Have You Arrived?
Sign outside a church:
It is so easy to think, when things are going well, that we have it all together. What crushing disappointment it can be when something happens to make us realize that we don’t.
When I think about the word ‘arrived’ I think of something being complete. Something that is finished, nothing is left to be done. That is so NOT a description of me! I had lofty ambitions this week to do amazing things with our homeschool. Guess what didn’t happen. Between sick children, AWANA Grand Prix cars, visits with friends, a broken refridgerator (which is a whole other story), planning a camping trip, purging the family room and superfluous homeschooling materials we actually did almost no formal homeschooling this week.
Hmm…. that would seem to be a problem wouldn’t it? Instead of formal homeschooling, however, we did a bunch of other things together. We may not have conjugated a single verb this week, but we did put a lot of energy into working as a family to meet many other needs, obligations and commitments.
When I reflect on our homeschool journey – now that we have a child graduating in 9 1/2 weeks – I realize that educationally we still have not arrived. In wisdom, we still have not arrived. In parenting, we still have not arrived. In consistency, we still have not arrived. Are you seeing the pattern? Every day we put energy and effort into the journey but until we are met up in Heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ we will always say, “We still have not arrived.”
Don’t be discouraged if it seems that you never get it right or it never feels complete. This life is a process. A step by step marathon that leads us to grow into the people Jesus wants for us to be.
I know I’ve shared this verse before, but as it is one of my favourites and also so relevant I’ll share it again,
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Every moment is another chance to get it right!