This year we put our oldest in school. Schools here are highly respected having been placed in the top 2% of the country by US News and World Report. Putting one into school opened the door to putting the rest in school. Every teacher has impressed us and the resources available are unusually good for such a small school district. There are also two excellent charter schools one offering a Montessori approach and the other an emphasis on the arts. The Protestant schools are not highly regarded, but the Catholic schools have students in Ivy League and other excellent institutions. If we could do whatever we wanted I'd put them all in Catholic schools, but that's not fair to the Protestant half of the family and it's very expensive.Homeschooling means that my house is always a bit messy. There is always a shortage of clean laundry, and I seldom have time to read something more serious than our history lesson for the day. Sometimes the messy house and lack of personal time become very discouraging. Sending everyone to school is a tempting solution to those problems. I finally just put it on my prayer list where all my most difficult challenges end up. Waiting to hear what God wanted, I kept looking around for what we as a family need.
And the thing we need most? To love and demonstrate love. We can live without clean laundry; we've been doing it for years. The kitchen floor can be a mosaic of spills; it's more interesting that way. But my children can't feel my arm around their shoulders unless I put it there, and as the Lord answered my prayers I became more comfortable with our life and the blessed imperfections it sustains. School is a great idea. I'm all for it, but it isn't the right fit for my younger ones, not yet.
1 comment:
Christine, I enjoy your writing. I write. Sort of a love/hate/love thing. Compelled; driven to submission. God does it. See it in yours.
Gonna use an excerpt of your "Arms" on Saturday to talk about true worship as the keynote of our "Stewards of Worship" workshop at our church. Hope you will approve. Will give proper credit. Goes like this: On our own we imagine and pursue an ideal; then rebuked, it comes to us - overcomes us - in the unexpected "weedy" places. Like Peter at the transfiguration, we are unable to make proper worship except that we follow Christ to the valley, become humble witness to his incomparable power, and there yield to a worship that he authors and perfects by his presence. Our worship is as far away as the most unattainable ideal; and so close as our arms around one another in prayer.
Thanks for the inspiration. Would enjoy corresponding from time to time. I'm on Facebook at Tom Sturch. God bless.
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