No Perfect Solution

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. -Anatole France

I told a friend a couple of weeks back that I wasn't sure if I was more thrilled after we had finished our first semester of homeschooling or after we had finished our first semester back in the school building. There were so many things to be thankful for about both. But the one thing I am thankful for in all of it is this:

That I was finally allowed peace and rest, and the knowledge that there is not a perfect way to raise and educate my children.

I am a broken individual with broken children, trying to choose what is best out of three broken systems (private, public and home school). And God allows me the choice.

Deuteronomy 6 applies to all three options in that I am to always take life opportunities to tell my children the Gospel. So, when they leave the house in the morning, I cover them in prayer. When they get in the car, I tell them I love them and then ask two questions: "What was your favorite part of the day?" and "What was the worst part of your day?" By asking those questions, many things are shared, and again, we are talking about the Gospel, and understanding that even negative encounters can be formative experiences. At night, we all eat together and share devotion. We play in the yard with the dog and see God's beauty in creation and in that 16-pound creature. Instead of throwing myself between them and every pain the world has to offer, I am stepping back and trusting God to mold and shape them through what I cannot stave off, even if I keep them locked away forever, because their own hearts (and mine) contain the sin that wounds and scars.

A particular victory came about mid-semester when God allowed me to see that in choosing private school, I do not have to take a stance as "pro-private school". I no longer consider myself pro-anything (other than pro-whatever-is-best-for-the-particular-family), because to stand on that hill is to say that everyone in this world should be choosing my path. In that, I am trying to hold myself up as the example rather than holding up Christ -- that is not the Gospel. I see families around me using private school and public school and home school for wonderful, thoughtful, glorifying-to-God reasons. And I see families around me using those institutions for what seem to be selfish and shallow reasons. And yet our gracious God, in all of it, will be glorified!

Another victory was in realizing that I don't have to be a home school mama to be a mama that wants her children to learn much in all of life. School is a part of it, home and church are parts of it. It's all formative and I can still take the kids on field trips, read good books and do art with them. School is not enough. It wasn't enough when they were home but I was so exhausted from being in school mode that by the time lessons were done, I was drained and they were off to play on their own. Our family has found, for us, the most well-rounded solution we could. That is subject to change, but today, we are so thankful that God has us in this place.

So, we are now into summer and we will read, and play, and swim, and learn together. Next year, Carter starts 4th grade and Addie starts 5K, and I cannot believe it! Life is quite different, but our relationships are really not much different than they used to be, except that we all have the time to develop individually as well as together. I am thankful for that. And through it all, we have grown even closer. Where my fear was that we would fall apart, we seem to love each other more deeply through the struggles that we went through in going back to school.

These things are never easy, but, they are good.

Addie and her precious preschool teacher Mrs. Mary on pajama day.

Carter's class at their end of the year party. Carter is second from the left in the front row. Left of him is Calvin, the precious friend God gave to him this year. He is an answer to prayer!