School Decisions

Well friends, we have BIG news around here. This fall we will be sending our girls to public school and will no longer be homeschooling.

It's a HUGE decision that has taken a long time of prayer and much thought. We have talked and prayed about this for a while and we've asked our very closest friends and family to come alongside us in praying over this. We've asked for opinions and talked with other families who have made similar transitions and we have FINALLY come to a decision that we feel completely at peace about.

A couple weeks ago I was a ball of stress. I felt like the world was weighing on my shoulders and that all these decisions were going to make or break our family. {I know that isn't a reality, but that's how it felt at the time.} I felt like it was all up to ME to decide the best way for the girls to be educated and just didn't know if I was doing enough or doing it good enough.

In the midst of this God saw a way to rescue me by way of a favorite blog of mine. He placed this blog post in front of me one day and it changed EVERYTHING! If you have a minute, go read it! It's talking about taking fear out of our decision making. I realized when I took the fears I had out of this decision and just thought about what would be the best thing for my children, that the choice became SO much clearer to me!

Where I once had been so closed - minded to thinking about any major life change like this, I began to see that change is OK, change is good and this could actually be a very good thing for all of us.

I realize I'm leaving a LOT out about our exact reasons and that's because I believe this is a very personal choice for every family to make. No one will have the same exact reasons that we do and each family will need to pray through their own schooling decisions.

I also want to add that we have LOVED our homeschooling years. The blessing of having my girls home with me all these years has been WONDERFUL! When I think of the lazy, slow mornings where we snuggled a little longer, or the days we snuggled up on the couch to read together or the great conversations we had together I am filled with thankfulness for these years. They have been hard at times, but they have blessed my heart more than anything. I do not look back on our homeschool years with regret, I do not beat myself up for things I wish we could have/ would have done. I look back and smile and thank God that He gave us this opportunity.

And now, we look forward. Things will be very different and it will take some getting used to. But we're all excited. And I know the Lord will bless us as we now go out and shine His light in the public school system.

I would LOVE to hear from any of you if you have any words of wisdom for navigating public school, or how you deal with the morning routines, or any other advice or wisdom you'd like to share.

My prayer for this summer is that we do 2 things:

1. Prepare ourselves for this major life change
2. Soak up every ounce of fun that we possibly can since come fall we'll be following the school schedule and I KNOW without a doubt that I will MISS these girls when I don't see them all day long!