Wise Words from Erica

Day nine­ty-eight liv­ing like campers; the chil­dren are stir crazy and moth­er has suc­cumbed to exhaus­tion. Just kid­ding. Well, kid­ding about me suc­cumb­ing to exhaus­tion. Our fam­i­ly moved this sum­mer and it was a move into a place that is under con­struc­tion. Change is hard in the best cir­cum­stances, but I’m glad to report that the biggest changes in our lives are not loca­tion and cre­ative water sources, but changes in atti­tude, patience, and contentment.

We start­ed this school year two weeks ago in the midst of un-orga­ni­za­tion, and so far, it’s actu­al­ly going okay. I have always been very orga­nized in our home­school, and the year has begun with an incred­i­ble lack of plan­ning. So we jumped in with both feet, and here we are two weeks lat­er, and the kids are learn­ing, despite my fran­tic paper-gath­er­ing and inter-library-loaning.

I’ve prob­a­bly writ­ten on this before, and I’ll prob­a­bly write about it for­ev­er, because the point is that as soon as I gaze admir­ing­ly at my neat lit­tle cas­cade of post-it notes mark­ing the care­ful­ly planned lessons and pat myself on the back, and then there is an inter­rup­tion in my school plans and they sink to the bot­tom of the out­house hole like my daughter’s pock­et knife, I’ll despair. But this year, when we get up for the day and. My kids ask what we’re doing for school today, and I tell them I’m not sure yet, I am thank­ful. Thank­ful that I have to sur­ren­der the school year to the Lord, and thank­ful that I am remind­ed that all those years that I did “have it all togeth­er”, He was still Lord over it.

Learn­ing is not con­tin­gent on Mom’s admin­is­tra­tive skills. Yes, we should work as unto the Lord, and put real effort into fas­cil­i­tat­ing a good school year, but give it always to God. Car­ry on.