The curriculum sets lasted three months until we both became bored with them.From that point forward I combined different curriculum and unit studies, eventually coming to depend upon co-ops for areas I felt I was failing my children in. When I discovered Lifestyle of Learning™ I was very worn out and often found myself wondering how I would survive the many years left of homeschooling my children.

 Sometime around 2005, a friend shared Lifestyle of Learning™ with me. We were both drawn to Lifestyle of Learning™ because it was somewhat similar to unschooling. Like unschooling there is a focus on following the interest of the children, however it was different in that it was encouraging a Holy Spirit-led education. Through reading Lifestyle of Learning™ books 'Come Home' From Homeschool and Secrets of Solitude, the heavy burden I felt was lifted from my shoulders that gave me a tremendous feeling of freedom. What I was reading about was exactly what my husband and I had originally envisioned, gearing our education around our children’s natural bents and interests.

As I began to learn more about Lifestyle of Learning™ I immediately desired to stop everything I was doing, however I had commitments to teach in a few parent led co-op classes. I taught weekly for one co-op class and rotated for the rest. I could see that preparing for these classes took valuable time away from my family and from pursuing our real education. Once we finished our co-ops, I wasn’t all that sure “what to do” so I created lists of possible productive free time activities and I began to observe my children’s interests. We had lots of tea parties, started flower pressing, and my oldest daughter began to play with cake decorating, and so forth. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I muddled my way through like this for awhile. 

From reading Come Home From Homeschool, I began to see how so many families are fragmented in so many areas of our culture, in the homeschool community, and at church. We decided to opt out of youth group but left the younger kids in the children’s program because they “enjoyed it.” Though I began to be convicted that we needed to focus on developing our family life around our home, I struggled with this idea for several more years feeling strong convictions in some areas and leniency in others. I was waffling between legalism and license, feeling confusion and guilt and not deciphering direction from the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t able to see my own heart issues and I didn’t understand what it meant to have my children’s hearts. I lacked in my understanding of who God is and how to connect with Him. I was not accustomed to listening to the Holy Spirit. I didn’t really understand that He speaks through our conscience and I wasn’t able to differentiate the Holy Spirit from my flesh and the enemy. I was often confused, not knowing what direction the Lord wanted me to go or how to deal with various things. I now realize I didn’t have a real relationship with Him, though I had been going to church and had raised my children in church.  

Over the years through my various struggles, I never fully let go of certain Lifestyle of Learning™ concepts. I began to mix bits and pieces of Lifestyle of Learning™ ideas with ideas based on the public school system and entered back into co-ops. As my oldest daughter neared high school age, I began to be concerned about how to “do” high school. I put a checklist of things in front of her with high school transcripts as the goal. I left her freedom to write up as credits what she had been doing in her interests, but in the subject areas that her interests didn’t cover, I looked for curriculum and co-op classes, all so she could check off the boxes.  

When Marilyn and Barbie started up Empowered Ministry seminars in our area, I went to a few “Mom’s Day Out” events and began to meet with Barbie. My attention became focused on the relational parenting and discipleship side of the Lifestyle of Learning™ message. I could see I was losing the hearts of my two oldest daughters. I began to recognize that I was the one that NEEDED the “heart level” growth for me to begin a real Lifestyle of Learning™. In January 2011, the “Seven Seasons to LYFE” pilot program for Lifestyle of Learning™ started and I was so grateful to be able to attend. It was through listening to the messages, doing the assignments, and reading the books that I began to see what a real education looks like and that our family really could develop a lifestyle of learning. In February we began to pair down our outside activities, cut our co-op classes down to a minimum while finishing out the rest of the school year.

My connection with the Lord prior to my real start with Lifestyle of Learning™ consisted of going to church and doing occasional Bible studies, making inconsistent efforts at journaling and reading the Bible. I often felt I was missing something and would frequently feel like I needed to go forward at the weekly altar calls at church. I often questioned my true salvation. I also found myself wondering what the various pastors really meant when they talked about “relationship” with Jesus. I would sometimes feel my heart moved during worship or during my Bible reading time or prayer, but it wasn’t something that I really understood or connected into. I occasionally felt the presence of the Lord, but mostly I felt like I was pretending.

I used to go to bed so often feeling immense guilt over my attitudes toward my children and told myself I would do better the next day, but it usually lasted but a short while. I had no idea of what repentance and reconciliation was… I now know the Holy Spirit was nudging me in various things, and giving me the desire to change certain things. I just didn’t grasp the simple idea of repentance being followed by obedience, so I remained in my struggles. It seems silly to me now, but it was like I actually thought God would just change me. I thought He would do all the work and then I would just be different. That sounds so ridiculous to me now. I was ignoring much of the Holy Spirit’s correction and instruction. I didn’t know His voice and wasn’t aware of my need to repent and obey immediately.

I am so thankful that I no longer go to bed experiencing guilt. I have been learning what real repentance is and following it up with obedience. I have been giving up wrong attitudes, immediately repenting, apologizing and bringing my relationships into reconciliation. I am so thankful to be gaining the hearts of all of my children. I feel like I am finally, for real, connecting into the Lord and actually knowing Him. I no longer wonder what a real relationship with Jesus feels like and I feel a security in knowing that I belong to the Lord… that I am His. I’m so blessed to be embracing the Gospel message of Lifestyle of Learning™ and I now know that He will be faithful to lead us into a true Spirit-led education.

Blessed Assurance…

THE SECRET TO SUCCESSFUL HOMESCHOOLING

By Michelle Gephart
9/22/2011 Bothell, Washington

My husband and I discussed the possibility of homeschooling when my son was born, but we veered away from that idea when he was diagnosed with special needs and entered the public school system at 3 ½ years old. I loved having him at school because it gave me lots of time to pursue my own interests, but later I came to realize how selfish I was in this regard. As time went on, I started to have serious concerns about our education choices. We felt deeply convicted to begin homeschooling when our son (10) was in 4th grade and daughter (7) in 1st grade in public school.

I identified myself with a combination of homeschool methods that I learned about online. I viewed education as being a scope and sequence of different subjects to be studied over 12 years in a linear fashion according to age. I thought the only difference would be as homeschoolers we could work at our own pace and provide a Christian based curriculum. I was somewhat confident about beginning to homeschool because I had done so much planning and had friends who were successful homeschoolers.

Once we began school at home, I found myself spending hours searching online every night for the "secret to successful homeschooling". I also purchased more and more curriculum thinking that I just didn't have the right material to make my kids learn. This is how I stumbled upon Lifestyle of Learning™ and read Barbie's testimony about her family's radical transformation (Barbie’s Testimony can be found in the Marilyn Howshall's ebook Empowered—Healing the Heartbeat of Your Family). I was so surprised to learn that she lived about 30 minutes from me! I attended a seminar for parents at Barbie’s home that exposed me for the first time to truths about parenting that I had never known before. I spent those two hours with tears running down my cheeks and I went home with a handful of notes about how God wanted to parent ME.

During the first few months before I met Barbie and Marilyn, I experienced intense feelings of guilt and insecurity about our homeschool. We experienced a lot of complaining and strife as we tried to find our way. In fact, as we proceeded through our first few months of homeschooling, my son became more and more outwardly rebellious in his unloving attitudes toward me and his sister. Almost daily we experienced more and more yelling, tantrums and resistance. He would scream at me and run to his room, flinging his bed sheets, pillows and mattress on the floor. This is something he did previously during a stressful time in public school. I really didn't know what to do as it became apparent that I didn't have his heart in any form. He often said he wasn't sure if God existed and stubbornly resisted every simple request. We noticed his growing disdain for us so we bought a book on angry kids hoping to find an answer to our problems but it didn't help us. I talked to several friends but they didn’t know how to help me. Like Marilyn Howshall wrote in her book, Empowered—Healing the Heartbeat of Your Family, my bad fruit was telling on me.

Barbie and Marilyn took on my concerns. I learned that he wasn't increasing in rebellion, but the rebellion that was already there inside was coming to the surface as we tried to put on this new homeschool lifestyle. Then the Lord convicted me that I was completely engulfed in my own endeavors and that I viewed my children as an interruption to my own life. I even failed to meet their true heart-felt needs to be loved, understood and known. All the years my children were in school, I wasn’t even helping them, or relating with them as I should in numerous ways because my priority was to be on the computer all the time or filling orders or answering emails.

As I was convicted about my selfishness, I decided to close my home businesses. As my self-centered habits and thoughts were further exposed, I was deeply and profoundly convicted and grieved over the hurt I caused my whole family and the lack of love my family experienced coming from me. I immediately began to repent to the Lord and then to my kids and husband. I began to obey the Lord as I came to understand the Holy Spirit communicated with me primarily through my conscience. This revolutionized my life! I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back, I see how I was beginning my own radical transformational process.

The days and months of repenting and winning the heart of my son were nothing short of agonizing. A death was in order…the death of my own flesh [self-ways]. Looking back on this time, I see how some good fruit in my children ripened right before my eyes! God is so merciful and kind. All the destruction I brought to my family through my years and years of selfishness was actually being reconciled so quickly. My son soon became a different person, not to mention I also became a new person as I learned to love. He no longer squinted his eyes in hatred at me, folded his arms and turned his back on me, he no longer threw tantrums like he used to and he didn’t resist me to the extent he did before. Now he is often willing to obey simple requests without resistance and will sometimes initiate helping me. He smiles and laughs so much more and wants to tell me everything about what he is interested in. He is willing to do household tasks when asked and he is relating with others in a loving way by not demanding his own way but considering their desires. Because I never lost my daughter's heart like I did his, she remains soft and lovingly responsive to me.

As of this writing it has been nearly a year since discovering Lifestyle of Learning™. As I look back, I can see how my whole family has changed in significant ways. The impact of Lifestyle of Learning™ on my personal growth with the Lord is immeasurable. One way we have been impacted is through my self-education in the area of planning and preparing meals for my family. I always considered myself to be a failure in the kitchen and used this as an excuse to stay stuck for over 20 years. I had no idea I had ignored this area of my life and the fatigue it produced in me every day. It took about six months of continuous effort to form new habits and create methods for meal planning and preparation. I no longer have any stress or anxiety about what to feed my family...the peace of mind I experience every single day is profound. I feed my children breakfast and lunch every day at home and we eat together. For months, we've eaten dinner together as a family every night which we never did in the past. I blogged my experience and now have a record of the real change that occurred around this area and the tremendous blessing we are experiencing as a family because of it. Even though I tried many times over the years to accomplish this goal I was never able to make the needed changes until now.

Another area of impact of course is my relationship with my son. I feel free to shower him with affection and approval where before I only related to him with disappointment, shame and judgment. He allows me to hug and kiss him and doesn't push me away. He wants to tell me about his interests (a lot!) and enjoys being around me and the feeling is mutual. Our whole family relates differently as we are thinking of each other’s needs and preferences instead of just our own selfish attitudes, intentions and motivations. I can see each member of my family learning to love each other sacrificially as we put down our own selfish ways. I can see how blind I was in the past as my focus was on religious activity and not love.

Another area in which I've been transformed is my relationship with the Lord. Before meeting Marilyn and Barbie, I was truly lost in my religion. I was just like the Pharisees whom Jesus accused of looking pious on the outside while being wicked on the inside. Inside myself, I was tormented by all sorts of guilt, self-condemnation, insecurity and fear. On the outside I was judgmental, condescending and superior to everyone and everything. I never experienced the overcoming life Jesus talked about until recently as I've been able to change in ways I never could before. I have unexplainable peace and joy that is such a contrast to my inner being even from several months ago. The Lord has set me free in many areas including self focus, shame, insecurity, fear, worry, guilt and irritation with others. I give Him all the glory for the very good works He has done and the river of grace and mercy He has poured over me. I’m eternally grateful that the Lord led me to meet Marilyn and Barbie and the Lifestyle of Learning™ message. My life has been forever changed because of their sacrificial investment in me.

I found the "secret to successful homeschooling". It had to begin with my own growth and change.