“Why do you homeschool, Mrs. McCauley?” The
school principal’s gaze ignited and blazed a tunnel straight through to my
mother’s heart.
A thousand replies
flitted through my brain, but only one surfaced. “W-Well, because I enjoy my
children.”
Her blue eyes
softened to a tender gray. “Now, that’s the answer I wanted to hear. You’ve
passed my test.” Her mouth spread into a warm smile, and her heels clicked
away.
My children were
young, and I was clueless. Days filled with nature walks and finger painting diminished and academics became harder.
You will reach your bountiful blessing because of His faithfulness. Your land will yield the fruit of His bountiful harvest because of His grace.
How do you keep it
together when all your plans for a group activity end in chaos? The older my
children became the more difficult it was for me to enjoy them sometimes.
Like the day the table
was covered with individual laminated charts representing numbers one through
one hundred, homemade and colorful. Pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters, and
fifty cent pieces were neatly piled in small groups in the center of the table.
The kids and I would count, skip count, talk about money denominations, and
enjoy one of those shared times when work could be done as a group.
Then it started.
A squabble. A
complaint. A tattle.
Often when I’d try fun learning it would end in disaster. Frustrated,
I’d call the whole exercise off and send the children to do not so fun seatwork.
I had a faithful
heart to homeschool. I wanted to do it right. But at the end of the day—many
days—all that was leftover were honest conversations between God and me. My
energies were spent and my emotional coffers empty.
Especially when they
became teens and our family faced the challenges of outside influences and poor choices. Don’t kid yourself. They will make poor choices. Some more
than others. But it is the same with us all.
Many messages to homeschooling parents are aimed at teaching us to be yielded servants to our families, rather than the understanding that Jesus is the Ultimate One, who is faithful to bring the yield.
The opposite of my frustrated effort was grace. Grace. When
we’re frustrated, we’re trying to make something happen on our own. Grace does
not make us a debtor. Grace says the payment is paid in full. How to parent with
grace? Only by total abandonment.
Many messages to
homeschooling parents are aimed at teaching us to be yielded servants to our families, rather than the understanding
that Jesus is the Ultimate One, who is faithful to bring the yield.
Oh, from my earliest
days of homeschooling, I wanted to be faithful, but I couldn’t be faithful
enough. He is. I cannot be gracious enough. He is. I cannot always hold onto my
happiness, but He holds on to me.
The biggest remedy of
all for burnout is to grasp the understanding that you will never be enough for
your children. Oh, you want to be. Everything they say and do feels like a
reflection of your own personal worth. But in reality, that isn’t true. You are
imperfect and so are your children.
Ps.
85:12-13 (New Living Translating) says: “Yes, the Lord pours down his blessings. Our land will yield its bountiful harvest. Righteousness goes as a herald before Him,
preparing the way for his steps.”
Allow me to encourage
you. You will reach your bountiful blessing because of His faithfulness. Your land will yield the fruit of His bountiful
harvest because of His grace.
Verse thirteen speaks
of Jesus, the Righteous One, who will step in and save the day. He did.
And it doesn’t matter
how many mistakes you make or how many your children will make. If we’ve chosen
Him, He is enough.
When God Whispers
