If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: "I could never home school MY kids . . . Why in the world would anyone want to home school?" And every time I hear it, my heart grieves more and more. People tend to see only the inconvenience of it, the extra discipline it requires, the additional expenses, the intense personal involvement, and the unappreciated sacrifices. How I wish they could see what my wife and I see—looking beyond the immediate hassles to a prize worth more than all it could require.

I have pastored a small country church in southern Ohio for several years. I love the things God has done in my life through this congregation of believers, but it has not been without some moments of intense pain. There have been many sleepless nights, many tears, and periods of heart breaking loneliness and abandonment. While there have been many times I wish I could quit, go somewhere else or go back to working a secular job, I have had to learn to trust God and rely more on facts than the dictations of my emotional state. I know that God called me into ministry. I know that He called me to this little church (my first and only), and I know that His work requires pain, toil, discipline and sacrifice. I know, too, that the ground must be tilled, seeds sown and crops maintained before the time of reaping and the harvest.

No, it's not always a bright picture, but bear with me for just a moment longer. You see, I'm discovering a secret in the dark threatening valleys that is not always evident in the brilliance of sunlight: People value things that require the most personal sacrifice and endurance. Suffer through something and you communicate to others that it is worth the pain and agony to have it. Discard or leave something when times get tough, and you communicate that it held little value to you. A good shepherd gives his life for the sheep; a hireling sees the wolf coming and flees. Toiling in the wilderness over one lost sheep communicates more love and value than taking care of ninety-nine that are safe in the sheepfold.

Many patriots have fought for freedom, giving their lives, leaving their families, exchanging the comfortable and convenient for restlessness and vulnerability all because they believed that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness were a worthwhile cause. They were right.

The apostle Paul was beaten, put in stocks and unmercifully stoned. He suffered shipwreck, was robbed and suffered injustice at the hand of his own countrymen as well as the heathen. He experienced weariness, pain, hunger, thirst, cold and nakedness. And beside those things that happened on the outside, he had to deal with the emotional and spiritual burdens of all the churches. Can you believe that, rather than give the poor guy a break, God went even further and gave him a "thorn in the flesh" too? How . . . or maybe I should ask, why in the world would Paul have chosen to continue in such a life? Something made it worth it.