OK we’re not strictly in lock-down yet, but the COVID-19 cases in our area are starting to climb so I decided last week to keep the boys home from school. I’m a pretty organised person – my day job is project managing and directing – and I’m relatively smart so I knew it would be hard but do-able. I saw many pictures of friends’ kids sitting at their new home work stations with big beaming smiles – yeah, this is do-able.
Well, my home schooling began with a trip to the supermarket because, as a staunch anti-panic buyer, I was running low on some basics. For some reason my relatively well behaved kids turn into the spawn of satan at the supermarket, so while taking a conference call, wrangling an uncooperative shopping trolley and trying to wrangle my equally uncooperative children round the shop while trying to sound cool and professional on the conference call, my first home schooling day started with me in hysterics in the car park and my kids staring at me like I’d gone insane.
That was generally the tone for the whole day.
You see I’m a single mum and I work full time. I can’t afford to cut back my hours – I am supremely blessed to be in a job that is secure (at the moment). What that means is that I was trying to mum, to work and to teach all at the same time and I felt like my brain was imploding with the mental and emotional load of it.
On top of that, we’re all going through something completely new. There’s fear and uncertainty and things are changing every day. The mental real estate needed to process all that means there is less left for dealing with other things. Doing this on my own means also there is nobody to turn to to share the mental and emotional load or divide the attention that the kids need while you’re trying to do other things. And when you’re pouring a lot into little people, with diminished mental real estate that don’t leave much for yourself.
People told me not to worry about their schooling. But in actual fact my 9 year old gets extremely anxious and needs the security of knowing he is following a structure. My 8 year is a crazy Tigger-like guy and for all our sanity he needs structure as well.
But two things have really helped. First, a lovely couple in my Bible study group sent this:
This helped. It really helped.
Second, and this was the super surprising thing, was our family devotions.
My kids attend a beautiful Christian school and they start every day with devotions. I decided to try and follow so I asked the boys to pick a song and then after that we would do a Bible study together.
My 9 year old picked this, which I thought was a great pick for the reality we’re living at the moment:
Then we did a Bible study together using I Can Learn the Bible. I read the lesson and then they wrote down the memory verse and we talked about what it meant and how they could see it applying in our daily lives. And then we prayed.
It was simple and short. Maybe 20 minutes all up. But I felt a wonderful connection with them as we followed this together.
Me and my household, we serve the Lord. We church. We talk about God and God’s community a lot. We read Bible verses. We talk about Jesus. We pray every day at different times. But we had never before spent time in this organised way and it was a real surprise to me. Stupid really, because I know this. Grounding in God is the first and best thing of parenting. I know that. And I know the positive effects of being in his word. But right now, in this moment, this was a new thing.
In among the chaos and uncertainty, the world stopped for 20 minutes. It was just me and my boys and God.
It re-focused. It anchored. It connected us to each other and it connected us to God. He enfolded us in his peace. And so I am wonderfully grateful to God for bringing us light in the darkness and bonding us together.
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. (Ps. 127:1)
As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15)
Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. (Matthew 6:33)