some ‘splainin

this picture of lauren has nothing to do with the post that follows.  it just feels strange to me to have an entry with no pictures.  plus, i love this girl.  so there’s that, too.

these are just some thoughts swirling around in my head these days and i figure if i write them down here, they might just stop swirling so much and let me sleep at 3 in the morning.

regarding schooling.

thought 1- we know and love families who homeschool their kids and have either done it all the way through or plan to go all the way through.  we call them the ‘lifers’.  and we love them.  we also know and love families who have done some combo of homeschooling/outside schooling.  they’re the ‘drop in-n-outs’.  we love them, too.  and finally, we know and love families who have always done outside schooling (be it either public or private), and their kids have managed to turn out okay, too.  and i don’t have a name for them, but we definitely love them, too.

so here’s the thing.  phil and i have never felt convicted that one way is better/more biblical than another way.  we have, however, made the decision to be open-minded about the many options and to give them an honest try and our best effort to see if it works for our family.

thought 2- i gave an honest try and best effort to keep everyone at home last year to see how that would work for our family.  with a first grader, kindergartener, preschooler, and nursing baby, i honestly felt overwhelmed and spread too thin.  and ultimately felt that i was not doing even an adequately good job at any one thing and feeling forever frustrated at myself.  and guilty over the bare basics mikey and allie were getting, or the many hours lauren was just getting completely ignored and overlooked, or the fleeting, precious baby moments i was missing out on with jonah.  i just couldn’t do and be everything i very much wanted to be.  so phil gently concluded that we should look at changing some things up for this coming year as much for my sake as for the rest of the family’s general well-being.

i have a good husband.  🙂

thought 3 (and this is the long one)- once upon a time, i was a painfully shy little girl who often had to be the new girl in school because her family moved around so dang much.  being the new girl was high on my list of terrifying experiences and i even now clearly remember those shaky feelings of dread upon entering a classroom, praying the teacher would be nice, trying to avoid the stares of the kids as they eyed and whispered about the new kid, and basically trying to be as invisible as i could to avoid any negative attention.  and i remember hoping that there would be just one nice little girl who might say hello and might ask me to play even if i was the new girl that nobody knew.  and that didn’t happen more times than it did.

and even when i wasn’t the new kid, i often felt like the one standing outside looking in and wishing i could just somehow fit in better and feel like i belonged.  to be honest, i still struggle with that to this day.  but even with all that, being at school felt safer to me than being at home.  because things at home were rough more times than they were calm and being at school offered some relief from that walking-on-eggshells feeling at home.

along the way, God did place some wonderful teachers, kind friends and their caring parents in my life just when i needed them most.  and i am grateful for each one to this day.  sometimes i wonder where i would be today were it not for just such a strategically placed person to offer a smile or an encouraging word to my scared and lonely self.  it gave me hope.

flash forward to my teaching days and there was a new little girl who showed up in my class who looked every bit as scared and forlorn as i used to feel and look myself.  her clothes were rumpled and stained.  she needed a bath.  the other kids in my class snickered and whispered.  and i came down HARD on them.  probably too hard.  i had a soft spot for this little girl and did what i could to help her, but often wasn’t sure how best to help.  and one day she asked if she could come and live with me.  i came home that day and cried.

i haven’t shared most of this with our kids yet.  i will one day.  but for now, i try to encourage them to look for the person who looks like he needs a friend and go BE his friend.  to offer that smile or say hello because you never know how God might use that.  God blessed our kiddos with lots of siblings so they’ve had lots of practice including one another and not leaving anyone behind.  i hope that follows them into other friendships they make as they get older and that they would make that extra effort to be that friendly face to someone who might need it.

that is why i do want our kids to be in public school.  to be on the lookout for the new girl.  or the boy nobody eats lunch with.  or the one always picked last for kickball (because that was me, too).

as our kids grow, i want them to always feel that our home is their home to open up to others.  mikey in particular, is very good at this and i am so thankful that God wired him that way.  i hope this continues and that their friends would feel welcomed and safe here.  because i remember very well the feeling of needing a place to go when home was the last place i wanted to be.

yet the mother bear in me worries for my kids.  part of me wants to keep them at home, safe, forever.  protected from the mean things kids might say and do, or unbiblical teaching, or negative influences.  i don’t want them to grow up too fast and too soon.  i want to teach them in the way they should go.  i want them to continue to have close relationships with me, their dad, and their siblings.

but i also realize that i am far too good at staying within my own safe, comfort zone among our church friends and homeschool groups.  and in so doing, might just miss that one kid who reminds me too much of my own kid self who needed a friend.  and i’m just not comfortable with that idea, either.

and so, we are going to take it year by year.  some years they all might be in school.  other years, they may all be home.  and there may be some in-n-out years in there, too.  and not all the decisions we make are going to be the right ones.  but i trust that God knows all of this and knows his plan for us and won’t let us down as we try and seek to honor him in the way we educate and teach our kids about the things that really matter.  in knowing Him, and loving His people.

we won’t do either perfectly.  a lot of times we’ll fail at teaching our kids to be compassionate and kind and patient because we aren’t being compassionate and kind and patient ourselves.  and a lot of times we might avoid reaching out to others because it’s not comfortable for us and doesn’t come naturally to do it.  but even so, i do hope we’ll keep trying as our kids are here watching us.

“the King will reply, ‘truly, i tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'”  -matthew 25:40