We Did It - A Year of Homeschooling

 We did it. 

Looking back to that first terrifying day of homeschooling in August, I’m not sure how we finished 37 weeks of school at home, but here we are. We did it. 

We fell into homeschooling at the last minute, completely unprepared, and grasping for dear life, holding onto the hope that this was where God was leading us for this season, with only the willingness to take the first wobbly step. Thank you, God! 

(You can read my post from the night before the first day of school here.)

With a 6 year-old, 4 year-old and 6 month-old in tow, it felt like we had jumped into the deep end but didn’t know how to swim, with all manner of flailing, sputtering, kicking and splashing.

These first few fragile weeks were consumed with taking it one day at a time, head down, treading water and focusing on not drowning. Every effort was spent trying to breathe.

It took TEN weeks (ten!!!) until we found a rhythm that worked for our family and we could finally come up for air. At last we could look around, see a glimpse of where we were going, and notice that where God was bringing us was, in fact, beautiful. 

Some days the homeschool water was choppy, and unexpected waves sent us sprawling and gasping for breath, but other days saw stillness, ease and growth.

Looking back on the many weeks and months of this year, I see now that the waves didn’t completely stop, and the water wasn’t always calm. But God taught us to swim. He equipped us, strengthened us, and gave us everything we needed for each day.

One of the verses we memorized this year was Psalm 145:13, "The Lord is trustworthy in all He promises and faithful in all He does."

God knew what this year would bring and what we would need so that He could accomplish His purposes, and so many great moments happened!

Here are a few:

-The oldest learned perseverance and grit, pushing herself to grow and rising up to every challenge, blossoming with a newfound confidence. She noticed many ways to spread joy to others through song and dance, giving thoughtful gifts, and notes/calls of encouragement.

-The middle came alive in her role as supportive side-kick and discovered passions for creating art and being Mommy’s sous-chef. She decided she wanted to follow Jesus for the rest of her life and has been sharing her sweet presence and comforting us all with hugs.

-The baby experienced every milestone surrounded by his biggest fans, and brought smiles to each day. He filled our home with cuddles, exploration and celebration.

-This mama learned at least as much as the littles did, learning to trust God with each day, surrendering the big-picture, and leaning into His steadiness. 

I’m so proud of my people and what was accomplished this year. What a joy it has been!

I say WE did it, because it wasn’t just myself as the teacher, or my 7 year-old as the student who accomplished so much this year. It was also the 5 year-old who supported and participated, learning independence and patience. It was the one year-old who found joy in being at the center of everything. It was the husband/father who adjusted to new roles and upheld the many emotions of his family. It was the grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins who helped, guest-taught school lessons and encouraged. It was the friends who listened, played and prayed.

We all did it. And I am so grateful. 

Now, we CELEBRATE!!

Secure Footing in Unstable Circumstances

I’ve managed to scrunch myself into a tiny wooden desk, perched on the hard, child-sized chair. This 80 year-old antique desk once belonged to my husband’s Aunt from her elementary school days, and it now lives in our home, in the corner off the kitchen by the washing machine. 

It’s an odd spot to have a children’s desk, yet this cozy corner offers just the right amount of privacy and still feels connected to the rest of the home. With three young children, our home is bustling with life and noise. That very thing I love about our family is the very thing that could cause friction this year when trying to follow through with our most recent plans to homeschool.

This is why I’m here at the tiny desk, ignoring the aches and pains of wrangling my body into this small, uncomfortable space - it’s the eve of the first day of school and I do not feel ready. 

I would have loved to have this work space finished, with the chalkboard hanging up instead of leaning against the closet door, and educationally inspirational things on the walls instead of the vacuum beside me. 

I would have loved to have felt in control of our situation by knowing the details of what to expect and how to do school at home, instead of feeling so unacquainted and unfamiliar. 

I would have loved to try homeschooling another year, when my youngest was older, instead of his infant self still being fully dependent on his Mama. 

But here we are. 

The circumstances of our world in pandemic right now and last-minute schooling decisions didn’t leave enough time to be fully ready. 

It’s that feeling of being unprepared that tempts me to not even try; to quit before I’ve even begun because my ideal, perfect place of having it all together does not exist. It feels like I’m beginning this school year unbalanced, standing on uneven ground, unable to get a secure foothold.

It’s interesting that these places and seasons we find ourselves in, or are directed into by God, leave us so rarely prepared that we think we must be doing something wrong. 

But what if it’s not wrong? What if God is allowing us to start off on sinking sand so we will desire instead to stand firm upon the rock? 

The Bible talks about what we are standing on, by referring to the foundation on which we build a house. It says the house built upon the sand will come crashing down in a storm from the rain and rising waters. Yet about the house built solidly upon the rock, it says this: “The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock” (Matthew 7:25).

Deuteronomy 32:4 says: “He [God] is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”

It seems as though the fate of the house, whether it will stand secure or come crashing down, does not depend on the house itself, but rather on the foundation upon which it stands.

This gives me tremendous hope, because the outcome of this school year at home, and the process along the way, is not dependent on how prepared I am tonight. It is dependent on whether I choose to stand on the Rock, and put my trust in who God is and what He is capable of. 

Though I am battling feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty, I can choose to act in confidence by seeking God and asking for Him to bring us joyfully through. 

If you are reading this, and are in a place of feeling not enough for your circumstances, be encouraged that a simple choice to seek God and stand upon Him as your foundation, can greatly change your course and outcome. 

When we are standing on the Rock, we are firm and secure.

Grow Our Grit

Everything is uncomfortable. Painfully uncomfortable, even. 

The mind-numbing boredom is inescapable.
The close quarters are suffocating.

The finances are tightly squeezed.

The fear and worry threaten peace.

The lack of distractions leaves a void.

The loneliness is hollow.
The unceasing kid questions are draining.

The future is unknown and out of our control. 

It is everything at once, tugging relentlessly, with no means of escaping, that constitutes the daily fight against discomfort.

And then add to that the heavy sadness of Easter celebrations spent in isolation. It is almost too much to bear in some moments.

The distractions of junk food, Netflix and FaceTime can only go so far, as they are poor substitutions for the way things were before.

Discomfort. That is our fight. Fighting to face it. Fighting to live alive in the midst of it. 

In my experience from the past month of COVID-19 isolation, things were satisfactory at the beginning with newness of circumstances and fresh adrenaline. As time dragged on, enduring got harder because the end is still out of sight. 

I have been at the point of tears on many occasions because the invisible ache is so painful and I can’t make it go away. Some days are tolerable, and some days I can't stand it. 

And yet this discomfort I feel pales in comparison to the burden of pain and sadness Jesus carried as He came triumphantly into Jerusalem, riding a donkey on Palm Sunday, knowing He had come to die. Or the loneliness He must have felt praying alone in the Garden of Gethsemane surrendering to the will of His Father. Or the anguish of crucifixion, knowing He could stop it at any moment, yet choosing to allow death because of His great love for us.

How did He do it???

And how do we face our intangible pain, the invisible enemy of discomfort, day after day?

It appears we are faced with a great choice: Either retreat in defeat, or lean in and take new ground.

When we lean in, we rise to the occasion. We prepare ourselves for what we are facing. We grow the muscle to fight back.

We grow our grit.

According to Merriam-Webster, grit means to have "firmness of mind or spirit; unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger".

Jesus had grit. He was able to stay the course, leaning into the discomfort, and literally creating life where there was none before.  He grew His grit by continuing to lean in when things got hard, instead of pulling away.

Like a muscle that is worked out increases in mass and strength, so does our grit and ability to endure increase when we continue to lean in and hold on.

Where there is discomfort, there is an opportunity for new growth.

In the stretching and pulling, new space is created for growth and new life.

To grow our muscles, we lean in to the burn and fatigue, resisting the urge to quit.
To grow our discipline, we lean in to what is good for us in the long run, saying no to the momentary feel-good option.

To grow our patience we lean in to the slowness of time, pushing back against forcing everything to happen immediately. 

To grow our faith we lean in to what God says is true, surrendering our fears and worries.

To grow our trust we lean in to the feeling of being out of control, letting God be in charge.

When we sit in that place of discomfort, we make room for new growth. Leaning in holds the space, making room for something new to occupy it. But we need the grit to hold on. 

In this time of certain discomfort, we have the unique opportunity to lean into whatever that discomfort is, growing our grit, and creating something new that we did not have before.

So what's it going to be?

For me, I am leaning into the feeling of being unsettled, restless, and unfulfilled, allowing God to make more room for Himself to satisfy my every longing and desire. And it is painful, because most of my ways of being fulfilled are not available right now. Many days result in frustration and frantic searching for something to satisfy.

But when I do lean in to God, there is new growth in Him.

Jesus knew His death on the cross was the ONLY way for us to be able to be with God today and for all of eternity. Jesus is the only way to eternal and abundant life.

 He had grit. And His grit gave us life.

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful." (Hebrews 10:23) 

While We Wait

Everyone I knew seemed to have a word for this new year: one word that would define their year and anchor them to their path. Focus. Joy. Hustle. Thrive. Bold. Fearless. 

All of these words demanded action, a change, a forward motion. So imagine my surprise when the one word that would not leave my mind was, WAIT. Umm excuse me, but that couldn’t be my word for this year. I don’t like waiting, I don’t want to wait, and that word completely contradicts all of the other positive, momentous words of my friends.

While the rest of the world pressed forward to achieve their goals, I would be sitting here, waiting. And waiting can seem like doing nothing.

And then the real fears swept in - why would God give me a word like WAIT? Why did I need to wait? What hard trial was around the corner that would demand I wait on God and not try to fix on my own? How painful and challenging would this season of waiting be?

I postponed accepting this word, hoping that the longer I waited a new word would come. But nothing did. I had asked God to give me a word that would be what I needed in this season of life, for this year. 

Just because I didn’t like the answer didn’t mean God had not given me one. 

So I wrote it down on paper: WAIT on the Lord. There was no going back now.

And then it happened - my fears of something bad and hard happening came true. On the night of January 17th, our (almost 13 year-old) niece Jasmine was diagnosed with Leukemia, and the waiting began. 

Waiting on tests to determine the type of Leukemia. Waiting on results to decide the course of treatment. Waiting on God to heal. Waiting on answers to questions that we might never know. Waiting for the sadness and fear to subside. Waiting to know how we can help because sitting here waiting is driving us crazy. 

This was exactly what I didn’t want, and yet here we were and we couldn’t change the circumstances. Our precious niece, the most kind, thoughtful and generous girl was sick. The girl my kids love the most, the one they look up to and try to be like, was sick. 

And we waited. 

As we waited, we prayed, because there was nothing else to do. But as we prayed, my perspective changed.

Perhaps God knew this was coming. Perhaps instead of punishing us with waiting, He was actually preparing us to be ready. Perhaps He was giving us a way to walk through this - with Him. 

These circumstances were coming and we couldn’t stop them. But if we have to wait anyway, waiting with God is far greater than waiting without Him. If I had chosen another word for this year instead, it would not have changed our circumstances, but I would have been less prepared to face this. 

It was interesting, the reaction of people when they heard the news: we all wanted to DO something, to help, to fix, to make better. And yet there was nothing physically to be done. 

The only thing left was to wait.

“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

“The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.” Ex 14:14

There is a battle to be won, but what if the war is waged not in the physical world, but in the things unseen?

Ephesians 6:10-18 gives some instruction:

Be strong in the Lord (vs. 10)

Put on the full armour of God (vs. 11)

Stand firm with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, and feet fitted with the gospel of peace. (vs. 14-15)

Take up the shield of faith (vs. 16)

Take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit (vs. 17)

And PRAY in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. (vs. 18) 

Waiting does not mean doing nothing. Waiting does not mean we are not apart of the battle. 

Waiting means praying and asking God do the work instead of us. 

And as we wait on God, we ask that you would join us in praying too, because we know He is working, we know He is healing and we know He can do far more than all we ask or imagine. 

The Waiting Game

I knew I would win because I always won; no one had beaten me. Pure confidence flowed through my veins as I fixed my eyes on the finish line and ran as fast as my feet would take me. I was queen of the 100-metre race and everyone in my elementary school knew it.

Growing up, I gravitated towards sports and positions that were based on speed: forward in soccer, winger in hockey, and anchor in track relay. I was good at sprinting because I could run hard for a short amount of time, but I shied away from activities that took too much time. 

When my sister-in-law Anita encouraged (forced) me to enter a 10km race with her a few years ago, there was not a single part of me that believed I could finish. I was a sprinter, not a long-distance runner. But I agreed to run on the condition that I would quit once it got too hard.

Similarly to running, I have been really good at sprinting in my spiritual life. I will trust God for a time, but if things aren’t going the way I thought, if God’s way seems too hard, or if He's just taking too long, I am often tempted to turn to something else to alleviate my discomfort. 

With endless quick-fixes at our fingertips, it can be so hard to wait on the Lord and trust His way and His timing.

Feeling empty and exhausted after a long day? Chocolate can help.

Mounting stress from too many demands? Escape and avoid through hours of Netflix.

Feeling disconnected from those closest to you? Put up a wall and seek fulfillment elsewhere.

These quick-fixes offer us comfort when we are feeling something unpleasant, but they do not take away our problems or cure our emptiness. 

Why not?

Perhaps that is because the comfort we are searching for cannot be found in something but only in someone.

And what if, by turning to everything else, we are turning away from the One who can bring us the comfort we are looking for?

Is our need to relieve compromising our ability to receive?

Life brings many seasons of struggle, discomfort and pain, and it can be hard to keep going. Jesus does not promise to give us easy, perfect lives, but He promises to be with us constantly, in the form of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our advocate – one who helps us, champions us, supports us, and upholds us.

When do you find it hardest to keep trusting and keep seeking God's way? 

The more uncomfortable I feel, the more I look for a way out. But God has never given me permission to quit, because He is everything I need to keep going. 

When we want to quit, we need more of Jesus. When we are uncomfortable, we need more of Jesus. When we can't see a way, we need more of Jesus. He will give us exactly what we need to keep running our race, because everything we need is found in Him. 

Jeremiah 29:12-13

“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

When we seek Him, we will find Him. It is only in His presence where we are given our daily bread – what we need for each and every day.

Over an hour into my 10km race, I found myself crossing the finish line. I had wanted to stop running many times throughout the race, but Anita wouldn’t let me. When I stopped, she grabbed my hand and told me to keep going. When I was exhausted, she told me we could do it.

Just like Anita encouraged me to keep running, the Holy Spirit is our encourager when we want to quit. Our community of fellow-runners are the ones who grab our hands and tell us to keep going.

Having endurance is hard, but let us be people who wait on the Lord. If we are in Christ, we are in this race with Jesus for the long-haul. So let this be your encouragement (and mine) today to keep running your race.

Keep trusting. Keep fixing your eyes. Keep abiding.

When you are tempted to turn to the quick-fix, remember that there is no fix like Jesus.

How Much Baggage is Too Much Baggage?

Hebrews 12:1-2
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith."

If you have a toddler, or have met one, you know that any simple task becomes instantly challenging with a little one in tow. So you might think my husband and I were brave (or crazy) for taking a trip last year to Louisiana with our two toddlers to visit family.

If only you could have seen us at the airport! Our baggage cart was piled higher than my husband could see over, so it took both of us to push and guide it. And our three year-old pushed our one year-old in the stroller.

I am one who likes (needs) to be prepared for any what if scenario that could potentially happen on the trip.

What if the kids dirty all of their clothes on the first day, the weather suddenly change while we're there, and the stroller and carrier aren't enough to transport the kids? Better pack twice as much stuff as we need, just to be safe.

It looked like we were moving to Louisiana, yet we were only visiting for a week. Perhaps we had too much baggage - certainly more than we needed!


The root of my fear when packing is often that if there were a need without a solution, it would reflect back on my inadequacy as a mom to care for my children.

Similarly to the excessive baggage I tote while travelling, I far too often shoulder needless baggage in my race of life.

Lately I have been shouldering the baggage of guilt. I'm not talking about the true guilt that comes from God which leads to repentance; I'm talking about the burdening false guilt, based on lies, that won't go away despite our best methods of alleviating it.

It's the kind of false guilt that continuously whispers, You're letting everyone down; You should be doing more; You constantly drop the ball; You're doing it wrong; Someone could do it better. 

Are any of those lies familiar to you?
They have been my constant companions for so long that I was blind to their presence.

And yet their presence in my life means that the race I am running and the weight I am carrying is harder and heavier than God intended.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)

If our baggage is condemning, it needs to go.

How can we run our race, the race God has for each of us, when we are being crushed by our own baggage? Maybe the weight we're carrying is fear of the unknown, or worry about the details, or insecurity about our competency, or distrust that God will take care of us and our loved ones.

Often when I have said YES to God, but my baggage is too heavy, I become overwhelmed, implode, and question if I really heard God correctly. My belief and trust in God wavers as I think, I must be doing it wrong or I must have misunderstood what God was saying to me. 

But what if I didn't hear God wrong, He simply didn't intend for me to carry so much weight?

What's the alternative?

"Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles".

When we hold firm to the truth of what God has asked us to do, and throw off everything that is not from Him, we can run our race the way He intended it to be run.

There is a cost to following Jesus. 

The reality is that if we say YES to what God is asking us to do, we will have to say NO to something else.

I can't be in one place and another at the same time. I can't love someone fully and hold onto bitterness in my heart. I can't trust God and maintain my own control simultaneously.

In order to say YES to God, we need to throw off something that can't come along with us.

Perhaps God has asked you to do something, or not do something, and the excessive baggage you carry is making your task nearly impossible and completely miserable.

What has God asked you to do?

What baggage do you need to throw off so you can follow through and run your race the way He intended?

When Jesus sent out His disciples in Matthew 10, He told them not to take any supplies with them on their journey, nor to worry about what they would say. God would work out the details.

The disciples didn't need to worry about the what ifs, they simply needed to trust and follow. It is the same for us.

Even though it is difficult, let us throw off our what ifs, so we can freely run our races.

There is a cost to following Jesus, but the cost of not following Him is far greater. 

A Hot Mess and the Only Way

I filled up the paper cups at the water fountain and carried them over to where my husband and our friends were sitting in the Urgent Care waiting room. I had to be helpful in some way, try to make the terrible situation a little bit better. It was my fault we were there, after all.

Shortly after half-forcing our friends to drink their tiny cups of water, the nurse called my husband back to be seen by the doctor. I wheeled JP to a room, anxiously awaiting the results of his injury.

What started as a friendly game of pickup soccer in the field by our house had quickly turned disastrous.  

The score was tied and as it was fast approaching time to join our family for Easter dinner, we had to up the stakes.

Next goal wins.

The teams were girls versus boys so we girls had a lot to prove, and being slightly competitive, I had to win. Losing wasn’t even on my radar. JP had the ball down by my team’s net, so I sprinted toward him. I could not let my own husband be the cause of the girls losing. Just as I went to kick the ball away from him, he turned his hip and leg toward me to block me from kicking the ball.

I was already mid-kick… My foot did not collide with the ball; it collided with the back of his calf and swept his leg out. Down he fell with a crack, a crunch, and a pop.

As I was driving him to Urgent Care, I had to pull over because I was crying so hard I could not see the road. I had never felt so terrible, sorry and fully responsible as I did in that moment. The weight of my mistake, although it was an accident, was unbearably heavy.

Have you ever felt that stuck? Hopefully you haven’t sent anyone to Urgent Care, but perhaps you’ve been in a situation where there was nothing you could do to make things better? Or have you been completely at fault and deserving of all the blame?

Moments like these remind us that we are not invincible; that we missed the mark by more than a mile and we can’t dig ourselves out of the pit.

Last week we talked about the need to make room in our lives and hearts for what is most important – Jesus.

But what is so good about Him anyway? Why is He worth making room for?

Perhaps you’ve heard that Jesus’ way is better than ours, that He can help us, and that He can make our lives better.

Is that why He’s so important? Is that it, that He can make our lives better?

I’m glad you asked!

Life with Jesus is better than life without Him, but what is so good about Jesus is more than that.

Picture the world before Jesus arrived as a newborn baby. The world was spiritually dead, separated from God. People were lost, purposeless, and either striving (and failing) to keep the multitude of laws, or slaves to every desire, painfully ignorant of God’s existence.

The world couldn’t be right with God or have access to Him, they couldn’t experience everything that God is and brings, because sin kept them in darkness. They didn’t even know what they were missing, but their current way of life left them feeling empty and unsatisfied.

Just at that moment when darkness was engulfing everything, creeping in like a cold shadow, the source of light burst forth like the glorious morning sun, eliminating the darkness. Jesus Christ was born, the One who brought life to the walking dead.

“In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind,” (John 1:4).

Life comes from Jesus; He is the source.  Without Him, there is no life, only death. If we understood the implications of this, how might it transform our lives?

Before Jesus was born as a baby, the world was spiritually dead. The world was in darkness, and humanity could do anything to change that.

The Bible, in John chapter one, tells us that the life that was in Jesus was the “light of all mankind” (verse 4) and that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (verse 5). We get a glimpse into the state of the world and peoples’ hearts when Jesus entered it. There was darkness in the world, and peoples’ hearts were dead. People were living, but they didn't know the abundant life Jesus would bring.

Before Jesus, there was no option. Humanity was held captive to their sin. But through Jesus alone, there is hope for those of us who get ourselves into situations we can't fix, similar to the predicament I found myself in at Urgent Care. 

There is a better way, and it is available to anyone who wants it, who surrenders control of their life and trusts God's way. 

When we realize that there is no life apart from Jesus, it seems pretty silly for us to try and dig ourselves out of the messes we find ourselves in.

When we still think we can handle things on our own, we don't let God have His way. But when we stop for a moment, confess that we can’t do a single thing about the state of our hearts, and ASK God for help, He will do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

Jesus is not the best; He is the only.

In John 14:5 Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Jesus is the only way to God, to life overflowing, and to resting in perfect love. He is everything we need and He alone will satisfy our restless souls.

Making room for Jesus is worth it every single time because we can’t do it without Him. When we make space in our hearts for Him, He fills that void with Himself until He spills over into every area of our lives and the lives of those around us.

JP on the left with our equally injury-prone brother-in-law, Brad.

An x-ray and MRI later revealed the extent of JP’s knee injury – a fractured patella.

I couldn’t fix his knee, take the pain away, undo the injury, or make up for feeling like I was the worst wife ever. I had to accept defeat and admit that I couldn’t do anything to undo the past. But I didn’t have to sit in that shame – as I turned my helplessness and pain over to love Himself, He covered my inadequacy and filled the void.

Will you take a chance on the giver of life and trust that He is worth making room for?

I have never been disappointed by making room in my heart and letting God fill my heart. 

I trust you won't be either.