On the Eve of His Third Grade Year

I want to take time to journal tonight my perspective and feelings about starting homeschool with Joel tomorrow. No, it's not his first year ever doing this; kindergarten was. The following two years we put him in our little Christian school for reasons we sensed were either from God or okay with God. By "okay with God" I don't mean to sound casual, but I mean I don't think God sets in stone words like, "Thou shalt send your child to this school or that school or home school." Rather, he gives us choices and confirmations of those choices, and grace to make changes or accept the imperfections that ultimately accompany any choice in this fallen world.

Normally by mid-August I am starting to feel excited to school, and by late August ready to buy school supplies, organize the bookcases, plan out my year in general and my first few weeks in detail. This year none of that has appealed to me. Tonight I confess we have bought no new supplies; we either have plenty of everything or I'll pick it up when I discover the need. I just have no desire to buy supplies for the sake of "back to school." I have not completely dealt with the school bookcase in the kitchen. Maybe tonight I'll get a burst of energy? In fact, I don't even have all of my books from Amazon. A backorder is really holding things up, but I don't really care. We have the essentials. As for the year plan, I know where we're headed, but I bought a curriculum that makes weekly planning a cinch. All I have to do is write in page numbers for some of the subjects. No trying to figure out how many pages of geography or science each week; someone else has done the thinking and the planning, and for that I think our money for a "packaged curriculum" was well spent. I'm okay with tweaking; I'm not okay with reinventing the proverbial wheel in the name of having a custom curriculum for my child. Been there, done that.

The most accurate feeling I can describe right now is mild depression. I'm neither gung-ho nor sad, neither chomping-at-the-bit nor dragging my heels. I think I've grieved sufficiently for the job I had and loved at the school. I do believe God has called us to homeschool this year. But my heart is just not in it.

Good advice to heed is "Do the actions, and the feelings will follow." That has helped me in a number of practical ways. When I don't "feel like" cleaning but know I must, I pull out the Pine-Sol and wipe down some counters. The smells get my Inner Cleaning Lady revved up. When I don't feel like cooking dinner, I often have to flip through pictures in cookbooks to get me going. And now, since I don't feel like starting homeschool, I will just launch in tomorrow, subject by subject, praying first and trusting God's faithfulness to bring joy to my heart so that school will be a pleasure, and not simply a duty.

I am choosing to pray a benediction, actually, on the eve of this year my baby starts third grade.

Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that ye ask or even think, according the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations forever and ever. Amen.