(The cutest little picture of “ready – not ready for back to school”! Oh these two, I love them so!)
Last spring, I felt it coming. change. It was hanging in the air around my home like a thick unwanted fog that made decisions difficult to bring into focus. Moving forward almost impossible.
You probably know my oldest daughter has moved into high school this year. She’s a freshman, doing really, really well – and it is so exciting. All is well on that front. But the road from last spring to now – well, that wasn’t so easy.
When homeschooling, there are important plans to be made each year. While I try not to make these every day choices on our journey too monumental, it doesn’t change how it feels: enormous. That’s how it felt last spring when I was trying to figure out how to help Emily embark well into her high school career. And that was just the beginning. What about music lessons for Isaac? What about gymnastics, or soccer for Mackenzie? Cub scouts? The list of questions went on a mile long.
My work schedule does necessitate that we stay together for academics. Whether its a co-op, or classical conversations, we need to be away from home one day a week and no more, at least for this school year. So, on these terms – I put out a “fleece” (if you will) to see what God had for us.
As it turns out, it seemed God was pointing us to a Monday community of Classical Conversations that meets across town. You would think I was Gideon, how I kept setting out tests – “Are you sure it is this, God?” oh. okay. Wait, “Are you really sure?” You see, I wasn’t totally looking forward to starting my crew at a completely new community with complete strangers and different curriculum and all the other stuff that comes with change. But, with each of my tests, He just kept pointing me in the direction of “change” and “new” and “uncomfortable.”
sigh.
As the summer passed I became increasingly uneasy that I had made a huge error in my plans. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about backing out, even though I’d had so many clear answers from heaven, in response to my many fleeces.
One of my prayers over the summer was that all of my children would find a place to build strong friendships. I prayed this especially for my Isaac, who needs some friends to do “boy stuff” with, since he is with us girls all day long, all week long.
The week before our CC community began Isaac went to cub scouts on Monday night and met some new boys; he made a friend named Gaston. Several times over the week I heard Isaac mention Gaston, and plans to hang out with him the coming week at cub scouts on Monday night.
On the next Monday morning we drove across town to our new CC community for the first time with anxious hearts. We were heading to a new place, with new classrooms, new tutors, new faces and names to remember. You won’t believe who was sitting in Isaac’s class! Gaston! I thought Isaac was going to cry from excitement and relief.
I left his classroom with a few tears welling up, realizing that there are so many little moments like that this year, here at the beginning of our school year! The God of the universe is in control of the tiniest details, right down to making sure my son had a friend on his first day of CC. I couldn’t have pulled all of this together the way He has orchestrated it if I’d had years to plan it!
Sometimes my faith is tiny. Sometimes I just don’t believe He’s had time to note the specifics of my situation. But, I’m glad my level of faith does not correspond to how well my Heavenly Father cares for me and my little family. He holds us close no matter what.
I love how the Message reads in this passage from Colossians 1:
15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.
daily portion 