Different Paths

About a week and a half before our school year officially began, I started feeling a little melancholy. All the other little kids in the neighborhood were enthusiastically discussing their back to school outfits and who was going to be whose bus buddy. I watched Chloe carefully as she listened to these discussions in the back yards of our neighbors. Was she bummed that she wouldn't be riding the bus for the first time? Did she feel left out? Was she confused about the fact that they were all doing one thing and she was doing another? As I've confessed before, I am a recovering "go along with the crowd" girl. I love to do what everyone else is doing... it's so much easier than explaining to people why you're doing something different and then weathering their (sometimes) negative reactions. I searched her little face for signs that she was turning out like her mama...

... but I saw nothing.

Really. Nothing. She just seemed content. Content with the idea that she wasn't doing the same thing, and that was okay. Content with the idea that she could join in the excitement and rejoice with them without feeling left out. It's so nice to be able to feel genuinely happy for others who are excitedly taking a different path, isn't it? Because God has different plans for each of us, and He's not going to call us all to take the same path. I watched her and was so grateful.

The melancholy lifted. The peace settled in. And then I planned a party.

In that order.

I wanted Chloe to have a fun tradition to look forward to at the beginning of each school year, even if it's not a different teacher, and a new class, and pictures with all the neighbors as the bus comes lumbering down the street. So we invited five other homeschooling families over for a Back to School party. We ate donuts and muffins and the kids ran around in the rain while the moms huddled inside and prayed together for wisdom and patience and joy and courage. It was a wonderful morning.

"Teach a child to choose the right path, and when he is older he will remain upon it."

                                                                                               Proverbs 22:6