Homeschooling took up 30 years of my life, and now I have navigated 11 years since my last child graduated from homeschool high school. With the amount of time homeschooling consumes during those years, when that comes to an end, moms often feel lost, unsure of what they are to do next in life. During homeschooling those days are dreamed of, but when they arrive, they can be clouded with more questions than enjoyment. After all homeschooling moms have learned to be productive and efficient with their time. Now what?

As I approached the end of homeschooling, I asked the Lord to show me what He wanted for me with that time that would be freed up. I was concerned with having too much time and not enough to do! He didn’t give me a particular thing, but brought things into my life/path, bit by bit, that I knew I was to do. That seems to be typical of older “retired” homeschool moms I communicate with who. You don’t know – until God opens doors and directs you.

For me, the very first thing retirement from homeschooling meant was the reality of a dream of more early morning time in the Word. I went from 30 minutes each morning at the peek of homeschooling, to 45 minutes as our children got older, and now I have 1.5 hours, sometimes 2 if the weather is bad and I can’t walk. 

With my age, I have more health maintenance than I did in my younger years. Steve and I have walked together each morning before breakfast for many years, but now we have more time for the walks, enjoying our conversation time and prayer together. I need to do resistance training for bone density since I have osteoporosis. I also have back pain to manage so use a foam roller, inversion table, and do some other things for my back daily.

Many of you will be like me and have end of life care for one or both parents. That is more manageable when you don’t have hours of homeschooling to accomplish each day.

At one point after homeschooling, I was playing the piano for a small church we were in. I am not a very good pianist so needed to practice an hour a day. That was a a big time commitment that I couldn’t have done when I was homeschooling. We aren’t at that church anymore, but I usually play the piano a 1/2 hour a day now – just because I enjoy it – and I have the time – and I didn’t have time during my homeschooling years for any piano at all!

I have playtime/reading time each week with my local younger grandchildren and the ones who live a distance I have a FaceTime for an hour divided up to talk with each of them. That is a reasonable amount of time for a conversation. My playtimes and FaceTimes are scheduled for the same day and time each week. 

The Lord continues to give me opportunities to encourage moms through Titus2 and our local church in ways I couldn’t do during my homeschooling years. Many of you longed for a Titus2 woman in your life when you were homeschooling, but couldn’t find her in your church. Now you are that woman. Be involved in your church with younger women and women’s ministries so that you are available to them. 

“The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed”(Titus 2:3-5).

There is nothing earth shattering about my life and how God has me using my time. But at 70, I enjoy a pace of life that isn’t as pushed at it was during those 30 years of homeschooling and yet feels obedient to the Lord and therefore useful, making it fulfilling to me. 

I also want to encourage the younger homeschool moms to be careful not to make homeschooling your identity. When you do that, you are lost without homeschooling. When our identity is Jesus Christ, (“For to me to live is Christ . . .” Philippians 1:21a), homeschooling is a step of obedience to Him. Then when homeschooling ends, there are other things He brings to our lives that once again call us to obedience. Remember always – to live IS Christ!