Dear Mom,

You are second-guessing yourself, which is what some of us do. Those of us who are introverted and analytical are especially prone to doubt. Even if you are trained and certified and have teaching experience, that nagging feeling can still arise and keep you tossing on a sea of doubts.  And sometimes we are judged and criticized for home schooling and for our children's behavior or their perceived lack of socialization or whatever, and we take all this to heart. When we accept the gifts of parenting and home schooling, there are many areas to scrutinize whether we are doing the judging or someone else is.

Read aloud I Corinthians Chapter 13. Read it every day. Read it whenever this nagging feeling arises. And love your children. Enjoy this time you have with them. Don't steal this precious time by judging yourself or worrying about someone else's judgment. When you love your children, God is present with you and He can do the most miraculous things with nothing at all.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Doubt your own knowledge, but do not doubt God's love for you and your children. Do not doubt the certainty of love.

Peace be with you,

Sandra Garant