I finally finished lesson planning today. With five days to go. I am so thankful, because that means I can take the kids to the beach tomorrow without lugging along a textbook. And I can relax and soak in the last few days of calm.
I am hoping (and praying, of course) that this year will be different. It almost wasn't. A month ago, I was on the verge of going crazy while lesson planning, because I was worried about my sophomore son not having a biology class and I wasn't sure how I was going to teach him second-year French while my freshman daughter is still in first-year. I would lie in bed at night and try to see the situation from all sides, working it like a puzzle, and fretting about the outcome if I should fail to find a solution.
Thank God for Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie. I had heard about this book from many of my homeschooling friends, and when I saw it on sale online, I grabbed it. 77 pages. I can do that, I thought. Maybe I'll get something from it.
Right off the bat, I found myself agreeing with Sarah wholeheartedly.
The heart of this book is about remembering what our true task really is, and then throwing ourselves in completely. Giving our all. The raising of children, the teaching of truth, the sharing of life, the nourishment of imagination, and the cultivating of wisdom: These are all His anyway; we are merely His servants.
Yep, that's me! And that's why I'm up at night worrying! So then, how do I rest?
Sarah answers that question in the next chapter.
Rest begins with acceptance. Or, perhaps more accurately, with surrender. There will always be more you can do. You will never complete tasks entirely, because just on the horizon is tomorrow, and tomorrow the to-do list starts anew. It is so exhausting–sometimes even demoralizing–to realize that our work in raising up and teaching our children is never really done. But we must remember that we were never intended to finish it.
The more I read, the more I realized my mistakes in the past year. I had let the pressure of "high school" change my goals in homeschooling. I was approaching my son's high school years like I had approached mine, where I had planned every step and every class to ensure that doors would be open to me. Like any good mother, I want to give my son every opportunity! But the reality is that I can never give my son every opportunity. There are not enough hours in the day, or money in my bank. And that was stressing me out.
I needed to learn to rest, and as Sarah writes, "rest begins with acceptance."
We can't really rest in God's care until we trust that He will indeed care for us. And that means I can't teach from rest unless I trust Him with my kids' education too. I am not meant to take on this task of teaching and raising my children in my own strength, and neither are you. We are, however, meant to recognize every facet of our day as coming from the hand of God. It all passed through His fingers first, and He uses it to make sure that we lean hard on Him.
And isn't that what I saw in my own education? I was accepted to UC Berkeley based on test scores and grades, not based on what they actually knew about me. If they had known me, they would have known that I was interested in education, and UC Berkeley would extinguish that fire in me. They also would have known that I wanted to perform music, and so would have recommended UC Irvine instead. But God, my Maker, who knows me through and through, helped me get accepted to UC Berkeley because it really was the perfect place for me to develop my musical talents. The small and unique music department at that school was exactly what I needed to flourish and grow, while the campus's atheistic atmosphere challenged my faith. God knew exactly what I needed.
And that is where I am now with my children's education. I stopped worrying about biology and French 2 for my son. I remembered that I am not teaching so that I can brandish my son's impressive transcript (and therefore prove that I am a capable educator), but that I am teaching to nurture a man. That means spending more time this year on reading and less on grammar workbooks. That means reviewing French 1 with him and cementing more of those tricky verb conjugations in his head. And it means enjoying my last three years with my oldest. And if somewhere down the line, he needs to take a year or two at a community college to meet a requirement for a specific university, so be it. It is not the end of the world. God knows exactly what my son needs, and I trust that He is the one directing his path.
I will end with Sarah's words.
It's important to remember that rest is not ease. This isn't idealism. It isn't simple and peaceful in the sense of being easy or gentle. Teaching from rest is meaningful learning and growth–but without the anxiety and frenzy so common in our day...Peace comes from recognizing that our real task is to wake up each day and get our marching orders from God. It comes from diligence to the work He hands us, but diligence infused with faith, with resting in a God's promises to guide and bless us.
To all you homeschooling parents out there, here's to another year of restful and fruitful learning!
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