This evening, we attended the graduation ceremony of one of our homeschool group. As you might expect, the crowd was relatively small — only 30 people or so — but it was a nice evening. And since there was only one graduate, the presentation of diploma part took about three minutes.

I have to say, though…I was not expecting to need hankies tonight. And I got wrecked.

Her dad spoke for a while about her school days. What he remembered with fondness or frustration or whathaveyou. The joys, the sorrows, the things that matter…

And I get it.

Homeschooling is a high-stakes extreme sport.

Not only do you have the responsibility to see that your child is held to grade standards and testing, but also that they have an understanding of how to go on with society and workplaces and that type of thing. Add in the necessary interpersonal relationship training for a child that is not forced into the jungles of prisonyard politics at age 5.

All of these alone are enough to keep a homeschool parent awake at night, but for people like us, they are not the most important thing.

Above all that – above all the reading comprehension and arithmetic and inorganic chemistry, above the botany or anthro-sociology, we want our chidren, first and foremost, to learn our King. None of the cultural norms or knowledge matter at all if knowledge of the King of Kings is not absorbed.

It’s a huge responsibility, because it goes beyond a class that one teaches at a table with a workbook. It is a LIFE that must be lived well and with humility and tranparency. It is years of prayer and investment. It doesnt come with summer break or time off.

The thought that one might fail ones’ child in an academic sense is daunting. The idea that one might fail ones’s child in the place of their knowing God is the greatest terror I know.

I want to get to my own child’s graduation day knowing that I have done everything I can to build the platform under them. What they do with it is of course up to them.