School Days, School Days.....

I am on a roll with the school posts this week, but as Monday looms on the horizon, I feel like some of you are probably feeling like me this weekend....ready to go, yet apprehensive about the beginning of another year, or the first year, whatever the case may be.

I get this weird mixture of emotions every year at this time....Did I overbook our schedule? Did I put enough into the works for the little ones? Will this be the year that my little one takes off academically? Spiritually? Will my older ones be prepared for college? Will my middle one survive puberty and the dreaded middle school years? Will I survive round three of puberty? (Round four if you count my own!)

So many things swirling around in there and I am not new at this! I have been at this for a really long time, so those of you who are new are experiencing these emotions at an even higher level than I am. I know you are. I remember.

Obviously, my encouragement today is not that you will not experience these emotions anymore once you get going, you will. My encouragement is that wide eyed panic will not be your companion every Fall, you will come to realize, as I have, that your kids will survive, even thrive, and so will you. You will learn something new about them and yourself this year. You will face trials and temptations and joys and peaks. You will have mountaintop experiences and you will spend some time in the valley. You will live life, real life, and it will all be just fine.

There is no reason to walk this road alone, there are many of us now. We grow stronger every year as parents realize that secular humanism is not the religion they want their children to embrace. As our country sinks deeper and deeper into the pit, there are still millions of us who desire to raise warriors; we have as our end goal, young adults whose feet are planted firmly on the Rock, arrows who have been honed to a fine, sharp point, aimed straight and true into a crooked and perverse generation. Points of light in a world that grows blacker by the day.

I sat on the beach this morning, our last Friday beach day for the summer and talked for a couple of hours with a young adult from our homeschool group. She is the oldest in her family and she is a sophomore at a Bible college on the west coast. This young lady, and others like her that I have had the blessing of knowing over the years keep me going. She is solid, she is a beacon of light to the lost that God puts into her path. She wants nothing more than to pour her life out in the service of Christ. She knows that this world is not our home and that we are here on this earth as ambassadors of the King. Our job is to point others to the cross and bring glory to our God. She has embraced the fact that this time in her life, her single years, before God gives her a husband and children to care for is the time to serve Him with an undivided mind and heart. She is ready and willing to go anywhere He sends her. It is beautiful to watch her fly!!

This is a young lady that I first met when she was about ten years old. Her parents were still figuring out how to raise young adults sold out for Jesus Christ. She had four siblings behind her, but they had not successfully raised any to adulthood. I began to watch this family from afar. They didn't even know I was looking. My oldest at the time were about five, we were truly just beginning. I watched them and I copied them. I admit it. Now, they have raised two adult daughters, both walking with the Lord, both using their single years to glorify Him. I'm glad I watched so closely.

I shudder to think that any of you are watching me. I mess up so often, but you know what, so did this family and many others that I have watched over the years. I believe the key is that they learned along with their children, they admitted it when they realized a mistake, and all along their hearts were turned towards Jesus. They didn't try to put Him in a box and they didn't try to glorify themselves by raising little Pharisees.

On our journey, that is my heart. I don't know what God will call my children to do, the boys or the girls. I would never say "everyone goes to college" nor would I say, "no one goes to college." I will say this, I will do my best to train up my children according to their God-given bent in life. I will give them whatever training or education they need to get to where God wants them to be. And then, I will let them go when He tells me it is time and I will let them go, without reservation wherever He calls them to go.

Will it be difficult? Of course it will. What if he calls one of them into something dangerous or far, far away? What if he sends one of them as a missionary into a hostile country? What if one of them stands for what he or she believes to the point of death?

These are questions that my Mama's heart doesn't want to answer, but yet...have I raised them for any less than the honor of defending their faith, no matter what? Would I have them deny their faith or die for it? Again, my Mama's heart cries for neither one of those things to have to happen, but, my gut tells me that things are not going to be as easy for my children in this world as they have been for me. Will I let them go when the time comes? Will I let them fly?

My friends have let their daughters fly and they are making a difference.

Yes, I will let them go - with God's help, I will do what He calls me to do. It is my honor and my privilege to raise them for His glory, however that manifests itself.