When I want to give up

So.  This whole staying-at-home-and-homeschooling thing is not the easiest job in the world.  (And I know you're thinking...uhh, hello?)  And, yes, I knew that going into it.

And it may be harder for me than someone else because of the way I am.  I'm a perfectionist.  I expect things to go my way.  I have a tendency to get frustrated when they don't.  And I'm hard on myself.  I sometimes wonder if I'm cut out for this.

I haven't officially begun homeschooling my kids just yet, but I will at some point this year.  My oldest just turned 6 (!!) and will begin year one (aka first grade) in the next several months.  The thing is, I'm pregnant with our third child and due in September.  So this is a big year - officially beginning homeschooling and having a new baby in the house!

Now I really wonder if I'm cut out for this.

But I can't think like that.  I just can't.  That's where it starts...believe me, I know.  It starts in my mind, with me telling myself that I just can't do it, that it's too hard.

I can't let myself believe that it will be too hard.  I can't tell myself, "Oh, I don't know how I'm going to do it.  So I may as well just give up."

I won't give up.

No, it won't be easy.  But I won't give up.

It will be hard.  But I won't give up.

I will be tired and I will cry and weep.  But I won't give up.

I will want to give up.

But I won't give up.

Now I know I could make things easier and less stressful.  I could go back to work - then I wouldn't spend the majority of my days disciplining my kids, cleaning up after them, etc.  It sure sounds less stressful when you're on this side of the fence.  Or I could send the kids to public school.

But to me, that would be giving up because those two things are very important to me:  staying home and homeschooling my children.  I'm not saying that I think every mother should do these two things, but I truly feel that God has called me to do so, for many reasons of which I may write about in the future.

C.S. Lewis wrote in his book Mere Christianity:

"That is why we must not be surprised if we are in for a rough time.  When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well (in the sense that some of his bad habits are now corrected) he often feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly.  When troubles come along - illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptations - he is disappointed.  These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; buy why now?  Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level:  putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before.  It seems to us all unncessary:  but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us." 

I won't give up because I know that God is working in me and this is how - through my staying at home with my children.  He is making me more loving, patient, kind, gentle.  He is teaching me to give myself.  He is making me like Him.  And that is not easy because it's against every fiber of my selfish, sinful being.  I want to run away and do what I think is easiest for me.

But the only way is to do the opposite.  To lose myself and run to Him, trusting that He will give me all that I need.

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