The Unanswered Cry: Understanding Suffering

He walks like a little old man; a limp in his gait and a hitch of his pants. He smiles with no front teeth and looks through me. His eyes beautiful with pain.

He is only five.

His mother is gone. Words like abandoned and abused swirl around him.

He came to our school with confidence and swagger. He sat down in a group of suspicious, newly met children as if they were not there and listened to storytime with curiosity and delight.

He liked us.

Unbelievably, he wanted to return to this unknown place with these unknown teachers and children. He was excited to join us. We were captivated by his precocious comments. He was to be mine for five hours a day, five days a week. Mine to watch over and instruct.
I was to be his teacher; he was to be my student.

I learned quickly that he loved the songs, stories, paints, playdo, and learning of preschool. But he did not like change. Do not move his seat. Do not switch the routine. Do not take his favorite car, dress-up uniform, book, or stuffed animal. He does not share. And he does not transition until he is good and ready.

And Oh… the meltdowns.

“This is RE-DIC-A-LIS!” He would scream.

“Miz Cath-room, You’re not the boss of me!”

“I will MAKE you let me”

Sometimes the firestorms would end in him being talked off the ledge by me, in my best calm low teacher voice saying, “Buddy… in our classroom we share with our friends…Sweetie, we must clean up the markers so we can have story time… We don’t talk to teachers like that… 
I am here to keep you safe, buddy…
You are going to be ok.”

Sometimes his screaming was too much for the other children to take and he had to leave our classroom to be comforted and confronted by another teacher. But he always came back repentant, “Miz Cathroom Im sorry I yelled at you"

"I love you Miz Cathroom”

He was always forgiven. Before he even asked.

Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of that broken part he usually kept hidden behind rage and indignation.

It had been a tough day and honestly a difficult week for little man. He was angry. Angry in a deep, deep place in his heart. He clutched at control like a drowning man. He argued with me over everything and became angry with himself at each simple mistake he made.

“Oh, NO! I messed up the ‘S’ again!” he yelled as he struggled to write his name.

“Well, Buddy we can start over…”

“NO, We CAN’T! It’s RUINED!” and sobs of frustration ensued.

After a devastating meltdown as we were leaving the gym, (he was admonished for pushing a friend out of line in anger) we came back to class to eat lunch.

Lunch always took him longer because of his lack of teeth. As he finished up, a child brought out a ball and he was drawn to it like a magnet.

He loves balls and sports with a passion. It almost hurts me to help him put his custom made braces on each ankle. I think it’s the footballs and baseballs and basketballs that decorate the braces that tug at my heart strings most. Almost mocking his love of sports as they try to wrench his twisted legs straight.

So he got up from the table to chase after that ball. Another child jockeyed for a chance to grab it and as they collided, he fell.

He falls often, what with the braces and all, but this time it really hurt.

I went to him quickly. I tried to assess his hurts.

“What happened, buddy? Where does it hurt? Can you show me?”

I looked into his face, wretched with pain. No answer, only screams.

I knew he needed to be held. Just held. As I wrapped him in my arms and drew his head to my shoulder his crying cranked up, louder and louder. I began to simply stroke his head and croon, “It’s going to be ok, buddy. It’s going to be alright.”

That’s when it happened.

His crying turned from temper and tempest. He began to cry from a new place; a place buried way down deep. It changed from a cry caused by a bump on the head into a wail that called forth the pain that had laid itself down within his soul.

 Everything in me stopped as I knew this wasn’t tantrum, this was suffering.

 I heard the whisper of the sweet Spirit of God in my ear,

” This is the cry of the infant. This is the cry that always went unanswered”

Tears clouded my sight as I pulled him closer and rocked my body with the ancient mother’s rock. I wanted with my whole everything to heal his wounds with that embrace. I felt so much frustration at the injustice that puts that kind of pain and misery inside such a tiny heart. In the presence of such grief I could only respond with a hug?...A caress?...A kiss on the head? I felt so impotent in the face of such unveiled emotion.

 I said with doubt and conviction,

“It’s going to be alright.”

Slowly his body relaxed and his head fell, heavy on my heart. His sobs slowed and his breathing began to smooth out.

I pulled him from my arms to look into his eyes. Tear soaked, he nodded his head with strength that I could not understand, and stood up and said,

“Im ok now.”

Oh, sweet brave boy I want that for you with all my heart. Be ok.

If I did not understand the grace that grows from suffering; if I did not know in my inmost heart that God’s redemption lives and flourishes within pain, I don’t think I could bear seeing this child’s struggle.

Pain can be redeemed. 
Even pain inflicted on the most undeserving innocent soul.

There is a mystery that Christians don’t talk about. We know we can’t understand everything God knows and gives us. We do know we have unmerited grace that forgives everything. We do know we have joy that supersedes our circumstances. We do know we have wisdom that could never be contained in a classroom or a book. But the mystery that haunts us is the mystery of suffering. 
Why in God’s name do the innocent suffer? Why does injustice seem to prevail?

Paul tries to unravel this idea when he wrote to the Philippians. He saw the way the power of resurrection was inextricably wound around suffering. He saw that resurrection is not only for the end of life but also the beginning and middle.

He writes, “ I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” Philippians 3:10

I want.

I strive and long for power, he writes.

Don’t we all?

Especially this power he refers to: the power of resurrection. The power to rise up, to rise up from death and to live eternally with the Lord. Paul implies even more meaning than we can understand in English to the word resurrection. He doesn't simply write resurrection with this meaning: Anastasis from ana = up, again + histemi = to cause to stand. Instead he writes  ξανάστασις  ex-anastasis  or “out-rising- up”. And that little bit changes everything.
The way I see it Paul is reaching for more than the assurance that his body will someday rise up to meet God but that he will know now the rising up… the coming out… of resurrection. The moving out of sin life and the agony it is to continue to live in it. It is a chance to live out for Christ in wholeness and peace from today until I am in a resident of Heaven.

But how can one attain that power?

Through suffering.

I know no one likes to think like that but I didn’t write it first.

Paul did. Jesus did. God did.

The mystery that is suffering can release such power in a life for good or devastation. It can wrench the joy and compassion completely away from a life bowed down by pain or it can hold that drowning soul aloft like a life boat. A life yielded to God’s will, and obedient to suffering will attain resurrection, escape from death into life.

I am not glorifying suffering or saying you should, like The Scarlet Letter’s  Rev.Dimmesdale, create or sustain suffering in order to be closer to God. I am only trying to crack open God’s Word and gain some understanding into that cry of desolation and loss I heard from that sweet child’s mouth.

What I glean from this passage is that Paul himself struggled with this. His vulnerable “somehow” leaves the door open for us to see his very human like desire to be free of pain and his very sacred cry to be more like Christ.

 It is a fathomable and intangible mystery.

It is like this: it's through refining that rough materials are brought to their purest state. It is through desolate wild fires that new life is brought to the wilderness.  The problem is that we run from pain and we rebuke disease and distress and discontent. We aren't willing to lay ourselves down in suffering as Christ did. We distance ourselves from pain and grief. It is uncomfortable to think about babies being abandoned, abused, and calculatingly debased over and over. We like to throw money at words like orphans, genocide, sex slave trade, foster children, and addicts.

Suffering won’t be your sacrament unless it is lived and touched and felt.

But we cant live it. It isn’t Christian to suffer.

We have this unspoken code as Christians: we won’t say that we are judging you if your life is suddenly in chaos… but we wonder if somehow… maybe… you deserve it. We view suffering as ungodly and just. We have compassion on your pain but we tremble a little as we wonder if our sins will find us out too.

I have come to the conclusion that I welcome whatever God may bring to me. After some very great pain in my own life I have come to call for that Out- Resurrection with all my heart. I long for not only His unspeakable joy but also His sufferings. I want to not only see the pain of a street kid but touch her hand and walk beside her as she finds God’s grace. I want to lean in and smell the decay of cancer and hold that soul through the valley of the shadow. 

I want to daily reassure a five year old boy that he is loved and wanted and heard, no matter how much he screams.

Why?

Because I want to suffer?  Because I want pain?

No, I cower away from it just like you do. But I do want know Him and the power of His resurrection. To be more like Him. And I know I can trust Him with my everything.

I long for more Jesus every day.

Really, what more is there?

The Weight of Glory and Pianos

I’ve been thinking about Glory today.

God's glory specifically. The Bible talks about the glory of God and how awesome it is. But it also speaks of our role in it. We are called to glorify Him. To bring Him glory.

We cry out,

“Not to us, Lord, not to us

but to your name be the glory,

because of your love and faithfulness.” Psalm 115: 1

The Hebrew word for glory is Kabod and it implies weight or heaviness. 

Psalm 24:8 says

“Who is this King of glory?
    The Lord strong and mighty,
    the Lord mighty in battle.”

It is hinting at His strength and power. But do we really see the connection?

A very intangible idea, Glory, defined by something we experience everyday, weight.

How can we understand it?

I was thinking about pianos.

I have had three pianos in my home over the past few years and I can tell you that they are the definition of HEAVY. Moving a piano must first be done with respect to the size and value of the instrument. Every move must be thought through in advance. You must plan carefully what you will do in conjunction with the many others you have wisely recruited to help you move this behemoth.

 If you don’t you will pay the price.

And the chiropractor.

Then the time comes when everyone moves in concert with the agreed upon plan. They work together and the giant is relocated. The music can begin.

So, I think God's glory or the weight of His person,

His reputation,

His essence,

is also a thing to be treated with respect. 

We, as His people, must consider His greatness before we move on His behalf.

Stop and think it through. Seek His plan. Is our move in ministry His will or our impatience to get things done? Our struggle to move His hand?

We must weigh our actions and attempt to foresee the implications. If God has called us, He has a specific plan. Steps are laid out in His time and Wisdom. We must seek the strategy He has already thought through.

And we must remember to work in tandem with others in the body in order to make the most progress with the least difficulty. It may seem easier to just go and do it ourself but that is almost never His plan. He calls us “members of the Body” for a specific reason; we need each other to work His will, to His glory.

Because isn’t that what we are striving for? To bring Him glory?

To make His name great?

Big?

Large?

Heavy?

Important?

Awesome?

Mighty?

Come let us glorify His name together. 

Just One More Story

He walks with a heavy step now. Feet clad in thick boots.

He hurries in from work,

from college

from Academy.

He was riding the motorcycle or driving the giant truck.

He has been out… late.

With friends.

With “the” girl.

He is a man now.

I look at him, his deep voice telling me stories of people I have never met: his friends, coworkers. His excitement as he talks about plans for his future job, wife, family.

And sometimes I think. Who are you?

I am living with a strange man whom I hardly know.

Where is my little boy?

Where is my baby boy?

The first time I heard “it’s a boy” was just a few minutes ago wasn’t it? The sweet tiny creature who looked at me for the first time like he was looking into my soul; like we had known each other for forever. We cuddled together like sleeping puppies. Inseparable. I knew every breath, every sound. In a crowded room his eyes looked for mine every time. I got the slippery bath time hugs. I shared each new taste each new touch with him.

And it was my hand he let go of when he walked away from me with those first few steps.

I held his dimpled fingers across the street, his first lost tooth, his gum in church, his dripping swim trunks. I oooh’ed and ah’ed over his castles and diving board jumps. I held on when he tried to ride on two wobbly wheels and he never knew when I let go and watched him coast away.

He built Legos, car tracks, rubber bugs, tents, and clubhouses. He made volcanoes and alien masks. He laughed until I thought the walls would burst with the joy of being a boy. Brothers were sent down stairs in laundry baskets and shot at with bb’s, spit wads, Nerf darts, and dirty socks. I insisted, “If you get scared or need anything call me I will come” as he drove away for his first night away from home.

If I could, I would like one thing:

I want one day back.

I want the last day he was still my little boy.

The last time he came to me with tears and a skinned knee.  The last day that I tucked him in at night and listened to him pray. The last time I held his sleepy head on my shoulder and rubbed his little back. The last time he cuddled on my lap for one more story. The last time he tore down the hall to open Christmas gifts.

Oh I want that day back.

Because I would treasure every minute. I would hold him a little longer. I would read another story or two. I would give him an extra cookie and a glass of chocolate milk. I would think about how swiftly the days pass and I would linger at the edge of sunset watching him reach higher and higher as he jumps and plays; knowing this tender sweet, immeasurable gift of a little boy is only mine for a short while.

And I would treasure it all the more. 

Breathless

As a girl I had a thing for trees. Their strength, dignity and steadfastness drew me to love them. When I was 8 we once again moved  to a place that had many old trees still standing amid the apartments and city-ness. Often I would grab a book and somehow make my way 10, 12 even 15 feet up these trees. I would then snuggle down in a barky crotch of branches and read away the day.

One day I was just goofing around in a very big fellow, not really thinking, just swinging around from trunk to branch when my grip slipped, my legs failed and I began to fall. About 8 feet. Straight down.

Oooof.

I landed flat on my back.

Hard.

 I remember lying there looking up at the benign branches thinking,

“I will never ever breathe again”

When suddenly I gasped and sucked in air, only to realize I was still alive but

my… everything… hurt.

A lot.

I rolled over gasping in breaths of crunchy leaves and knowing I was not going to tell anyone about this. Thankfully no one was around and I could just be still and wait for the pain to leave while I concentrated on breathing again.

Have you ever been there?

Maybe you didn’t fall out of a tree but you know that feeling. The pain covering you like a wave and the very life breath sucked out of you. Perhaps for you it was a more grown up injury, a car accident or an illness. Maybe it wasn’t your health at all but your heart that was wounded.

Pierced.

Sucker punched.

You know the feeling.

You just can’t breathe.

I have had some tough times in my life; from the minute I was born the odds were not in my favor. As a child I lived through divorced parents, family strife, moving every year (or more often). I felt unwanted, forgotten, discounted. I heard and saw some tough things. As I matured and grew older I realized it really was pretty rotten. I went to counseling. I cried and I moaned to people about the terrible things I had to live through. But I kept on living. I kept on moving through life, having some pretty good times too, adding amazing new people to my life. Good memories began to happen. I had come to know Jesus in my young adult years and I would find some comfort from my faith but I couldn't let myself be really happy. I kept going back to the sadness. I just knew that no one understood pain like I did. No one. I had this relationship with God that was strange. I learned as much as I could about Him but it just couldn't penetrate the hurt. I could tell anyone who He was and how he saved me but I still couldn't understand the painful memories.

Finally one day I fell out of the tree.

I knew things in my life were wrong. Not just bad but wrong. Relationships were speeding out of control and I was caving in under it all. The family I had built, the marriage I had worked so hard for, all came loose around me. My life was unalterably changed. The damage had been done. Life as I knew it was over.

As I sat on the folding chair in the empty church building my marriage, my family and my life began to slide out of my grasp. My grip slipped, my legs failed and I began to fall.

About 100 feet.

Straight down.

As I opened my eyes the next morning I couldn’t breathe. The pain came in like a flame, searing me.  I lay there looking up at the ceiling thinking,

“I will never ever breathe again”

When suddenly I gasped and sucked in air, only to realize I was still alive but

my… everything… hurt.

More than anything ever hurt before.

I really didn't care if I did ever breathe again. It hurt too much. 

I used to think I knew pain and I was the best martyr in the world. But then it all came together as the insufficient way I knew God was colliding with the first real true pain I had ever known.

The God I had allowed in my life when I was younger, crying for myself, was one who loved and was powerful in a distant divorced dad kind of way. I knew about Him. And He took care of my needs but He was a voice on the phone. He was a check in the mail. I could get angry with Him. I could distance myself from Him.

 But when my life was blown out of my hands like sand. When I knew I could never breathe again. When the pain crushed my wisdom, my soul. I opened my eyes to find Him near. As I had done before I wanted to hide and keep the shame and fear contained. But He pursued me like a hound from Heaven. He gathered me up until His arms became solid beneath my head and His touch wiped my tears, His breath breathed inside my lungs. He became so tangible I thought some nights that I was crazy to feel the Creator of the Universe rocking me to sleep.

 I certainly am no Job. I did not live through even half of his calamity. But I understand his incredulity as he finally sees his pain for what it is; when he finally sees His God. And He cries out,

                        “I admit I once lived by rumors of you; 

                        now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!
                        I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise!
                        I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.” Job 42:1-6 The Message

 For those of you who have fallen. I pray you will let Him catch you up in healing and be your breath. The real Father Daughter relationship I have now with God could never ever have existed without the fall. And in breaths of humility I am now living the end of the book and looking one day to say God blessed the latter part of my life more than the former. 

Link to Job 42: 1-6

Shopping Carts

So, it is raining.

Again.

I have been driving since 8:30 this morning; it is almost 5 and I am not done yet. I pulled into the grocery store parking lot and hesitate to get out of the car. I am tired.

Body tired.

Brain tired.

Heart tired

Spirit tired.

I sit looking out through the rain drops at the cars and people shuffling by. The radio is softly playing. I ease the volume up. Hoping it will overcome the fear that screams at my mind.

“He is

jealous

for me.

Loves like a hurricane.

I am a tree.

Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy…” *

My mind slips along on the tender words as I gaze out of the spattered windshield.

I see him. He is old. I can’t see his face but I can see that he is slow, baggy denims and a jacket. Ball cap pulled down against the web-like threads of rain. He approaches the stand where people return their shopping cart when they cannot walk it the extra steps back to the store.

“When all of a sudden,

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,”

While I am filling with the words of this song I am watching this man. The worries are shut off now and life is unfolding in front of me.

He grabs a cart. It is linked to another. But he doesn’t pull them apart. He drags them both aside and places them outside to the right of the stand. He reaches back in for two more, pulls them out and sets them to the side with the first two, careful to keep them from rolling away. I frown in wonder. Why? I see as he turns around that he is not a store employee. He is an old man, anyone’s dad, uncle, grandfather.

Why is he doing this?

He reaches for the third time into the mash of abandoned dripping carts. He pulls out a smaller one and sets it to the right.

“how great Your affections are for me.”

Uninterrupted the lyrics trickle out of the speakers.

He has the small cart secured to the side and returns to the other larger ones that he removed to the right. He begins to slowly replace them into the stand. Careful to link them all together and to insure they are safely tucked in and out of traffic. He takes his small cart and begins to steadily walk into the store. Considerably more damp than when he began.

Meticulous. Intentional. Difficult…

Why go out of your way to do something so inconvenient? In the rain? Surely no one would fault someone for being quick, maybe even a little careless in getting a silly shopping cart out. Leave it where it is. So what if it’s in the way of others. So what if you have made a jumble that someone else will have to clean up. Don’t worry about details. Do what gets you what you need.

What.

You. 

Need.

I am puzzling by this tableau I just witnessed. When my attention turns back to the radio and I am caressed by these words:

“Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.”

What is His Grace other than Deliberate Intentional Difficult Love.

Details that seem to not matter at all, matter to God. Love that is too good to be true is irrefutable by His small touch in the tender places.

Did it cost Him?

Was it inconvenient and messy?

Are you kidding?

Is love ever easy?

God held my heart for just a moment and kissed these words on it,

“I will take the time and difficulty it takes to love you”

He has loved us this way from the beginning of God. He is worthy of my trust of this love. The grace He gives is moving all the shopping carts it takes to get to me then peacefully putting everything back the way it should be.

How I long to be able to love like that. 

*David Crowder Band - How He Loves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCunuL58odQ

Thinking Hearts

So very learned are we in this still new millennium.

We know everything about everything. Or if we don’t we can always Google it. Or YouTube it.

Probably very soon our brains will start growing like aliens into big light bulb heads. I personally have two B.S. degrees bellying up to my dinner table with me. And I know half a dozen other people who are “in school” for higher degrees.

We are getting smarter.

I love learning and thirst for it like a hunting dog after the chase. But we are not only made of brains. We have sensitive fingertips, unquenchable eyes, and slamming fluttering, sometimes dancing hearts that also strive to be counted.

Hearts.

I have studied and learned that the heart is amazing.

A big pump that works as a blood factory.

Never ceasing to keep your body moving, your brain ticking along at warp speed. Mechanical.

Industrial.

Integral,

but even still Replaceable.

My big lug of a brother in law had a sick ticker. He was born with some ragged edges in his baby heart and now that he is knocking on middle age it was time for another repair.

He went in swinging. My sister was strong but if you looked real hard she was terrified of loosing him.

Cracking open someone’s ribcage and shutting down their heart is no small thing.

His giant chest lay open and exposed for hours. Her heart was also sliced open, waiting, for the jolt that would say, it’s over, everything is ok.

And he came through, like a champ. Amazingly he was home within 5 days. She said she laid her hand on his chest feeling for the old scattered reggae rhythm and was shocked to find it thumping like a high school band, steady and strong.

In our minds we knew the risk. The possible outcomes. The worst case. But what happened was not foreseeable. Completely wonderful quick recovery. And we gave all the credit to the manufacturer: God.

You see, God has this thing for hearts.

I believe he gave Russ special mercy because hearts are very very important to God.

He made them to work in ways that are far beyond the mystery of the brain. The heart is a wonder of mechanical craftsmanship in the way it functions even under duress as it did for Russ. But it is also so tender that it can be crushed by a whispered word and give up without looking back. You see the heart does more than just function as our power plant. It was created by God to hold His very whispers to our soul.

 In the amazing story which is recounted by neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall in his book The Heart’s Code, we learn of a little girl who received a donor heart from a murder victim. After the transplant she began having nightmares and was able, through sharing those detailed dreams with a counselor, to name places and events and eventually identify the murderer.

The heart knows things that the mind doesn’t. It is made to process things that your brain can never ever access rightfully.

God created this way for us to believe and know the mysteries of His glory. Not through our wondrous brain, but through our heart. Romans 10:10 says “For it is with your heart that you believe” Not your logic, or your wit or your reasoning. Your heart must believe.

Jesus assures us that the pure hearts will see God.

The work God treasures comes from your heart.

The music of praise to delight Him must begin in the heart.

The Law that God first gave was surely written on stones and later scrolls to be pondered and debated studied and memorized. But the true relationship with Him begins when His love steadies the very beat of our hearts.

You see, it is impossible to know God completely and be known by Him with our reasoning and our logic. He has a language that only your heart understands.

Sure, we know more now than we ever have. And so many great advances have been made based on that knowledge. But never ever let yourself be deceived into thinking that you can depend on your education to find the rest your soul longs for.

The knowledge your heart understands and your spirit craves is “written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart” 2 Corinthians 3:3

Treasures at the Kitchen Table

Twenty years ago I tucked a crying 5 week old baby in my lap, sat down beside my first grader and said, “Let’s practice writing your name”

We became homeschoolers.

We did school work in the kitchen. We did school work at the dining room table. We did school in the van, on vacation, at church, in the orthodontists office, at Granny’s, and even in mom’s bed in between bouts of morning sickness.

We learned phonics and look-say. We sounded out and guessed the words. We bought new books and used ones. Library trips often ended in math lessons on how many books one family could carry without breaking the book bag. We read about Wild Things and Runaway Bunnies. We read about Motorcycle riding Mice and Secret Gardens. We discovered British children who talked to Lions and little girls who traveled in wagons across the Prairie. Then we cried over Diaries and concentration camps and lawyers who defended the innocent and Mockingbirds.

We made volcanoes with kool-aid and baking soda lava. We made paper-mache puppets and masks. We counted real coins and tried our hand at selling toys for a profit. We watched sugar plum faeries dance and marched with revolutionary minute men.

We were awash in music. We played piano, guitar, and sang. Three children each taking piano lessons one day a week means 2 hours and 15 minutes of practice every single day. I still hear the echo of Christmas carols being plunked out. One. Note. At. A Time. We also began a kid’s praise band for the children’s church and then sang and played and led worship in the youth band at several churches.

 We worked to accomplish our minimum of 180 school days with a vengeance. We worked through colds and flu. I would wipe their brow give them a Tylenol and ask…Couldn’t you do just one more math problem? We worked through broken wrists, braces, concussions and torn tendons.

We worked hard. But we also took time to play. Every Christmas a blessed 3 ½ weeks of cookie making and gingerbread house assembling. We made paper chains and decorated every square inch of our little house.
Then when little sister came in October we took a baby vacation to make sure everyone got well acquainted before we got back to the books.
And Thank God for Summer Vacation!

We didn’t just sit around. We took swimming lessons and played soccer and football. We took dance lessons and horseback riding. We formed metal head banging bands and bible studies. We worked at church as leaders and mentors. We learned how to build robots and cardboard boats. We worked for Dad’s business and cut mom’s grass. We kept busy.

We made friends. We made friends at church,at field trips and in our neighborhood. We celebrated with a dozen girls at pony themed birthday parties and ran around the park dressed as pirates on a treasure hunt. Most of the kids who joined us for parties and sleepovers when they were 8 are still coming over to our house at 18.

Most of all we learned to love each other as a family.

The decision to begin homeschooling when the oldest was 5 and his baby brother was on the way was just as much about keeping brothers together as getting a better education. I will never forget the little one pulling up on his toes to join his big “Bubby” at his piano practice. Or the way lessons would stop if the boys heard their little sister start to cry from the next room. Every one of us celebrated teeth that were lost and first wobbly steps that were taken. Piano practices that were difficult were made easier by a big brother’s patient explanation. Ribbons won at a horse show, tackles at football games and talent show band performances always brought a minimum of 4 others screaming their approval, cheering the other kid on.

I am beginning my baby’s Senior year of high school tomorrow. Probably will be my last year as a homeschool mom. I am excited for her but pretty sad that this season is ending.

I do clearly remember the days when I would look out the window and watch the big yellow school bus drive by and think…life could be sooo much easier if I just…
Or the days when I would grab the phone and slam the front door behind me as I called their dad and when he answered, burst out crying saying I just cant do this, it is too hard, they don’t listen to a thing I say…
The years when I had to write my own curriculum because our one income family just couldn’t afford another penny for school.
The “mom van” I drove
For. Ever.
It just wasn’t easy. But we were convinced that this was God’s passion and purpose for our children, our family. And so it became ours.

20 years later, I don’t have a career, a degree or a pension… but I have a treasure that moth and rust cannot destroy. I have three beautiful, smart, loving, amazing, God fearing homeschooled children. I am blessed.