed people ourselves. God’s word says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." We hope to explore in future articles how to exhibit grace in homeschooling situations, even when we feel weak and unsure of ourselves.