A few moments ago, I blew out the
fir scented candle on my mantle, but the calming fragrance remains. The
dishwasher hums in the kitchen, and the library books have been stacked in
their giant gray basket beside the hearth. Outside snow twirls gently to the
ground, then melts as it reaches the lingering warmth of September clinging to
dirt, gravel, and brittle autumn grass.
All is quiet in my little home; children sleep and the world outside is
dark. And me? I breathe in that fir-laced air and listen for a moment to the
quiet. And I want to write.
For months, I have only written in
my prayer journal, a pink moleskin notebook that is tattered and scribbled on
(credit goes to my busy two-year-old). Actually, it has been years. Two years
since I published a book, and two years since I blogged, or wrote an article of
any kind. I don’t begrudge those years. The baby season is so fleeting, and
writing would have come at a cost. Honestly, in the joyful busyness of these
last two years, those journaled prayers were the most important thing I could
have written. They still are. Those daily, scribbled pleas for grace and wisdom
form the bedrock of my home-life with my daughters and husband. They are vital to my relationship with God
and to my day-in and day-out existence as a mama trying to be faithful to the
tasks set before me.
But, the yearning to write is
there. In the midst of the daily frazzle, I catch myself forming words and
articles in my head. Thoughts about homeschooling, homemaking, parenting, and
walking with God shuffle themselves into sentences and paragraphs that flit
through my oft-addled brain – and never get written down.
I don’t know what the Lord has for
me in terms of a “side gig” in writing. Perhaps nothing other than the
opportunity to take the desire He has instilled in my heart and offer it up to
Him in some simple form. But I hope that He will also take those words and
encourage others with them.
I have often wished for a mentor.
Someone to grab me by the hand and guide me through the tough stuff of
motherhood. Someone to shine a light on my sin and tell me when I am doing
things wrong. Someone to teach me how to pray, how to study God’s word, and how
to pass TRUTH on to my kids. God hasn’t fulfilled that wish in the way I would
have expected, but I count several brave and beautiful writers among my
mentor-teachers.
I am not so young anymore in the
world of moms. My 37th birthday is on Friday and my oldest daughter
is nearing 12. While I still have so much to learn from those ahead of me in
the journey (Help! Teenagers!), I also want to reach down and offer a hand up
to younger mamas. Maybe, by God’s grace, some of what I have learned over the
years can bless a struggling newbie.
So. I want to write. I hope to
sometimes offer practical tips and tidbits in the realms of schooling,
homemaking, and grace-based parenting. I
want to share about the things that work well for our family, as well as the
many failures of this sinful and sort of unskilled mama. I want to encourage
with tales from the trenches, and offer advice (though I hesitate to use that
word) about managing a busy home with grace. I fail, friends. The management
and the grace both fall with resounding crashes at times. But the prayer I pray
each day is the God would grant me wisdom to order my days in a fashion that
pleases Him, and grace to receive from His hands every opportunity,
interruption, and struggle that presents itself.
As a means of introduction, two
years ago I birthed my 5th little girl, and that was the last time I
really wrote. Now, that sweet bundle in my arms has grown into a precocious,
verbal, fearless and darling little munchkin.
During those two years, our family moved an hour north of the
neighborhood where we had been living for eight years. We bought a small home
near the border of a national park, an old modular house in need of some
TLC. We live adjacent to a dude ranch,
and nearly an hour from the town where my husband works, we grocery shop, and
we attend church. We are now three hours from the nearest Target, a situation
that I kind of find pride in. J
Our little berg, more of a sprawling community of ranches and park homes than
an actual town, boasts a K-5 elementary school with less than twenty students.
We have mountain views, no yard, and frequently see grizzly bears on our drives
to town. We take tentative nature hikes
with bear spray strapped to my baby carrier, and we shop for 500$ worth of
groceries at a time. It is a blissful, beautiful, and quiet life.
When we moved, we chose to pull
our kids out of the private school they had been attending, and return to
homeschooling. The little community school is lovely, and we enjoy visiting
them for lunches and recess on occasion. But, we have not felt at peace about
sending our girls to public school. We want to nurture our little saplings in
the greenhouse of our home, instilling in them the principles, beliefs, and
character that are so important to us. We want to help them grow strong.
In planning for this school year,
I wrote a simple elevator pitch to answer the question of why I homeschool. I
wrote, “We homeschool because we want out kids’ minds and hearts to be nurtured
in our home, from a Christian perspective, and with the Classical tenets of
truth, goodness, and beauty at the forefront. We homeschool for the joy of
learning alongside them, and with the hope of helping them become women who
please the Lord.”
Managing our homeschool and
tending to the multitudinous tasks of home life (you know – the heaps of
laundry, the crusted dishes piled up in the sink, the muddy boot prints tracked
all over the carpet, the repetitive motions of meal prep) is a pretty full time
job. But in the completion of those jobs, my desire is to love and disciple my
children whole-heartedly. And the heart-work of parenting is harder and more
demanding than all those nicely checked off tasks.
I hope that I speak to both sides
of that mothering coin as I write: the practical nitty-gritty and the more ephemeral,
wispy emotional and spiritual nurture.
Stay tuned, friends. 
No comments:
Post a Comment