First Week Of School 2011

I've been waiting for this week for months now.  I'm usually the kind of mom who sort of whips my plans out of thin air just weeks prior to the start of the school year.  Yes, even after sixteen years.  Every March the wind seems to blow in with a great creative impetus for other mothers, causing them to begin ruminating over books and subjects.  As one turns to me and asks what I am doing next year, I am routinely caught by surprise.  July is absolutely the earliest you can expect me to even broach contemplation of the next year's academic endeavors.


However, for some reason ideas for this year began percolating back in March for me too!  I did my best to keep things on the back burner so we could finish out the year well and have a real summer, but I kept stirring those pots and checking on them as time went by.  I actually had at least half of it planned by July and felt quite satisfied with myself.  At least, I thought I did. Suddenly, one scenario evaporated, another boiled over, still others just tasted off and clearly needed seasoning adjustments.  And I was back to my old game plan of praying and pulling it together per usual.  Still, I came to it feeling a bit deflated after such a visionary start.


As a solid plan began taking shape, I remained non-plussed.  It didn't feel quite like the picture I had earlier imaginations of.  This would be fine, I contented myself.  What I found emerging was a certainty that although this was not my plan, it was His; and as such, it would be good.  GOOD in the way He makes things.  Of this I was sure, regardless of my misgivings.


We began this week.  The first day... well, although the girls enjoyed it, I know that they too felt something was different.  For myself, I can only describe it as spiritually oppressive.  At one point I actually went into my room and told Him, "I don't want to do this.  I don't mean just today.  I don't want to do this at all.  I really just want out."  I don't think I've ever felt quite like this in all my years of schooling - especially not on the first day!  Yet, I returned to my tasks and carried on.  He had my back.


I'm not sure just when, but at some point late in the day the darkness under which I'd stepped out and walked was gone.  As the light was fading outside in our unusually cool summer late afternoon, in our home it was the obscurity of my heart and mind that was giving way. He is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings grass from the earth.’*   


I don't understand all that is going on, but I do know this.  I wouldn't change a thing.


* II Samuel 23:4


Shared at Far Above Rubies, We Are That Family