Over the next several months, I want to focus on some of the common questions and concerns I hear during consults or receive via e-mail. I’m usually too busy to keep a running tally and add all the questions up. Still, without any record, certain worries rise to the surface quite frequently. Probably the top one I hear is the difficulty of settling on one curriculum plan. Everyone wishes Miss Mason had simply left us lists. She would not, and we would not like them if she did.

We hear a lot these days about “fear of missing out.” It’s not a problem just for junior high girls. It seems homeschool moms struggle quite a bit with this, too. We hear of a new blog, a “better” book, a “fantastic” podcast, a different approach to a subject. We have to check it out and then it begins—the excitement, or dismay, or curiosity, or sinking feeling that we have messed up, gone the wrong direction, should have made a different decision, need to make a change.

I feel tired even reading that last sentence. As helpful as the internet is, it is often not our friend. The constant bombardment of new information is exhausting. Thinking about it is even more exhausting. Before we know it, we feel ourselves plunging into discouragement, doubt, and despair. We want the very best for our kids, but are always second guessing any path we take or decision we make.

Just making decisions is exhausting. That is a scientific fact, a psychological reality. Charlotte Mason knew all about it. She said deciding was the most exhausting work in the world. Every day we make—at least according to google—are you ready? Thirty-five thousand decisions. I spelled it out so you would not think my zero key stuck.

Then consider that every decision has a consequence. Each consequence will be for the better or for the worse. We have to live with all those consequences. That responsibility overwhelms us. We find ourselves limping through our days bearing an incredible weight.

My dear friends, life is not about looking over our shoulder and regretting and rethinking every single thing we have done. Many of us kept our children home because we did not want them forced into the cookie cutter educational mold, or facing peer pressure, or keeping up with the latest national education whims of the moment. So why are we constantly on the prowl to find out what everyone else is doing and whether the choices we have made match what everyone else is doing or measure up to some unknown perfect standard that exists in some unknown somewhere?

I could make a list of precautions you could follow to help with this problem. It probably would work. The problem is, you already know the good practices that could keep you from sleepless nights and tearful schooldays. You know: stay off social media, follow the advice of trusted and knowledgable Charlotte Mason mentors, go outside and do nature study yourself, go to bed early, eat well, follow your timetable, take time to read your Bible, meditate, pray, listen to good music, read good books, enjoy the precious moments you have with your children that are whizzing past faster than you know. Above all, live with the decisions you have already made and be thankful for the good things you do have, the amazing persons at your table, the wonderful gift this education is. Just doing these things would probably reduce your decisions down to a reasonable fifteen thousand. Think of the extra energy that would supply.

But you do know all that already. There are lots of bloggers promoting healthy habits. You could perhaps read Miss Mason’s books and develop some new ones.

Or instead, bear with me for a little rabbit trail. Two nights ago I had my regular women’s Bible study. We’re studying Exodus. The lesson this week was about Moses, 80-year-old Moses, meeting God for the first time. His life has been a little dull for the past 40 years of exile in the desert where he’s been hiding out as a fugitive after he murdered a man. His life was pretty dull We think our lives are ordinary and the lure of thinking someone else’s is more exciting is common to us all. His was changed by the intervention of someone from outside, kind of like Cinderella’s was when her fairy godmother showed up, or Helen Keller’s was when Annie Sullivan showed up, or Harry Potter was when that owl dropped that letter through the mail slot. For Moses, it was none other than God. God had a plan, and Moses was about to find out that he was the man for the biggest job on earth: delivering a few million people from the biggest power on earth. He didn’t know much about God, but was about to go on the journey that would make him friends with God in a way no other person ever has.

Since he only had God’s word to go on, he is not sure about all the deliverance God promises, all the power and wonders he is promised. First, he’s afraid, because it is quite apparent, in fact God tells him quite plainly, that God is holy and he knows he is not. He asks a couple of questions: who me? Then, who are you? The answers are simple: yes you, and I am. Then he raises a couple of objections: “What if they don’t believe me?” and “Look, I can’t do it, not smart enough, not good enough, not gifted enough…” or at least that is his general sentiment.

Last of all, not a question, not an objection, just outright refusal. Nope. Send someone else. I will not. (Sound like any of the kids in your house?)

Obviously, in a contest of wills, God is always going to win. Moses obeys. God does everything he promised.

So I know we all have lots of reasons for thinking we haven’t done the right thing, don’t know what we’re doing, aren’t sure about why we think we can do this impossible job of educating these “born persons.” It seems like the biggest burden on earth to us. Just staying off your phone and shutting out all the voices alone will not help. No, you want someone there who can really carry this burden for you, or with you. The incredible patient God who gets Moses’ will on his side does so by assuring him, “But I will be with you.” That is, I Am will be with you. The one who is everything has enough for Moses. The God who needs no one and will use anyone says, “I’ll go with you. I will be with you. I will perform powerful wonders for you.” Trusting in those promises takes Moses through incredible trials you and I will never see anything like. At the burning bush, he hid his face. Decades later he will beg God to let him see it, because he has stopped listening to his inner doubts and stopped trusting his own wisdom and has come to know his God, the great I Am, “The Lord, the Lord, compassionate, gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…”

Since he is I Am, he is still the same. Unchangeable. He still does these things. He still is these things—not just for Moses, but for you.

I have encouraged you before to get your wisdom from being in his word. This morning, I read in 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxieties on him for he cares for you.” It’s an invitation, a promise, a comfort. Moses said “not me” because he did not know God’s love and compassion. He didn’t believe the “I will be with you.” What about you?

When Charlotte Mason died, her friends noted she had only underlined one verse in her Bible, just one phrase. It’s in Psalm 56:9: “…this I know: God is for me.”

That is a wonderful truth not to miss out on. David is asserting what the Apostle Paul would remind in Romans 8:31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Can you trust a God like that? Or, are you believing the old lie of the serpent back in the garden, whispering, “Your God is not to be trusted.” Maybe you don’t trust the Charlotte Mason method enough, but the God who is enough is absolutely all about being there for you. He has your back. No perfect child, or perfect book list, or better curriculum is what you need. You need him. You were made for him.

And He’s all for you. This is something you cannot afford to miss out on.