There are days when I glory in being a homeschool family. When the sun is shining brightly and we're helping harvest carrots at the volunteer organic garden, or when we're enjoying time with friends at the beach, or when I watch one of my children understand something for the first time. Those are gems of days.
Then there are days when the headache at the back of my head pounds out a tempo mocking me and I wonder why it is again that I choose to do what someone else will do for free. Why do I choose to work on daily schedules and weekly lesson plans. Why do I spend hours choosing the right curriculum and then months implementing it when I could drop them at school and have blissful quiet hours in a house that stays clean until they come home.
Days when one child comes to me after nearly throwing up to tell me that she lied to me all week. That she had not in fact completed her work but had done part and then pretended it was done. When my youngest goes to her room in tears because the playdate didn't work out and she's miserable because she'd looked forward to it all day! Or when she wimpers, whines and cries because she doesn't want to do her reading, her handwriting, her whatever it is she was asked to do.
There are days when my home feels peaceful, calm and is a place I enjoy being. There are days when I wish I could just run away and start over in a new house and forget cleaning up and sorting through the old. Sometimes I am filled with contentment and peace and somedays I am wracked with doubt, worry, fear, and shame. Why don't I do a better job? Why can't I think of things ahead of time? Why don't I take the time to do it well? Why? Why? Why?
Well, because I'm not perfect. I am a work in progress. God has promised that He will complete the work He began in me. Just as He will complete the work he has begun in my children. HE will. Not me. I can't. Doesn't matter how well I lesson plan and present those lessons. HE is the one who will engineer my children's learning, growth, and being.
Today is one of those days when I need to grit my teeth, cry out to God, throw up my hands and let it go. It's just one of those days.
