Will I Ever Graduate?

This weekend I had the thrilling and always emotional experience of graduating another student from my homeschool.  That make 5. Five students I have instructed, prodded, encouraged, threatened, and challenged. And five students who have pushed, inspired, and taught me more than I could ever have taught them. That is one of the great secrets and mysteries of homeschooling.  I went into it assuming it was all about teaching my kids where in reality I have the sneaking suspicion that is really more about what God needed to teach me. And so for the last 21 years I have been schooling my children while the Lord has been schooling me.

Now I have two students left and six more years of homeschooling, but I wonder will I ever graduate?

Graduation signifies the completion of the courses and requirements to earn the degree. It means you've mastered how to do something (like math) or to understand something (like history) and you are now ready to go on to the next challenge.

I think I know some of the things I was suppose to learn through teaching my kids, but I am not sure I have mastered any of them yet. I would always resist the urge to break out into ugly, embarrassing laughter when a well-meaning friend would say, "Oh, I thought about homeschooling, but I am just not patient enough." Seriously??? I was supposed to be patient enough before I started? Because I missed that part in the job description. I am not patient enough now! Will I ever be? Will I ever graduate?

And then there is the, "You must be so organized!"  Sure. Sure, I am real organized. If you count having one load of laundry in the machine that has been rinsed three times to try and fend off mildew or six clean loads of laundry in baskets for everyone to rifle through trying to find matching socks organized, then yes- I am organized. If lost books, late appointments, library fines, sending graduation gifts in September, and NEVER getting around to those pesky thank you notes is organized, then yes, I am VERY organized.  Will I ever graduate?

However- even though I have not learned how to do some things (like organization) or to understand some things (like patience) I know I have learned vast storehouses of truth from homeschooling my kids- like humility, putting God first, and a deep reliance on God as my complete inability to do this without Him was revealed to me daily.

And now- with a grandchild on the way- I am pretty sure I will NEVER graduate.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  ~Phil. 3:13,14