or something super-spiritual like that to remind me that if the week falls apart He is in control. And I did mean every word. And it did fall apart. And I did not handle some things so well. And on day 2 I walked out of the room and told David: "I quit. I can't do it. They can go to Chinese school all day....and yadayada.."
Why am I telling you this?
Because homeschooling is hard.
Because homeschooling overseas is, dare I say, harder.
And most of what you see here is this:
Looks great, right?
Parts of the Earth Science Project this week, they LOVED it!
Blogs and Instagram are actually not supposed to portray reality, they are only portraying tidbits and snippits, I have spoken to that before....
But it is fun and humiliating to keep it real every once and awhile, and to actually confess sin.
This is not the medium to do that for everything, but regarding some of my 'lack of kindness and patience' with my children, I have a feeling others can relate.
So, let's back up a bit....
Mommy (that's me!) had a rough week.
I lost my temper the first few days with different children
...some of it had to do with the tightness of the schedule (CRAZEE),
...some of it had to do with hormones (seriously, this has gotten worse as I have aged)
...some of it could have had to do with a big diet change: David and I doing a 2 week and 2 week only 'no sugar or carbs of any kind' (this includes fruit and beans) (this has kind of been amazing to do, never having done this ever before in my life, it is not sustainable, the goal is not weight loss...I will stop there, it could be another post...all that to say, change in diet and blood sugar!) (I think I am actually eating more calories!) Anyway....
...really it boils down to my indwelling sin of pride and selfishness which results in hmm...
...meanness, unkindness, get out the thesaurus and lets just nail the description of me 3 out of 5 days this week.
It results in the opposite of I Corinthians 13-Jesus-kind-of-love, or the Sermon-on-the-Mount-kind-of-calling, the calling to something so much greater than turning away from those hitting you on the right cheek...it is turning to them the other also. I couldn't do it. I didn't do it.
Thankfully, this attitude did not define me 24 hours of the day, but in different instances. And I can honestly say, having assessed it quite thoroughly, that the restoration (when I thoroughly apologized, multiple times) has been very sweet. I have seen so much of God's grace in our eldest in dealing with me and I with her through this. And I have felt God's nearness so much to me in his word, not a 'get far away your sin disgusts me' kind of feeling. Yes, my sin disgusts God, but His Spirit in me keeps reminding me and his word keeps spurring me to live in His reality: that He covered all my shame on the cross, that he saves those crushed in spirit.
Was it ugly? Yes. Do I ever want to be that way again? No.
I am sure I will lose my patience with my children again, but I am also sure that the Lord will help me fight this with truth, and work in me the humility of the cross that only comes from being 'poor in spirit'. D. M. L. Jones calls this the central characteristic of the Christian, this 'poverty of spirit': it is one's attitude toward oneself in the presence of God: weak, small, lowly, needy, bankrupt really. So, no I can't live the Sermon on the Mount calling apart from the nearness of my God. But I can do it.
I was so full of myself this past week and let tiny things fester to boiling, I saw this as taking 'my' time, as ruining 'my' plan, as hurting 'my' feelings, as doing whatever to 'my' whatever. WHOA. This selfishness started hurting those around me with words.
Praise God for the quickness of His Spirit in me to help me and of David to also speak into me. Praise God for quick forgiveness and true forgiveness. I was quite despairing over it all, His Word and the words of others had to help me dispel the lies of Satan, who wants me to despair.
On Thursday I decided to apologize one more time in front of our helper at lunch. The day was great, things were all fine, but she had witnessed some of these struggles. I told her that I broke the peace in our home and was sorry to her as well.
Did I really quit homeschooling? No, I was bluffing...
In fact we went on to make egg tempera paint from scratch just like Giotto did in the late 1200s. What a picture perfect homeschool we have ;)
