Glory

Perhaps it is just me, but I am never more impressed with God than when He convinces me to go in a direction I was previously diametrically opposed to traversing just a few prayers ago, and not only convinces me to obey, but gets me excited about it as well.

Nonetheless He seems to manage these little coups.

The Hunky Hubby and I are both committed to analyzing our boys education every year and deciding which form of education is best for their immediate needs. Last year we decided to do online/home school with WAVA. And when I tried to draw him into an endless debate over which online school, The Hunky Hubby requested that I do whatever I liked. Anything would be marvelous…ie, as long as it did not involve me hanging over his shoulder hemming and hawing and mumbling over various options while he was attempting to write e-mails to our board and 5 campers who were dead set on becoming counselors even though they were all only 9.

And so we did WAVA and about six months ago I began to carefully analyze the situation for the next year. I thought long and hard and finally decided that what Sweet Boy #1 needed was another year of online school, this time with a different school, and some really fun science and history…. I was all decided and ready to go.

And then The Hunky Hubby said: “Maybe he needs more socialization. Maybe he has his training wheels on, so to speak, from only playing with his younger brothers and would benefit from play with kids his own age.” I smiled and humored him. His thoughts were not with God and would soon pass. Besides, The Hunky Hubby, if left to his own devices, will often forget.

But he didn’t. I kept making my online school plans and he wanted me to do a school visit! I prayed a few clenched teeth prayers: “God, did you just hear him? Well, what are you going to do about it? You know I can’t give up my first baby to some frothing public educator who smacks kids over the knuckles with rulers for spelling things wrong and says it’s not manly to cry.” Perhaps I was listening to my 86-year-old grandma’s tales of her youth too much, but still.

And then I did a terrible thing. You know, open ended prayer. “Lord, please show us what Sweet Boy#1’s most pressing need is. I think I can educate him in a superior manor. But if pure knowledge is of less importance right now to socialization, let me know.”

Within three days we went on an awesome WAVA field trip to ride a real train up to Snoqualmie Falls. Sweet Boy #1 is maniacally passionate about trains. At home he will leap about the room expounding upon their glamorous details. On the field trip he hid behind me, wouldn’t talk to his WAVA teacher whom to jabbers to incessantly on the phone every month, and clutched my hand instead of interacting with other kids.

It hit me straight in the gut, like a cannon ball from a ship full of ghostly pirates. This boy needed to get out.

So I called a first grade teacher that The Hunky Hubby went to school with. We did a school visit. Yes we could choose his teacher, yes we could go on vacation in the fall, yes we could volunteer in his class, yes he would be challenged in math even though he is a year ahead, yes they have special groups for advanced readers, no kids are not allowed to pee on random bushes just outside the playground.

That last one I answered myself, with no help from the principal, as the boys stared at me incredulously. Not allowed to pee on bushes, what kind of uncouth place was this?

And so we prayed for the rest of the week and I just turned in most of his registration papers. And you know what? I’m excited. He will get to do art projects that are beyond my feeble abilities, which doesn’t take much. He will make friends. He is so excited about riding the bus. He will have fun instead of sit and sulk while the timer ticks away and I say for the 104th time: Earn your star, get back to work.

Home school has been very very good. He has learned oh so much. But my boy needs to see people now and God gently gently picked me up and turned me around and reminded me that each little person has a different path to live, just like each big person.

And in those terrible glorious moments when He steps down into our lives and pulls the lever on our track, changing directions, that is when we know that He is there. That He is concerned about us, our babies, their education and their futures. That is when we know that HE is.

And for those mysterious moments, I am forever grateful.

P.S.

Of course shortly afterward I did have this terrible nightmare in which I was rushing about the school building on the first day trying to find his class and enormous skyscrapers and a giant crane came to life and began to slowly march toward the elementary school leaving a path of destruction behind them as experimental government planes zipped about their mighty steel heads attempting to stall the inevitable crane-enhanced apocalypse that was about to occur. If you know what it symbolizes, by all means, please leave a comment.