My “free” time has, for the past few years, almost always has a main focus. First it was school. Then it was contract work. This past summer, it’s been mostly homeschooling prep.

I’m excited and nervous. This year we’re actually registered for homeschooling, as opposed to just trying things out on our own. I suppose most years include some sort of trying things out anyway. But the “officially registered” part has me on slight tenterhooks. Whoo-eee.

In the face of nervousness, my typical response is to prepare. I was invited to be a guest speaker at our children’s worship this summer for just one Sunday. This meant writing a script almost word for word a week before and reading aloud through it about ten times, or until I almost had it by heart; practicing in my room first, and then in front of Jack (“You’ll be fine!”); timing and re- timing myself; laying out all my props the night before; and finally showing up early to pace across the front of the room in my I’m-going-to-own-this-space ritual (it requires a lot of big steps and deep breathing and tromping all over the place, and I do it with every classroom where I am nervous, which is to say every room). Nerves!

With homeschooling? With a September start in mind, I cobbled together a year’s scope before I gave birth in late spring, wrote out a detailed week-by-week plan for the first semester a month ago, and now I’m just prepping and gathering physical materials to ready for each approaching week. To be fair, I take some comfort in the curriculum-writing part. I’ve been paid for it for a couple years now, so at least there’s a mindset and a pace about it that I enjoy. But I’m definitely still nervous about the whole shebang. Thinking about homeschooling makes me vibrate.

One of the thoughts that leads to this nervousness is that all my work will be for naught. Or a similar thought will arise that asks whether I really need to work so much for this first year. So it’s been very neat to read 2 Kings chapters 3 and 4. In these passages are two instances of God directing people to work hard in expectation of miraculous blessing. Thirsty armies are asked to dig trenches; God fills them with water, without rain or wind. A widow must ask her neighbours to borrow as many empty vessels as possible; God miraculously gives her oil enough to fill all the vessels she’s collected. Arguably if she had collected more vessels she would have even more oil; if she had only collected a few, she would have much less oil.

What’s stood out to me the most is that the people in either case are asked to do the work first. When they do, they witness firsthand just how much goodness God can pour out. In my case, worrying about homeschooling and then coming across this passage (what perfect timing, Lord) is a clear sign to me that, yes, I should be putting in this work. Now that the school year is upon us, I am, once again, encouraged and looking forward to seeing what God does.

---

Featured photo by Tom Crew on Unsplash. This is post 3 out of 5 in my half-year challenge.