Just like that

And then, 9,536 days had passed and he walked out of my front door, his truck loaded up with a lifetime of belongings, including his pillow. No longer would he be laying his head in the room next to me at night’s end. The rumble of his diesel motor as the morning sky rises will no more remind me to pray for his day. Just like that, the time between becoming his mom and watching him leave my home for his own was here–and gone.

Strangely enough, it was me who was encouraging him to move out. I knew that getting to his new place before his bride moves in would be good for him. And a hundred other good things went along with that thought train, but as I told my friend, just because I know something is good for my son doesn’t mean it’s what I want to happen for me. This one was chief among that thought process.

The Biggest Lesson in 17 years of homeschooling

It was that night I learned the biggest lesson ever in my 17 years of homeschooling.

What a life we’ve had together. We had several scares even starting with the first positive pregnancy test with him, but the Lord had (and has) big plans for this big guy. Immediately, I was in love! He became such a wonderful joy in my life the very second I saw him, and that never changed. Never will. He’s my firstborn, the one who first called me “Momma.” I’m not the only one who has been blessed by him; there’s a long trail of adults who have been part of his life in some way over the years who all echo the same thing, “He’s a great guy and he loves the Lord.”

He’s not perfect. Just incase anyone would think that I, his Momma, thinks perfection is part of his draw from others. It’s not. I’d never want him to think I expected him to be perfect. My desire for him will always be that he follows and loves the Lord in his life, that he would desire to become more like Jesus who was the perfect man.

Pizza

Two nights after he moved out, Dad, brother and I took pizza over to his new house for lunch and had a nice time together with him and his sweet bride to be. I won’t lie, we are all having a hard time in this adjustment. His teenage brother misses him being in his room every night and the danger of getting hit by a Nerf bullet as he tip toes by for a mid-night snack. His dad misses him, and just saying, “I love you, Son” in person. And me? I am not even going to try to get through the tears to say all that I miss, but I can tell you this, I never got tired of time spent with him whether he was a day old or the grown young man he is today. And, I don’t think I have to go out on a limb to say he’s having a difficult time through this adjustment, too. Even when the future is full of promise, love and happiness, change and separation is hard.

Starting school and regret

After my hiatus. I began with just substituting because I didn’t want to leave my preschool son; I went back to work but he was able to come with me each day. I regret it, but the next year I returned to my classroom full-time and my baby boy started kindergarten at the same Christian school. Though it may sound like the perfect set up, it was instead the perfect storm. Getting caught in the trap of working=pay check while someone else spent my child’s days with him and I did not. Instead, I kept teaching (a job I loved) and didn’t start homeschooling him until the end of his third grade. The fact that I ever put him in school is my biggest parenting regret. Not only did I miss those years with him under my wing, he had to go through hard and negative things at school, because that’s what happens, long before his young heart was able to navigate life from a spiritual perspective. What ever made me think such an innocent, moldable and young person could make daily decisions based on what he hadn’t been taught, trained and discipled in? Biggest parenting regret, and I’m thankful for God’s grace to show me what is good and right. Children have to learn how to live life in the faith, and then they can grow up and live their faith.

Deuteronomy 6:These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. 7And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Our biggest assignment from the Lord

A spiritual perspective in our children should be our goal as we are instructed to raise up and train our children in God’s ways. Their individual discipleship is our biggest assignment from the Lord who gave them to us. Don’t take that lightly. Sending them away from us is dangerous (I’ll spare you from the almost 20 years of stories in my classrooms/schools and the ill effects so many hurt children are dealing with even today as adults.) Undoing is impossible, and post-management of trials and troubles with other children and adults out of our absences and outside of our authority is unfruitful and unwise–and sometimes unknown for years and longer. In fact, that isn’t what the Lord tells us is required of us in the upbringing of these blessings He has bestowed on us at all. Now more than ever before, I implore every Christian parent to investigate these three resources: God is not silent on the education of our children.

1. Voddie Baucham: Children of Caesar (parts 1 & 2)
2. Israel Wayne’s book: Education, Does God have an Opinion?
3. IndoctriNation Movie

Mini-Series of this Life

If I could take you through the mini-real of life with my boy since his birth, it would be filled with smiles and trials. Not trials with parenting him, but trials in life while parenting him. He learned how to live God, to love God and to see his parents, two sinners, live life faithfully yet imperfectly. He learned how to try, try again, to do right and to recognize sin according to God’s Word. He learned to say, “I’m sorry,” and, “I love you.” He learned compassion and love. He learned, and experienced-praise the Lord- what personal forgiveness means through Jesus Christ’s death on and resurrection from the cross, and he learned how to forgive others. We played all the boys things, created with our hands, read so many great books together, sang lullabies rocking in the corner chair, and shouted through miles of baseball trips teen tunes at the top of our lungs.

Life as we know it

We watched grandma’s live, and grandma’s die. We let Pop teach grandpa and grandson things and we each enjoyed them with all our hearts. We got angry at the ugliness of others and we celebrated the good in more. We watched/played hundreds of ballgames knowing with each one, whether below zero or above 100 degrees, we were going to miss this. We washed dishes, clothes and cars. We raised puppies, made friends and lived for the beach and snow days. We learned to serve others because they needed something or because we needed to share a blessing. We just did life together, all day, every day.

Big changes

And then, day #9536 put it all to an end. It is the biggest lesson in homeschooling I’ve ever realized. Though he’s been a young adult for awhile now, he’s always been here in my home. Mornings and nights were mostly within eyesight and huggable. A little nudge of easy conversation to seek the Lord here or offer some grace there, or maybe think about that again or a look of shock to say that isn’t a great idea, or a wink, smile and pat on the back to affirm a feeling, notion or thought heard aloud are all simple things when you’re together. Now, days 9,537 forward, my job as Mom in all those ways is complete. What God gave me with this amazing son to raise up in the faith as we know it from His Word is over. My job as his mom in all the ways of growing him is done.

My prayers have changed

My prayers have changed from seeking God on his behalf as his mom: help me teach him, help me reach him, help me show him You, Lord, help me…however You want him to do/go/be, and shifted to- Lord please help him, Lord, reach him, Lord make him do/go/be… In so many ways, my son needs my prayers more now than ever, I think. I’ll keep praying as long as I have breath. I’ll always love him. And now I know, without a doubt what I often thought.

The importance of learning

I’ll never get the days gone-by back. You may think I forgot about all the homeschooling English, writing, history, grammar, math and science lessons in my mini-series of his life with me, but I didn’t. Those weren’t the really important things. He may have, and did, learn important things about life and the Lord through the lessons, but that’s not what made him the man he is today.

No regrets

I always thought the years would fly by, and boy did they ever, and I had an inkling I’d miss the little things that filled our days from sun-up to sun-down more than any big class, assignment, or huge accomplishment. I knew someday my opportunity as his “Momma” in raising him would come to an end and he’d be ready to spread his wings and fly away. And I was pretty sure, as I often reminded myself, that even on the hard days there was no place I’d rather be than with my boy and I would never regret the days I spent with him.

I was right.

3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in truth.”