Posted on 09/23/2004 7:04:45 PM PDT by SLB
She lives in a small town in Tennessee, or in a subdivision in North Carolina, or on a ranch in Montana .
She may be 15. Or, she may have graduated from college. Either way, the odds are no boy has ever paid much attention to her. She may wonder if she will ever get married. She is lonely.
What’s her problem? The answer is simple: She is different.
She doesn’t particularly like being different. She may tell you that she doesn’t care; but she does.
Her peers think she is a snob. Her mom says the reason other girls don’t want to be around her is because they are jealous. That doesn’t help much. So she tries to be friendly and kind but that doesn’t help much, either. She may be shunned by other girls and ignored by boys.
She is different. And who wants to be different? Nobody likes others who are different and nobody likes being different.
I have met hundreds of homeschooled girls like this around the world. Each girl thinks she is the only one who is having these experiences. But, there are thousands just like her. If they ever find one another, there would be a huge group hug. And, yes, probably lots of tears. They would finally have found others like themselves who aren’t interested in what girls normally think or talk about. Their talk wouldn’t center around boys or movies or how stupid some other girl is. They would talk about their families and about what interests them and about God and about Jesus. They would pray together and for one another.
That girl from Tennessee who is 15. She’s actually 15 going on 21. She seems to have skipped the teenage years altogether. The girl who has graduated from college without meeting her future husband has been told many times not to worry. “Mister right” is just waiting somewhere in the future. She struggles to believe it and to trust God for her future family.
These girls are different. Not because they wear Christian hairdos or clothing. It really has little to do with externals. But it has everything to do with their Father and what He has done inside them. They are just different, whether they like being different or not. Everyone can tell.
One day I was trying to understand this regarding a young girl who was a friend of my son. All at once the Lord showed me a kind of vision about this girl. Here’s what I saw:
The girl was in her Baptist Sunday school class. All the kids were sitting in a circle. Just then I saw Jesus open the door to the room. He walked directly to this girl and held out His hand to her. She took His hand and got up from her chair. Then Jesus took her out of the class and closed the door. I understood Him to be saying, “This girl doesn’t belong in the same way other people belong. I have made her exclusively Mine.”
I knew this didn’t mean she would never have a family or always be by herself. But the Lord made me understand that He is using the home schooling movement because it is the easiest context in which to raise young people who can be truly “different.”
Why do I keep using the word, “Different”? It is because of the origin of that word. The word “different” is the most exact translation of the Greek work, HOLY (hagios). These kids are different in that the Lord has placed in them something which makes them holy unto Him. They are not really trying to be this way. It’s something He has done. He has separated them from the kind of things normal young people find important. They may struggle with what God has done. They may be terribly lonely. But they ARE different and it is the work of God, Himself.
It is not easy to encourage these girls. Loneliness is no fun and being different can be a real bummer, too. Telling someone to “have faith” can sound pretty shallow, even though it’s the truth. The girl who graduated from college and never had a boy who was a friend ended up meeting “the man of God” she had always dreamed about. They are married now. Another is still waiting, praying for faith to believe it will all turn out as her heart hopes it will.
This is a holy generation. It is a generation set apart unto Him. It is a generation of young people the world has not seen in so long it doesn’t remember what real holiness looks like. The purposes of God rest on our children being willing to walk “in the world” but, at the same time, separated from it. The world waits for a people to show them that a relationship with Jesus isn’t a religious put-on, but is worth giving their lives to, too.
Our girls have been created by the Lord to show everyone what the Bride of Christ looks like, sounds like, acts like, believes like. It can be a burden, but it is precious. We need to deeply respect our girls for what they have been called to be. They need to be encouraged to understand who they are to a world (and, yes, even to a Church) who desperately needs to see the kind of “Lady” Jesus is returning for. We need to give them a vision for who they are that is deeper than simply saying to them, “the other girls are jealous of you.”
Great article! Thanks so much for posting it.
The homeschooled girl has the self-respect and honor that commands respect, she has the decorum that comes from interaction with good adults, she has a mind pure and able,
the charm of a generous and innocent soul, and most importantly the integrity of deeply-held convictions.
At least that is true for every homeschooled girl I have met, and I have met many of them.
Of course I could be biased since I was homeschooled and have younger sisters.
Thank you.
Diversity seems only to include varied forms of moral pervesion and statist political idealogy.
Ping for your perusal....
Bad theology.
As a single 22 year old Christian guy, I can say that I would certainly be interested in such a girl.
OK, just what the heck is a 'Christian hairdo'?
good question *lol*
"These girls are different. Not because they wear Christian hairdos or clothing. It really has little to do with externals. But it has everything to do with their Father and what He has done inside them. They are just different, whether they like being different or not. Everyone can tell. "
I respect anyone who responsibly home schools their children. I also respect anyone who responsibly has their children in Church regardless of whether they attend secular schools or not.
Is this "difference" really because of home schooling? The author rightly credits God for the work. Why wouldn't all Christians be "different"? Also, why isn't this titled "The Home Schooled Child"?
Cloths and hairdos are just cloths and hairdos. I really don't think that there is a process of "Kosher" for making them Christian.
What a great article.
We do not homeschool, I do not have the temperment for it and realized early on that it was more detrimental for our daughter than beneficial.
With that said, I give HUGE applause to those who are homeschoolers.
Not homeschooling does not mean we do not care about our child's education, we moved to a specific area specifically for the schools. It also does not mean we are not fully involved in her education.
I met a 17 year old and a 14 year old who had the maturity of someone less than half their ages. The 17 year old failed the SAT and in my estimation will never pass it. But far worse is the fact that neither of these kids has any ability to communicate with anyone outside of their immediate family. An immediate family that is headed by two of the most arrogantly ignorant people you'd ever want to meet.
They have brought these kids up by spoon feeding them intellectual pablum and making them incapable of any initiative or independent thought or action.
What they've done to these kids is criminal, so I will never again give a blanket approval to home schoolers. I know there are lots of terrific examples out there, but it is the ones that aren't terrific and are actually doing damage to their kids you don't hear about.
For males, one that looks masculine, is practical, and does not imitate some well-known failure called an artist.
At least that's what I believe.
That made me think of Carman and the "ponytail comin' out the front of their head". :-)
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it is something of a reasonable length (no mohawks or crew cuts) that isn't dyed pink, purple or green. Also no spikes or anything else that might suggest rebellion or free thinking.
Do the percentages however, and it becomes apparent that homeschools as a whole see a far smaller proportion of underachieving, pampered losers than the pubskewl does. The perfect can not be made the enemy of the good.
My wife and all her sisters (3) were homeschooled. Let me tell you this...she is one FINE woman. She helped turn my life around by introducing me to Jesus.
Oh yeah...and she let's me Freep. She thinks I'm weird sometimes, but she's glad that I have FRiends as fanatical as myself.
I'm at the kitching table on my laptop right now. She's sitting across from me writing a letter of all things. It looks like she also brought out her painting stuff. Yep...she's painting flowers or something.
Homeschooled women are so classy.
Nope not the kind that I had in school. There are many home schooling groups that get together, church sunday school,etc. where kids meet friends.
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