By: Anna Marie Chantry
For the last 20 years as we have homeschooled our ten children one thing that I have constantly found is that life is busy. That seems to be an incontrovertible fact. Whether we were busy with nursing babies, rambunctious toddlers, a home business, church callings, youth activities and events or a list of other things, the one thing certain was that there just wasn’t enough time to GET IT ALL DONE.
I have yet to meet anyone that hasn’t experienced the busyness of life. As a homeschool mom I have found that, because school happens daily, it often becomes the target. Homeschool is the thing that can be “put off for a day” as I deal with yet another urgent issue in our lives.
It was during one such a time recently that I had an experience that touched me deeply and also caused me to thank God for homeschooling. I have been struggling for the last couple years with a health problem that causes me to have much less energy than I’m used to having. Plus, at this time, my husband, who is self employed, has been needing extra help in his business. We’ve recently had three of our children return from missions and another one go out on a mission. I am also YW president in our ward and we are in the middle of a very time intensive youth conference preparation. All of this is added to the regular things in life such as laundry, chores, meals, raising children etc.
One day, during all this I went down to our school room for school, even though there was really no time for it, as I thought. As I started school, however, something changed in me. I felt peace. Everything else dropped away. The timelines, emails, lists, they all disappeared as I helped my 9 year old with math and my 7 year old with his reading. We laughed and “high-fived” as they figured something out. My teenage son handed me a great writing assignment and my 13 year old daughter didn’t get reducing fractions again.
Everything didn’t go ‘right’. But the peace came in everything going. US being together. Doing school together. I realized that all the lists, deadlines and requirements will still be there, waiting but what really matters, what filled me with joy and helped me feel peace was being with my children, doing school.
It is what God wants me to be doing. Of this I am sure. And that morning He reminded me that it is in the doing of school with my older ones and my littler ones that I can find myself again. Why? Because He is there.
I want to be where He is. And one place I can be with Him is in our homeschooling time. I won’t be dropping it out of its place for other important things anymore.