What is the Ideal Homeschool Day?

We were supposed to have school today, and even though we did some school, there is always a part of my brain that thinks if THIS much isn’t done, or if we end before THIS time, we didn’t really do school. Not all my boxes were checked off and pages completed in the correct sequence. (gasp!)

Am I the only one that wrestles with this?

Ironically, as I was listening to a podcast this morning, they were talking about this very thing. What I do know is the kids had a lot of fun today, my hubby was off work, learning was involved in various forms throughout our day – and that’s ok.

All that to say, this last week has been a humdinger of mental overload. Between my mom having surgery again last week to check out another suspicious mass (it wasn’t cancerous – thank you, Lord!) to an abundance of close family members having some major health issues and a hospitalization, my brain truly wants to not work hard at all. There has been a whole heap of unpleasantness happening and frankly it feels overwhelming during many moments of the day.

Let’s face it – all the overwhelming stuff, it isn’t in my plans (and I’d really it rather not be, if we’re being honest). This isn’t how I envisioned our life, our homeschool time to be. Sometimes that is more unsettling to me than others.

There are the moments that I need to remind myself that it is OK to step back, recoup, and relax for my sanity – and my family’s. One portion of Teaching from Rest really resonated with me and I wanted to share it so you all can get a peek into my thoughts too:

“’The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own,” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.’(C.S. Lewis)

We are … meant to recognize every facet of our day as coming from the hand of God. It all passes through His fingers first, and He uses it to make sure that we lean hard on Him.

Surrender your idea of what the ideal homeschool day is supposed to look like and take on, with both hands, the day that it is.”

– Sarah Mackenzie, Teaching from Rest

In the days, weeks, and months to come there will be ample opportunities to lean hard and surrender (I know I can count on that). And I will. I must.

This goes far beyond just our homeschool days as well, although they are definitely intertwined. Here’s to letting go of my ‘ideal’ and recognizing each day for what it is.