Laboring

Happy Labor Day ya'll.  We've had a very very very low-key weekend here and I'm so thankful for that.  It's kind of crazy to think that we've been back in school mode for about a month now, and this late Labor Day business really messed with my head!  We really could have used the day off about a week ago, but I'm not complaining.  Especially since I accidentally glutened myself on Friday and Saturday and part of Sunday were spent recovering from it.  I find it so interesting that my side effects are not digestive, but instead mental.  I experience a combination of anxiety and pessimistic, "Debbie Downer" thoughts which both fuel one another, and I also get pretty fatigued.  After a 2.5 hour nap Sunday I seemed to pull out of it and I'm ready for a new week with a de-glutened gut.  

This school year is definitely a different animal from years past.  I look back on last year and see that I was really in survival mode most of the year and that affected how things got done around here.  As a two year old, Hannah was very demanding of me and that really sucked me dry emotionally and mentally.  For the first half of the year, I had not yet made the significant lifestyle changes that have dramatically improved my mental health.  And in the second half, bouts of winter and spring illnesses really slowed me down again and it took time to recover.  

Because I felt so taxed all the time, we got school done and I turned the kids loose on screen because I had absolutely nothing left to keep them entertained.  I'm talking hours at a time folks.  I'm not proud of it.  Part of me wants to feel guilty for how this went down, but the other part of me knows it was a year of survival and sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to get by.  

But this year -- the two big differences are that Hannah is a completely different child now and is so easy all day, and I don't have the anxiety medication in my system anymore.  Part of me thinks that may have been making me worse than helping.  We're wrapping up a day of school anywhere between 2 - 3 in the afternoon and while I'm pretty zonked when it's all said and done, we're doing it and doing it well.

And it got me thinking back to when I heard Heidi St. John speak over a year ago.  She was speaking about homeschooling, but I think this is true of anything to which God calls a person.  She said, "If homeschooling (or whatever your calling is) doesn't drive you to your knees, you're doing it wrong."  I think last year I was indeed doing it wrong.  This year I feel it.  If I am not abiding in Christ, depending on him for every ounce of effort to pull off this calling in my life, we're toast.  And paradoxically, the more I go on in this gig the more ill-equipped and incapable I feel; I was way more confident in our first year.  I am utterly dependent on the Lord to do what He has called me to, and by golly, He's making sure I have everything I need to get it done. 

And here's this other thing that Heidi said that stuck with me.  She said jokingly, at the end of this homeschool journey (or again, sub in whatever God has called you to), you should be able to say "Homeschooling almost killed me but God saved me!"  She said it in a crazy sounding voice and this got a huge laugh from the audience.  Every afternoon I am wiped out.  Most Fridays my brain is fried and I think "How on earth am I going to get up Monday morning and start this circus all over again?" And Monday comes and I'm ready again.  He's saving my hide every weekend, giving me my daily bread to accomplish what seems so impossible.  And it's all so I can point back to Him and say that I couldn't do this in my own strength, but with His raise-a-dead-man-from-the-grave power in me, the seemingly insurmountable can be done.  

With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.   1 Corinthians 15:58 (The Messsage)