Your Abundant-Life Homeschool Resource

Issue 23 - September, 2003

Dear Friends,

Greetings from a long-lost writer of Highly Irregular Newsletters! As the kaleidescope of a teenage-filled life has spun glorious colors and dizzying hues around our home, I've often thought of sitting down and writing a new newsletter... but the pace was so fast with our three young adults that there was little breathing space available.

Now, tonight, I sit at the computer as my youngest plays her final night of piano at home. We leave in the morning to drive with Melody across the country to a university where she will be studying piano performance. Her two older brothers left last month to attend a university in Mississippi where they are studying theater, dance, and music.

So, as the strains of Eric Satie's "Gymnopedies" float through our home, I am considering just where all the years have gone. It seems like only yesterday that a friend gave me the book, Homegrown Kids, which set our feet on the adventurous path of homeschooling. Though it was twenty-two years ago, it's truly been but a breath of time. In my mind's eye I see that first day when five-year old Isaac and I sat down for formal "schooling." Though I was somewhat terrified with the incredible responsibility I had willingly taken on, it quickly seemed as natural as teaching him how to set the table or tie his shoes. As the years whirl quickly past, I see many hours with the five of us cuddled up on the couch reading Hank the Cow Dog and laughing so hard we can't breathe. The countless days spent with our three children in the van, driving around the United States to speak at homeschool conventions, was the musical womb from whence our "von Waring family singers" emerged. What amazing joy we had in singing together... what amazing struggles we had in learning how to kindly communicate if someone was singing off pitch or stealing another's note!

The candle-lit suppers, the pumpkin muffins on frosty mornings, the freezing of thirteen dozen ears of corn, the innumerable jars of homemade salsa, the smells of scented soap made on our own stove, the wild ethnic foods Michael - our middle child - created with overdoses of vibrant spices, the spontaneous puppet shows that were performed for unsuspecting visitors, the handmade Christmas gifts which were not always finished by Christmas, the brief swimming at Grandma's extremely cold lake, the rainy ferry trips at the Washington coast, the sobering Civil War battlefields and first-person museums, the Smithsonian and all of its treasures, the friends who visited for an evening and the friends who were brave enough to travel with us for weeks, the various dogs and cats who brought us great merriment and laughter, the times of prayer and worship with just our family, the learning of prepositions by moving our whole bodies around, the strains of Handel's Messiah being sung imperfectly... all these memories linger on the palate of my mind at this moment.

So many times in my life, people have asked questions like, "How can you stand to be around your children all day?" They go on to indicate that they would hate to be cooped up all day with little ones, or that they hated school themselves and couldn't imagine trying to teach their children themselves. They have concluded by glaring at us like we were some kind of odd species of weird duck.

But, you know what? At this moment of my life, I can say to you that it was all worth it--every overwhelming day. Every moment of pulling-out-my-hair. Every moment when they acted like they really didn't like each other (or me!). Every day when I felt like my back was against the wall. Every hour that I waited impatiently for my husband to come home so he could take over...

Every time that their eyes lit up when they understood something. Every time they spoke kindly to one another. Every time they cooked a meal, or did the dishes, or cleared the table. Every time they did their chores willingly. Every time they came up with an exuberant means of sharing what they had learned. Every time we had a Family Presentation Night. Every time we listened to the depth of their prayers. Every time they recited poetry or told a joke or made a pun.

All of it. The good, the bad, the invigorating, the exhausting, the new and fresh, the old and tired, the restarts and new beginnings. Because, you see, homeschooling has been real life, lived out in our home with real people. And the results of this lifestyle, this commitment, have been worth it.

People around me keep asking, "Aren't you going to be terribly lonely, experiencing empty-nest all at once?" The truth is that we have raised them for this moment. The point of giving them everything we had is so that they could go on from that launching pad to accomplish the great exploits that God has planned for them. This is the beginning of the next stage of life both for them and for us.

So, celebrate with me, dear friends. This is where we're all heading. And I encourage you with all that is in me that you hold to the course, hold fast to your hope, hold tightly to the vision of passionate, healthy, dedicated young people who are ready and eager "to will and to do according to His good pleasure." For it is in the maintaining of the course, the living every day of the hope-filled goals, the committed tenacity to serve your children as unto the Lord, that you will know the joy I know.

As a final word, may I share a song I wrote many years ago?

There's a song risin' inside me as friendships start to grow
Between our children and ourselves - we're reaping what we sowed.
It's a journey for our family, we walk it day by day
And the best is still yet to come, so I really want to say:

Hold to the course and walk it with the Lord
With Jesus as our source, we'll reap the true reward.

There's a joy risin' inside me as parents through the land
Sacrifice and give themselves so their children learn to stand.
And these children who are standing, now what will they become?
The leaders and the heroes, and the fathers and the moms.

Hold to the course and walk it with the Lord
With Jesus as our source, we'll reap the true reward.

There's a hope risin' inside me to see His grace outpoured
On the families of our nation, it's the goodness of our Lord.
He is turning the hearts of the fathers to the children one by one,
And the children's hearts are turning though our journey's just begun.

Hold to the course and walk it with the Lord
With Jesus as our source, we'll reap the true reward.

copyright 1997 by Diana Waring

Blessings,

Diana Waring

P.S. There are some great ideas kicking around in me for the next Highly Irregular Newsletter coming in October - look for it!

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