As the World Turns…(an early progress report)

The fact that I’ve not written in over a week is probably a hint of how school began with a bang.   Yet, I suppose that, given my trepidation over the year in my last post, it would be appropriate to post a progress report, albeit an early one.

I’ve written in previous posts about reminding myself to be thankful even with hazy starts, when I found out first-hand what happens to the best-laid plans of mice of men.    But this year, this start, is what I love to see in the kids.   Everyone Is energized and excited about what they are learning, everyone comes to the table prepared, and we finish early, with plenty of time for that all-important masterly inactivity that Miss Mason speaks of so fondly.

I never got the infamous list from the youngest.   Maybe it was just a fleeting burst of energy, as many of her projects are.   (Yesterday she decided to experiment with which type of water freezes best in the backyard; she was preparing for plans to install her own personal ice skating rink.   Did I mention that we live in coastal Texas?)     Maybe she has resigned herself to the idea that school is one of many “have-to’s” of life, so she might as well get with the program.   In any case, she is at the table, working hard and not whining.    I’ll take it.   One thing I know she’s loving is a read-aloud I’m sharing with she and her brother, T.A. Barron’s The Lost Years of Merlin.   This story has everything–a multitude of children, a lovable hero, and plenty of fighting.   I’d forgotten from our Nellie Olsen/ Laura Ingalls days how much this pugnacious child relishes the retelling of a good brawl.

Our son is performing well in the midst of perhaps the heaviest load of all three children.   It is not that way intentionally, but the workload of high school years, at least as it is here, is such that the first two years are significantly busier than the latter two.    I’m so enjoying studying the book of Exodus with him and his sister.   Each day there are fresh revelations, and it is timely for me as I look for God to bring me into a different place.    Today, we covered the 1^st 12 verses of chapter 4:

Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”

² Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A staff,” he replied.

³ The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. ⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ⁵ “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

⁶ Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous^[a]—it had become as white as snow.

⁷ “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.

⁸ Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. ⁹ But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.”

¹⁰ Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor
since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

¹¹ The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ¹² Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

What a sweet reminder from the Lord.   He didn’t expect Moses to do anything great; He simply asked Moses to trust Him.   Powerful.

The oldest’s one request of me of was that I not schedule her high school courses on the same day as her college courses.   What that has meant for these past two weeks is that she has two days of the week with nothing on her planner.   Being who I am, though, I couldn’t help but list a few “suggestions” as to how she might spend her time    🙂   .   I will say, however, that she is now—just in time—fully bought into the plan for this year and for her the next season of her life, setting her own alarm (rather than waiting for me to wake her up), and getting downstairs in a timely manner to accomplish quite a bit each day.   As college acceptances and scholarships roll in, I feel the Holy Spirit’s “Yes!” to what is happening here, and I’m grateful.

I am often cautiously optimistic, in the effort to not fall too far from Cloud 9 and hurt myself.   However, if we can travel through the rest of the year somewhere near where we are now, I will have done well.

How’s your school year starting out?