Swimming Upstream While Blindfolded

Courtesy A. Hughes

It's that time of year again. Store aisles are crammed with back to school supplies. Retailers sell those at a frenzied pace so Christmas stock can prematurely fill the shelves again. In homes throughout the land, the air crackles with anticipation.

No matter what schooling option you embrace, this time of year lends itself to apprehension and re-evaluation. Will my child get 'the right' teacher? Has he or she lost gains made last year during summer downtime? How in the world am I going to navigate three carpool lines at the same time!

For the homeschooler, the questions have a different slant, but the categories of worry are universal. Will I be the teacher my child needs? Are we on track with what the rest of the world is doing, or should I be doing more faster? How in the world will I teach three children in three different grades and tend to a roaming toddler on the loose?

2012

In our home, we've begun the count down to graduation. As of today, five hundred thirty-seven to go. O.K. I've started the countdown. My 10^th grader is mostly oblivious and only cares about the number of hours left in today's school day.

I began to feel the future coming last year this time and panic rose. All I've been, maybe all I know how to be, is a homeschooling mom. When I am done, it will be who I've been for eighteen years.

This past week, I visited our local homeschooling supply store. Many years, it's been my home away from home. I count the former owners as my extended 'family'. The matriarch and I reminisced and commiserated. She has said goodbyes to so many as one family after another graduated their last. I will join those numbers. It is sad - that future I see coming.

I laughed about all the 'new stuff' I wouldn't get to explore and how my visits are few and far between now. I wondered aloud how it will feel when I don't have the answers to questions posed by those coming along behind me. Time moves on, and we move with it. I tell myself that's a good thing, but I am already in a race with time. I'm trying to redefine me before the inevitable gets here.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I think of you. For now, I am still in the trenches with you. Some days the trench is deeper than others, but I see the end of the ditch up ahead. I see you wrestling with an unknown future like blindfolded fish swimming upstream. I hear the questions echoing in your soul.

Am I smart enough? What if we've made the wrong decision, and everyone else is right? Maybe we should just throw in the towel and swim with the rest of the fish who know where they are going. When the future gets here, will my children thank me? Will I take a deep sigh of relief as I watch them fly, or will I drown in despair if they flounder to find their footing in an ever more fraidy cat world? Oh, the questions that haunt us are many as the voice of doubt courts our souls.

Some of us will, for compelling and appropriate reasons, alter the course of our schooling choices. Homeschoolers will join the ranks of the traditional schoolers. The naysayers who gasped in horror at the very thought of schooling at home will realize the choice is not so foreign after all. As parents, we will do the best we can as seasons of life change from one to another.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I think of all the years I wondered what you are wondering now. I think of all the days I fretted and worried. In my blindfolded state while floundering through uncharted waters, I held the hand of the one who knew the future before I knew my children. I reminded him I was schooling the gift he had given me to steward for only a season and cried out for him to perfect my feeble efforts. And now, I have a glimpse of what I could not see in my seasons of doubt and fear. The journey was worth it.

He is there in the midst of your indecision and fear. As this new school year begins, no matter what your schooling choice, remember: he will hold your hand. All you have to do is ask.
Psalm 32:8 (NIV) I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Courtesy B. Creasy 2010

Isaiah 30:21 (NIV) Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”