Life Is More Than Lists {A Little Back To School Reminder}

It's the end of summer. We hold off on starting school a full week past what is normal for our area, but it still feels too early. Maybe it's because this summer never really heated up and we didn't spend a whole lot of time in that desperate pursuit of coolness. Maybe it's because, despite my yearly vows to keep our days free and open, every weekend seems to fill up one way or another. Or maybe it's just how it always goes. I never quite get everything in that I'd like to. I never quite manage to make it to the bottom of the check list of summer awesome.

But life is so much more than just a check next to an item line. At least, I want mine to be more.

I think about it while pulling out curriculum and making lists because oh, that's right, we are supposed to start school on Monday and I'll be teaching four kids four grades, with two others besides. I make my spreadsheets and I get it all organized on paper and it makes sense, color coded subjects by level and chore charts by difficulty. It's pretty and it's neat and it's so unlike real life that I think it may make more sense if I print it up and let the toddlers scribble on it in pen.

I try to remember that growing these kids in wisdom and grace isn't something you can check off a list. It's a daily practice that has to be claimed and worn each and every day. Some days easier than others. Some so messy and mangled that they more closely resemble my bin of mismatched socks than that pretty little spreadsheet in my google docs. I know that some days the only way I'll get to sleep is to hand our mess over to God and say "I did my best. You take the rest." Because it's really all I can do.

That's when something amazing happens. Life blooms in the cracks, in the margins of the check lists. In the unexpected and in the unplanned, we get a front row seat to the truth that our successes and the successes our children does not hinge solely on us. God's plan trumps our spreadsheets. He only asks that we trust Him and hand over every worry, knowing that He's bigger that any bad day we have.

These kids are amazing and He loves them more than I do. He takes my feeble human effort and blesses it like crazy and I can see how life is following His plan even if it's not following mine. I hand over my weaknesses and He fills the space with grace, day in and day out.

Summer is over, and I just know that this school year? This impossibly huge undertaking that is much too big for me to hold on my own? Is going to be great. Even if that list is long forgotten one week in.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in 

weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my 

weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

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