Another September

I was happy to tear off the calendar page and see September staring back at me. It was a long summer, a wonderful summer, but full. I know I have shared this before but September is one of my ‘New Years,’ September represents a fresh start. I desperately felt the need for that new beginning.

God has been showing me things that need work in my life, it is a good place to find yourself, but not necessarily an easy place. I think the details of all that could be a whole other post, and maybe one day I will write it. One area I felt that I was being called to let go of some picture perfect ideals was in our homeschool. That was hard because some of it was beautiful, but it wasn’t working for us. I am on Instagram and I read other blogs, and I was looking at all these families where it was working amazingly. Some of the Moms made it look effortless and flawless. Yet in our home we were failing I wanted the pretty Instagram picture with the beautiful outcome. I couldn’t see how me pushing for something that looked so good was actually hurting my family, until I could see it. That was a painful realisation. There is a verse that I have clung to over the years, Joel 2:25 “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…” However more than once I have had to face the difficult truth that at times I have been the locust. In this case it was me chasing a dream that perhaps wasn’t mine to chase. Maybe if I had stopped to pray and seek what was the answer for my family we would have found the path we are currently on sooner.

I had to face the reality that I have a child with brain damage, and that all of my children have dyslexia (not sure about Moriah yet) some of them have dysgraphia too, I have severe insomnia among other issues I am dealing with. I needed to cut out some things and focus on other things. I needed to pick curriculums that would fit their specific needs. As I write that I realise that for some of you that must sound like a no brainer. It should have been, and in some ways I had added in things to help meet their individual needs yet I was still trying to make it fit into my crazy ideal. Last June when I had decided what I was going to do this school year I was feeling like a failure, like there would be some that would judge or think I was taken the easy path. Time is amazing though, as I peeled back the calendar and I saw those letters S E P T E M B E R, I felt hope. A new year, a new approach, a new chance, a new beginning.

We started school on Monday. Oh boy, did we have glitches leading up to our first day of school. Our first day started with sparks and a few flames. A cord was sitting on a plug that had come loose yet was still plugged in, at first I thought the flame was coming from the socket and was worried there was a wiring issue. I was relieved that it was just a cord. The online Math program I had decided to go with wouldn’t let me login two of my kids. Our last lesson ended at 5pm and then we watched a school related movie, officially ending our school day at 7 pm-ish. Not exactly how I pictured our first day, but that is alright, we are moving forward, eyes set on our goals.

Sometimes it is painful to let go of a dream or how you pictured something to be, but when it is the wrong path and you come to that conclusion it is freeing to let it go. “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell. I don’t want to fix my eyes on closed doors, I want to rush through the door that is laid wide open for me.

I wanted to do First Day of School Pictures. Umm, well, my big kiddos and even a small one was not interested in posing in front of the camera. However little Moriah was over the top excited about starting school and gladly had her picture taken as you have had the pleasure of seeing. Hannah had fun with it too. I managed to sneak up on a game of Breakfast Uno and caught all but one. Joel managed to elude the camera completely. I will have to try to catch him at some point soon.