A Saint to Guide Me

Every year, Hubby and I talk about homeschooling versus private schooling.

This year, we decided to send SP to preschool two mornings a week so I could have a little more time with LB to focus on her schooling and do those things that take some undivided attention. 

We've also taken a pretty bare bones approach to the year. The main focus of fifth grade for LB has been reading, writing, math, and religion. Those are the things we're trying to do well. Everything else, we've put in the "extra" category. 

It's given us a better focus to the year and made the school day more manageable. Extra subjects have found their way in, as life doesn't happen in a vacuum. 

We've maintained a subscription to Green Kids Crafts, and every month, a science box that LB can complete independently has arrived. 

We bought the complete four volume set of The Story of the World on audio, and she's listened several times, absorbing history in the context of a worldview. 

This Christmas, we bought a new family computer and added Rosetta Stone Spanish and Dance Mat Typing to the school day. 

The school year is going well, so well, I really was surprised by the incessant push I'm feeling to go back to private school with the girls next year. 

We've always been open to moving between homeschooling and our local Catholic school, but just when I feel like we're in our groove, I think we might be switching it up again. 

As I've said in the past, we're blessed to be choosing between two goods. One isn't bad and the other better, but the flexibility of homeschooling has always been such a draw to me. 

Yet, God keeps speaking into my heart that it's time. Time to focus more on my own mental and physical health while the girls are in a place they love that nurtures their faith and minds. 

Time to put energy into working, as well. It's such a blessing to have work I enjoy, and a few hours a day where I'm not juggling schooling and a preschooler would go a long way towards our family's future. 

Last Friday, I was feeling guilty about going in this direction, questioning whether it was selfish and misguided to send the girls to school to give myself the space for personal and professional growth. 

Then, LB reminded me we hadn't picked our names for the Saint's Name Generator. 

As I waited to press the button, I prayed, "God, give me the Saint I need for this year." 

Then I clicked on the patroness of infertility and working mothers. 

Sometimes God has to bang you over the head with it.

Please pray for our family as we continue to make this decision and discern what our coming school year looks like.  We're doing our best to be open to being where God wants us to be.