The holidays. A fun and festive time to spend with your family. Yep, that OR you can jump feet first into one of the hardest parenting situations of your entire motherhood. That’s basically what the end of 2019 and walking into 2020 looked like for us!
Just when you think you have this parenting thing figured out, you find out that you literally have no idea what the heck you’re doing. In other words, you may have yourself a middle schooler. You may have yourself a middle schooler with a questionable group of friends and somehow you missed all of the signs.
Our daughter was in a battle for her identity.
Middle school is no joke. I remember it well. It’s a crucial time and it’s often when kids begin laying the foundation for who they will become. The perfect time for the enemy to come in and attempt to steal, kill, and destroy. I am grateful that the Holy Spirit had other plans!
We had a few come-to-Jesus meetings and this parenthood thang got real. It was messy. Hard. Deep. Spiritual. And yet, somehow, it was connecting us. How much we loved her was revealed. We lead her back to the Lord. Our relationship with her and our relationship with Jesus was strengthened through it all.
I think that I’m catching on. Parenting is leading your child back to Jesus. Over and over. Just like so much of my relationship with the Lord is coming back and choosing Him. Over and over.
In January 2020, we made the decision to pull her out of school.
WHAT.
This was not part of my plan. I have never had the desire to homeschool. In fact, I have literally said the words – I will never homeschool. Yet here I was, filling out an Intent-to-withdraw form.
This is alllllllll you, God.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. – Proverbs 3:5,6
We had just pulled our daughter out of school. My dreams of coffee in the quiet mornings after lovingly seeing them off to school, fun times folding laundry and watching TV, and cleaning without anyone there to mess it up weren’t exactly coming true.
Stretched. I think that’s a good way to put how I was feeling about the beginning of 2020. I also had what I could only describe as a Holy Spirit peace.