What I've learned this year...

Today is our last official day of school for the year and I try to wrap up by asking my children what they have learned. Their answers always contain some surprises, and I look forward to reading them later today.

Here is a short list, in no particular order, of what I have learned this year:

~ I am called to homeschool my children. Despite my lack of qualifications and my many shortcomings, homeschooling works for our family. The grace to school my children at home can only come from my Heavenly Father.

~ I enjoy learning so much more as an adult! I wish I had learned history as a tapestry rather than a set of disconnected dates. The literature that I loved as a child has grown more precious as I watch my children experience it for the first time.

~ I am about as flexible as a piece of dry spaghetti at times, but I am learning flexibility...I really am!

~ I love the freedom of homeschooling. When we had a series of illnesses and hospitalizations in February, my children didn't "miss" school - we just started again when we were well enough to continue.

~ Despite my frailty, I am stronger than I thought. This really has nothing to do with me, it is only through God's immeasurable grace that I can say this. During the season of illness, each time I was on the brink of falling apart, God would appoint a friend to call or email or tell me they were praying...Those kisses from heaven kept us all going.

~ I am blessed beyond measure.

~ My children are simply amazing and I am blessed every day to be their mother.

It has been a good year - a year of trials, a year of blessings - and on the last day of school, I wouldn't change a single thing.