DISCLAIMER: To fully appreciate this post, you should know that few people are as rabidly devoted to homeschooling as I am. It's a gift straight from God. My kids know one of my greatest fears through their lives has been not being able to homeschool. So as you read, keep that in mind. :)
A little over a year ago, I sat at my chair and typed out a desperate prayer to God.
As a homeschooling mama of eight, the oldest a teenager and the baby an infant, I. Was. Exhausted. So tired of refereeing and serving as daytime dictator over a herd of kids, one of whom was increasingly feeling his oats.
I didn't want to mother-hen him. But henpecking was so tantalizing. If only I could feel in CONTROL again without demeaning my budding drill sergeant.
I'd Never Dreamed It Would Be Like This
I’d thought teaching my own kids all the way through, like a one-room schoolhouse of yore with me as the teacher year after year, would translate into a well-oiled machine of simple expectations and rich learning.
Reality felt more like skidding into a Mack Truck with an alpha male glare.
I hammered out my frustration through the keyboard to God’s ears. As always, the act of unloading my cares on the One who cares for me relaxed my tension and I got up, certain God would fix “my son’s” problem.
Thirty minutes later, out of nowhere, my husband popped the question.
“What do you think about sending DA to school?”
Cue the ice bucket.
Before I could answer, the peace that had rescued my freaking out earlier that morning washed over me. All those specifics I’d begged God to fix replayed in the background as I mutely nodded.
Fear not. I am.
He went on to tell me about a conversation with a friend who’d mentioned how weird it was that homeschoolers don’t seem to ever go into ministry. At least none he knew of.
Not that everybody has to, of course. Not that all work isn’t ministry. Not that everyone can’t serve. But my husband had been mulling it over. Not a single one giving their life to serve the local church fulltime? Why?
(Not that I don't know of plenty homeschoolers who serve God, not many full time, but anyway. Just saying. This was how the conversation went that got my husband thinking.)
And so he asked me.
And I gulped and nodded.
And it has been wonderful. So very wonderful.
God prepared every single teacher, every single sport, every single classmate to transform my precious son into a new person. Every unpleasant struggle he’s been through the past year has blessed him.
God has shown me HE IS ENOUGH.
I am not.
And that's okay.
So about exactly a year later, my husband asked me again about our second son.
“What do you think about putting Jake in school this year?”
And that same wave of peace knocked on my heart, and I had to battle letting it sweep away the fear. But as I remembered how that peace that passes understanding has flowed in and filled all the cracks this past year, I relaxed and nodded.
I'll still have my little brood of six others to teach. So much I still have to learn. So much I need to teach. Suddenly I see how little time I really have.
And yet letting go has been wonderful. It's an answer to prayer.
And I believe. It shall be well.
He is with us alway.
Even through changes we didn't know we were ready for.
So how have you learned through change? Have you ever been tempted to feel like you failed when in reality it was just time to move to a new season? How did you handle it?