"YOU may homeschool, but I couldn't," a mom a year tells me.  Today was this year's day.

"That's what I said.  If I hadn't been called by God, I wouldn't homeschool."

The mother on the other side of this conversation stared skeptically. 

I am reminded of Moses, when God called him with a burning bush.  Moses argued; he didn't speak well in public.  God was persistent, and finally Moses relented.

How closely that rings to my experiences.  I was called to homeschool eleven years ago, when my daughter was three.  But I argued...

"I can't homeschool because I can't teach a child to read.  I didn't study education. 

"You still want me to homeschool?  I read these books and the authors must be patient, and I'm not.  They don't have strong-minded children.  They control their tempers and never yell.  Every time they get irritated, probably the whole family bursts into a hymn, sung a capella in four part harmony, with two doing it in sign language or dances on hilltops like the Von Trapps.  We're not like that.

"You still want me to homeschool?  My daughter's preschool teachers gave her the wild colt award because of her high spirits.  Don't you know how alike we are and how often we butt heads?

"You still want me to homeschool?  I still don't know how to teach reading.  We'll make a deal.  I'll put them in kindergarten until they learn to read and then bring them home.

"God, I don't understand.  She's figuring out how to read.  We found this phonics reader at the library, she learned to read a few pages, and we made our own reading book.  She's drawn pictures on the pages as she's learned to read them.  I don't know how it happened.  I was going to send her to school until she got reading and then bring her home.  We've enrolled her in the perfect kindergarten.  What if we keep her in school this year?

"God, yes, I know you're calling me to homeschool HER, but what about my son?  Now, he needs special speech therapy - four days a week and a day a week with a music therapist, maybe for seven years.  I've got to work in case insurance doesn't cover the therapy.  How can I work, help him learn to talk, and school her?  Her kindergarten class must have been a Godsend.

"OK God.  What now?  She went to her first day of kindergarten, carrying the reader we made together.  When she came home, she said no one else could read and if they couldn't read, she wouldn't either.  She told me she would never read from the book we made again.

"God, I would homeschool, but will my children have friends?  I don't know homeschool families anywhere.  My family thinks I'm nuts.  It's day 2 of kindergarten, and she came home sadder.  What do we do now?