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One thing Heather and I discovered is that parenting our children is not a popularity contest. There are many times when making the right decision for our family has not been a popular opinion to others. This was something that we struggled with at times.

For the first fifteen years of our parenting, Heather was a stay-at-home mom. She homeschooled our children and was good at it. I laugh because we were the stereotypical homeschool family with the oversized passenger van for a family vehicle pulling into our homeschool coop with a parking lot full of other oversized passenger vans! Heather directed a homeschool co-op for many years and it was just part of who we were as a family.

As our children progressed into their teen years, we felt like God was leading our family in a new direction. Three of our teenagers were begging to go to public school and Heather was taking on more responsibility at the church as the Children’s Director. Our identity as a family was beginning to shift and we knew in our hearts that God was leading us down a path of change.

For Heather, this was an incredibly hard change. As a mom, she loved having all of her children safe at home and under her care. This wasn’t born out of a need to control them; she loves having her kids around her and spending time together as a family. She went through a mourning process as we sent our kids to public schools. It was not easy at all.

Despite the challenges, we both felt like this was the correct decision for our family. Unfortunately, this decision was not received well by some of those around us. Some people prayerfully supported us, yet others disassociated themselves from our family. It was an odd experience to have people we knew stop talking to us or unfriend us on social media because they did not agree with us following the path God had for us. 

Years later, we are 100% convinced that we made the right decision. Had we allowed the opinions of others to dictate our decision, we would have missed God. Another way to look at it is, did God go to everyone around us and poll them for how Heather and I should live our lives? Of course not! If God is not asking their opinion, why should Heather and I allow the same opinions to chart the course for our life? 

That may seem incredibly blunt, but the sad reality is that we make too many parenting decisions based on the opinion of people who are not raising our children. Instead, we need to confidently trust in God as it says in Proverbs 3:5-6. 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He shall direct your paths."

If we trust God to lead us, we can rest assured that He will safely lead us down the path He called us to follow. We cannot say the same for even our most well-meaning of friends and family. They cannot be our God and cannot direct our paths with the same results as God. We need to trust in His ability to lead us.