"When I get sick, or a child needs to go to the doctor, I won't be able to keep up with the homeschooling," I told my husband. "Maybe it would be better if our children were in a regular school, where school would keep going no matter what."

Now, two decades later, I realize how mistaken I was in that early assumption. Yes, sometimes a crisis interrupts our homeschooling for an afternoon, or a day, or a week. Some crises are even more long-term. That's where the flexibility and stability of homeschooling have been our refuge.

 "Do you know when I had that surgery on my back?" one of our six children asked me recently. Then someone else needed another important date. So, I put together a timeline of all the significant events of the past seven years. The timeline includes a tragic death in the extended family; my father's stroke; the loss of my husband's job; financial struggles; our youngest son unexpectedly becoming visually impaired; a major relocation; and our second son suddenly becoming blind.

But wait, tragedy is not all that lies in the family timeline. In those same seven years, three children graduated from eighth grade, three from high school, and two from college. One went to law school for a year and a half, and one completed a massage therapy program. This fall, one child received free first year tuition to college, and another was accepted into the Air Force. 

Yes, there have been interruptions to our day. There have been struggles. There have been times of doubt, when I wondered, again (and again), if maybe the children would be better off in school. But I found that there is peace in doing something over and over again, no matter what's going on around us. There is peace in sowing today what we can reap tomorrow.

Every family has its own crosses. We have to ask ourselves if these crosses are reasons to stop homeschooling. Sometimes, they are actually reasons to continue to homeschool. When our youngest son became legally blind, I considered putting him in public school where he could get help from professionals in blindness education. Instead, through networking, we were able to get weekly help from professionals while continuing to homeschool. We found that homeschooling gave our son the individualized instruction and relaxed atmosphere that enabled him to thrive.

Homeschooling helped our oldest children to have confidence in themselves. It gave our second son (third child) the opportunity to spend his senior year pursuing his creative talents and helping his Dad in the family business. It encouraged our son to be a self-learner, which will help him immensely now that he needs to adjust to life without vision. It gave our younger children stability, as we moved to a different state where we didn't know anyone.

It seems to me that homeschooling has made it easier for our family to be particularly close-knit, laughing and crying together, and helping one another.

People who study hurricanes by flying into the center find - in the eye of the storm - a calm place. When our family is buffeted by the storms of adversity, we get up each day, say our prayers, and put one foot in front of the other. We take refuge in faith and family, and in the important business of education, in the eye of the storm.

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