Thank you for your plain old hard work. In the midst of a society bent on obtaining the maximum in convenience, you demonstrate that things of value are not accomplished quickly or on the first try. You are the exemplars of the virtue of the third, fourth, and fifth try. If your children take your example into the American workplace, our nation will rise to its former prominence as the country that succeeded because of its simple commitment to hard work.

 Thank you for being willing to encourage other moms who struggle, who are new to the movement, who are discouraged, who need your counsel, your experience, or your wisdom. Thanks also for the selflessness you demonstrate as you devote many hours so that other families may succeed. Arguably you have a vested interest in the success of your own children. You have nothing to gain from helping others. It is an act of pure altruism.

Thank you for your obedience to God. Together with your husband you have read the Scriptures. You have understood them to lead you in this path of home education. And regardless of the costs, the difficulties, or the lack of immediate rewards or gratification, you have done what is right simply because it is right. Few are willing to do right these days for its own sake. You serve as an example of moral courage that our leaders would do well to copy.

Thank you for loving your husband. Your marriage is the human foundation of your home. When it cracks and crumbles, all that you value, including your homeschooling, is threatened. Your selfless love for your husband is an essential ingredient to keeping that foundation strong and true.

Thank you for taking the time to teach your children the truth. So much of education today ignores the truth and simply attempts to impart knowledge separated from the principles of absolute truth that flow from Almighty God. Your children have the advantage of learning what is real and true and good. Those things that are cheap counterfeits will always be self-evident frauds to those who have had the good fortune to spend years being exposed to the truth.

And finally, thank you for being willing to swim against the stream of society’s definition of success. Stay-at-home moms are vilified with faint praise in our society today. The “mothers of the year” are normally those who are “great moms,” but they are really chosen because they also serve as captains of industry, public policy, or finance. At the very time the world ridicules a mom who devotes herself exclusively to her family, you have embraced that role with even more enthusiasm than the generations that have gone before you. Your version of “having it all” means shouldering all the responsibility for the rearing of your children.

The feminists won’t hold a women’s conference in China, or anywhere else, to give you the accolades you so richly deserve.

But your true reward will never be meager efforts of thanks like this letter. Your true reward, at least the one you will see here on earth, will be children who rise up while the rest of the world is stooping in compromise. Your children will rise up and call you blessed with their lives, their words, and their deeds. It is your legacy of love.

Thanks.    

This article is excerpted from Mike Farris' book The Spiritual Power of a Mother and is provided courtesy of Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Mike Farris is the president of Patrick Henry College (www.phc.edu) and the founder and chairman of the board of Home School Legal Defense Association. He and his wife, Vickie, have ten children and six grandchildren, and have been homeschooling for 21 years.