Good Enough

It’s been a long weekend of preparing for school and readying my house to transform back into a classroom.  It’s hard to believe that we’re beginning our 11th year of homeschooling.  How can it have gone by so quickly?  It seems like just last week that I had #1 sitting at our kitchen table in Moore as I taught her to carefully write her alphabet.

Her handwriting is just as awful now as it was at 4 years old.  Poor girl.  It’s one of the few things she wasn’t ever able to learn, good penmanship.  When #2’s handwriting was atrocious, I thought that perhaps I should just teach them to type and let go of the dream of legibility.  Then came along #3 who, despite vision issues, can write better than the first two, and #4 whose handwriting is beautiful perfection.  The sisters who taught me would have been proud if I had written half as well, especially since she is a lefty.

Isn’t it funny how all that works?  Same curriculum.  Same methods.  Same teacher (and I actually am less patient now because more people need my attention.) Vastly different results.

Isn’t that how parenting is though?  We pour our efforts, love, and time into these children and have no clue as to the results.  Some of them turn out exactly as we hoped, and others are a gorgeous mess.  I’m learning to see the beauty in all of it.  I’m learning to look for the good and not get frustrated by the imperfections.  It’s a bit hard for the control freak I am to step back and realize that they will never be exactly what I hope for them to be.  Not a single one will ever match up to my perfect dreams for them.  Ever.

It doesn’t matter a single bit.

I’m not trying to raise perfect human beings.  That’s already been done once, and I’m not the girl chosen for the task.  I’m trying to raise good enough children.

Good enough to sing the praises of their Heavenly Father

Good enough to do the work He has planned for them to do

Good enough to love each other

Good enough to love us too

Good enough to be a blessing to the world whether in big ways like Mother Theresa, or small ways no one ever sees

Good enough to be exactly the people God wants for them to be

While I, in my vanity, wish for perfection for them, to shield them from the pain and heartbreaks which life will bring them.  I know in all honesty that it is not what God wishes for them. He knows that it is the challenges they face which will shape them into who He has called them to be. He wants them to be themselves.  Flawed.  Imperfect.  A little quirky.  Truly themselves.  Wondrously created.  Atrocious handwriting and all.