School starts for us here, in our little corner, next week.

Homeschool.

Home ::: School.

School at Home.

I love the sound of that.

It seems the most natural thing to this momma’s ears and heart and I have not yet even

:::::begun.

This new thing revolving deep around our family::::

The way the home is weaving into the schooling weaving into the work weaving into the family weaving into this adventure He has planned for us.

….flowing with no lines and all blurred::: organic and primal and enticing::: like the way it was meant to be lived.

Homegrown.

::::::::::But then there’s me.

…a public school teacher once upon a time, seemingly eons…

…. or a little more than a year ago.

And now, homeschooling?

I understand the test scores and the extra-curriculars and the school bus and the pressure and the reading programs and the feeling spent and the math bandwagon- changes and the vacations and the pouring yourself out for them and the mustering of patience and the pure joy when the light turns on and that smile appears on a young face and the standards to meet and the collegial discussion and the underappreciated beauty of a new textbook cracking open for the first time… I loved it.

And now there is THIS.

This new teaching for me.

This one that flutters about in my gut more than the first day fourteen years ago when I stepped into that brick school and into that yellow classroom with all of those deep, hungry, waiting to be satiated child eyes that I grew to adore and called my kids.

This is different.

This IS my kid.

::::::WHOA.

This is my baby that has her Daddy’s nose and my chuckle::: leaning full throttle into me and unknowingly depending on me to faithfully and consistently breath and speak knowledge into her so she can exhale some good words and calculate some numbers and repeat and apply the scientific method and figure an analogy and draw world history on a timeline and…. maybe even teach her a bit of this thing called life.

And that is where I stop up quick. Tall order.

But that is it.

There it is.

The reason we chose to homeschool.

LIFE.

Life that brings birth and the birth that spills need and the need that begets searching and the searching that leads to curiosity and the curiosity that commands learning and the learning that beckons knowledge and the knowledge that breeds giving and the giving that manifests love.

That’s why we are homeschooling. We want her to know LIFE like that.

Ultimately, in the teaching, in my utmost, to show her love like this.

:::: Love like His.

I want her to know that life is not built always into compartments and departments and boxes piled up and in a row.

She doesn’t have to only learn here and only dance there and think that this is just the way you do this life-thing that can huff down our necks and chase us to the next activity and slobber media and comparison all over us while we sweat deadlines and status and world-conforming notions that never bring us closer to::::

:::::love.

Uninterrupted.

Unfettered and Unfurled.

:::::the love and life that rises and falls with Him.

I want love-learning to be real and fluid::: no ending and no beginning::::

::::: Resonating.

True. In the everyday and daily.

In the learning at the grocery line and in the umpteen-million questions in the car and in the chorus- singing at bedtime and in the world-weary faces of people she meets and a sweet prayer at lunch and in the chattering woods at noontime and in the catnap and the quiet orange of dawn and in the bustle of the city on a random Monday afternoon and in the book reading on the couch and the making of a proper place setting to host a tea and the up and down emotions that plague a day…

and how in all of these things:::::

:::: All these things…

:::: He is the Creator, the Comforter, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Friend, the Father:::

The LORD.

Over all of it.

This life.

This learning.

He reigns over it all in His love.

And I am driven by that.

Because He has called me to this.

::::::And that is that.That.is.enough.for.me.

There is this love-life-learning in all things.

All things.

And I desire her to learn life through the lens of His love. To know that all things point to Him.

The mundane and the starry-eyed. The low and the abounding. The light and the dark.

In all of my imperfections, joy, weaknesses, certainty, shallow thoughts, jumpin’ up and down, tired moments, can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this-homeschool-thing, excitement, uncertainty, smiles, frustration, hugs, throwin’ my hands up in the air and in my contentment…

I want her to see Him in it all.

And what do I want her to learn?

How He loved us so much, He gave His life to give us life.

And how all that we do, our learning, our waking up and our settling down, our breathing in and our exhaling out reverberates with that kind of enduring, unfathomable mercy- love that ends and begins in life…

bound by, given by and grown by grace.

Next week, in our little corner of this world, we start homeschool.

I simply cannot wait to see what He is going to teach us.

And these words… shall be on your heart… you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. +Deuteronomy 6