Let me tell you about a school year that didn’t go as planned. A school year that felt like a failure by my own standards… a school year where God did big work in and for our family- in ways we never saw coming and in things we don’t even know where they are going. A year when all of our faith was tested and grown…a year where God and His ability to provide time and time again became real in huge, tangible ways.
Last May as I planned for the 2021/2022 school year, we knew a move may be in the cards but we had decided to not “hold back” in waiting any longer and to proceed as if we were not going to be moving. The year prior we thought we *knew* God was going to move us, so I planned a lighter year, a year that could move easily and then it never came. So this year I decided I just needed to plan our big 3 year American History Unit Studies and just do it. Well, in typical “God’s ways are higher than ours” style, 4 weeks into our school year, God said “go”. So we packed up our lives and school as best as we could and went.
What we thought would be a few months in an RV turned into 6 and our plans in all areas did not come to pass because God had other plans. As we moved again in April, I was determined to “finish” strong but due to all the stress and upheaval and a 3rd impending move within 3 weeks, we called school done in an “unfinished” way. Oh I held so much regret and mom guilt for our ending and our year. I had lost my passion for homeschooling because the fun was taken away from me and because my scheduled, routined life was upended, but I couldn’t take another step further in the journey we were on, with the stress of finishing school. So we stopped and a weight was lifted and through my mom-guilt, with the help of my dear homeschool mama friends, I was reminded of all the life skills our kids had learned this year. We learned to live in tight quarters, we learned to trust God in ALL things, we learned to pray and listen for the voice of God, they learned how to grocery shop, budget, do laundry at the laundry mat and all about Tennessee birds. They learned to build relationships with new people, in a whole new place and they learned to love and care for each other when they didn’t want to and space wasn’t available to escape. And we learned to do hard things when we didn’t want to do them.
While the year didn’t go ANYTHING like I had planned and nothing like a typical year looks like, I see so much growth in each one of us and I praise God for the work He has done!
If you have had a homeschool year that hasn’t looked like you wanted it to, where some life event “stole” your normal away, I’d encourage you to look beyond the books and plans and curriculum and see the growth God has done in all of you this year in ways you didn’t even see coming! We may have the scars and bruises from the year we endured but we are still pressing in and pressing on.
