It has been only a month, now, since the day I would have begun my ninth year as a homeschooling mom. Instead, I saw my fourth daughter off to school that week. It's a very good school, all things considered, but it still strays far from the path I set for our family years ago. I don't think I can describe my sense of loss that day and especially not how I felt two weeks earlier, when I first learned she would get into the school. This end result isn't what I envisioned when I first began to love homeschooling. I had found it, I thought. Outside of my ideal scenario of a Latin-classical Catholic school, I felt I had found the best way to educate my kids through graduation, and I knew I was blessed to be able to do it.
So now I sit here at my desk, still a little dumbstruck and wondering, "What happened?" How did we end up right back where we started? So many families make it work and with more kids than we have. How is that I couldn't? Looking deeper into my memory, I can see that the odds were against us from the start. From bad decisions to financial limitations to severe time constraints to simple exhaustion, the cards betting against me were laid down from year one, and I never could turn my luck.
But I sure tried.
I believe in being a nosy parent for as long as my kids are under my roof. I am committed to working with my husband to shape them into strong, godly, well-educated adults. With that in mind, I still believe that short of sending them my ideal kind of school (which isn't possible for us), homeschooling is the best way to do that. Sometimes, though, the course we set for ourselves doesn't turn out to be the one God has in mind for us. Sometimes he points out another path He would rather us take, and while taking the new path may not make much sense to us, He just asks us to accept and trust Him. The main thing that helps me do this is the certain knowledge that I really did do my best in this whole adventure. At times when I look back, I can't help but feeling like I am just a failure, but deep inside God reassures me that I'm not.
That doesn't mean I didn't make mistakes and don't have regrets. I did and I do. If I were to go back, I would do a lot of things differently, and maybe then I would still be homeschooling today. When I step back to look at the big picture, though, I have to say that I doubt it. The biggest obstacles I faced, the ones that decided our final direction, were beyond my control. While I grieve and second-guess this change in our lives, then, what I feel most clearly is resignation and a kind of sulky peace. I did the best I could, and that's all God asked of me. That's all He ever asks of all of us. Now He asks me to walk this new path with faith and a cheerful heart. I know He will help me do that, too.
So now I sit here at my desk, still a little dumbstruck and wondering, "What happened?" How did we end up right back where we started? So many families make it work and with more kids than we have. How is that I couldn't? Looking deeper into my memory, I can see that the odds were against us from the start. From bad decisions to financial limitations to severe time constraints to simple exhaustion, the cards betting against me were laid down from year one, and I never could turn my luck.
But I sure tried.
I believe in being a nosy parent for as long as my kids are under my roof. I am committed to working with my husband to shape them into strong, godly, well-educated adults. With that in mind, I still believe that short of sending them my ideal kind of school (which isn't possible for us), homeschooling is the best way to do that. Sometimes, though, the course we set for ourselves doesn't turn out to be the one God has in mind for us. Sometimes he points out another path He would rather us take, and while taking the new path may not make much sense to us, He just asks us to accept and trust Him. The main thing that helps me do this is the certain knowledge that I really did do my best in this whole adventure. At times when I look back, I can't help but feeling like I am just a failure, but deep inside God reassures me that I'm not.
That doesn't mean I didn't make mistakes and don't have regrets. I did and I do. If I were to go back, I would do a lot of things differently, and maybe then I would still be homeschooling today. When I step back to look at the big picture, though, I have to say that I doubt it. The biggest obstacles I faced, the ones that decided our final direction, were beyond my control. While I grieve and second-guess this change in our lives, then, what I feel most clearly is resignation and a kind of sulky peace. I did the best I could, and that's all God asked of me. That's all He ever asks of all of us. Now He asks me to walk this new path with faith and a cheerful heart. I know He will help me do that, too.
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