The Commitment

This past weekend, I went to the homeschool convention in Arlington. As I sat down for the first talk on Saturday morning, I looked around at all the young (oh my goodness they were young!) faces of the moms just beginning on this journey.  At 37, I definitely wasn’t the oldest mom in the room, but I was at least 15 years older than the youngest. I looked down at the baby hanging out in her sling and it hit me….I’ve been homeschooling for 12 years and #7 means I’ll be at it for at least 18 more.

Holy crap.

30 years.  That’s my whole life. Well, a big ol’ chunk of it teaching preschool, Algebra, and physics all side by side.  It was in that moment that I felt exhausted. What about me?  What about the plans I had and have for myself? In the prime of my life with so many dreams unfulfilled….what about me? 30 years. More if there’s ever a #8.  Holy. freaking. moly.

And I knew that I want to quit.  Just chuck it all and walk away. There are better things I could be doing with my life.  Important and memorable things. Things which will last forever!

Things like my children and their immortal souls.Which, incidentally, are the only things which last forever. 






















I was reminded this weekend of the time #2 spent in the NICU dying.  (Just because you’re dying doesn’t mean you do.  You can recover, but he was surely dying.)  The awful very bad time when I pleaded with God to trade my life for his.  “Please take my life in trade for his, let me die if he can live,” I begged.


Did I mean it?  Did I really mean I would give my own life for his or did I only mean I’d die willingly right there on the spot?  What if the death He asks for is a long, slow painful death to self?  Say…… 30 years or more of dying to myself?  Am I willing to make that trade for him? For them all?