Re-Routing

Yesterday I had an appointment at a building where I had never been, in a town in which I am somewhat unfamiliar. I had to make a leap of faith and use my google maps app on my phone. So, the night before my adventure appointment, I planned ahead. I let the phone offer the fastest route and I planned my morning trip based on the app's suggestion. Yesterday morning I jumped in the car and followed the instructions the phone gave me. But, just minutes from my destination a road was closed. The city department was doing tree trimming and closed off the whole road. I thought to myself, “isn't that just a perfect analogy for life?”

We make plans. Educated plans. We make choices that we think will be the best for ourselves and our family. We pray and seek God's wisdom and instruction and we begin our adventure. But, sometimes, even after doing our due diligence of planning, there are roadblocks in the way.

This is the metaphorical picture of where our family is right now. We were navigating with the Lord to lead us and with wisdom and knowledge to guide us. We chose the path of homeschooling when our oldest was still in diapers. At that time, we made the best decision we could with the information that we had. And, it was a good choice for our family.

(At this point, I need to insert some news that will change the navigation of this story line. I am expecting a new baby boy in October. This has not been an easy pregnancy. Not just because I am almost 40. Not just because of my “normal” physical ailments of autoimmune hypothyroidism, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. But, also because ten weeks ago, I had an emergency appendectomy. Due to that difficult first trimester and appendix issues that were masked by the pregnancy/morning sickness, I lost an atypical amount of weight. Just this past week – at 25 weeks pregnant – I finally got back up to my pre-pregnancy weight.

Aside from that physical stress, there has been great emotional turmoil. I lost one of my best friends to cancer in my first trimester. Mindy was 40 years old and left behind 4 children and a grieving husband. My world was rocked by her death. I still miss her every day. Some days I think I see her and it takes my breath away. Some days I think about her and break down in tears. I am still grieving. But, that's not all. To add more duress, there has been an unexpected change in our housing situation. The landlords have decided to sell the house which we are currently renting. So, not only did I have to prep our rental home for sale with realtor photos and showings, but we had to find a new residence. I am happy to say that we have found a home to move to in August, but the process hasn't been easy. And, the emotions of pregnancy make all these issues even worse than they already would have been.)

Back to our story line. Our family was cruising along with our intention to homeschool every child through high school. It was our informed decision based on the circumstances that we were aware of at the time.

Enter the roadblock.

This pregnancy has been difficult and my health has been patchy. I am tired continually. My aches and pains that usually abate during pregnancy have not ceased. In fact, in many ways I am worse than I was 5 months ago. Baby Boy is due in October. So, I have made the heartbreaking decision that I am not currently able to continue homeschooling our 6 gems. I may keep some of them at home, but the little guys (especially the 6, 8, and 11 year olds) need more help than I expect that I will be able to give them.

Roadblocks are not always a bad thing. Yesterday, I had to pick up my phone map app and reroute my own trail (because google couldn't understand that my road was closed). So, I found a new path in the countryside and drove into town from a new direction. It was pretty. I even thought to myself, “I need to bring Paul here, maybe we could live in this area some day.” It was an unexpected trip, but it was still pretty. And, I ended up being only 10 minutes late to my appointment.

I will now tell you that my appointment was with the public school office to begin registering my three youngest for elementary and middle school. I was already emotionally frazzled just because of the nature of the appointment. Add in the stress of the road being blocked and I was kind of on edge. I am a planner. And I like to control everything my circumstances. I had intended to arrive a bit early. I had intended to go directly there. But, the best of my planning could not have foreseen the roadblock.

Lord willing, we will put three (or more) children into public school this year. It may or may not work out. We do not at all expect this transition to be easy. In many ways it will be more difficult, but if I list those reasons I will sound like Debbie Downer. I am choosing to focus on how public school can help our children and family, because I need to keep myself from coming undone.

This decision has not been easy. I don't want to be sick. I don't want to turn my kids over to the public school after sheltering them for so long (I don't deny it, my kids are indeed sheltered). I don't want to plan for the worst. But, with the information available to me now, it is time to re-route.

I am not writing this to start a debate (far from it, I really don't like arguments and confrontations). But, I am sharing my heart, because: 1) If I don't write, I will bust; and 2) Maybe my honest sharing of my struggles will bless someone. Maybe it will bless me. Maybe it will bless a random reader who stumbles upon my blog by “accident.” All I know is that my heart is bursting to write. I am compelled to share this journey, and to do so publicly.

There may be further roadblocks. Plans may change again. Any number of challenges could arise which could cause us to re-route or re-trace our path. We are doing our best to hold our children loosely while God does what He needs to do in their lives to shape them to be who He intends them to be. His purposes are even better than what we would choose for them, therefore His intended Path for them is greater than the one we map out in our limited knowledge.

May God bless us as we re-route this educational journey.