“You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me…
This summer my organizational abilities dissipated. I entered my twenty-eighth year of homeschooling this month—the final year. When I began this marathon of blessing and character refinement, I had no idea my endeavor would span decades. I was trained by competent women—school teachers, pioneer stock. From that apprenticeship I pulled up something that was not natural to me and turned out five (soon to be six) well-educated offspring. How? Why?
Twenty-nine years ago, the Lover of our souls laid it on our hearts to do this (something I thought I would never do)—it couldn’t be escaped; he had hemmed us in. It was his imperative to us and was greatly used to shape our lives and bring us to the end of ourselves. But what I didn’t realize until this year was that in the hemming, he had also laid his hand upon me, equipping me for the task. Until I recognized this, I was so proud of my accomplishments (my kids are awesome) and gave plenty of advice to people to just pull themselves together and do it. Stupid me.
When the organizational drive evaporated and what I had thought was my own skill and ability disappeared this summer—gone now that the final lesson plans have been made, the syllabus bound, the year planned, and the student body down to one wise and well-behaved student, I recognized that he had given me something that I had never had prior and have no longer. It is gone, specifically provided for the task that is almost complete.
Earlier in the summer, I had told my husband, “It would appear that I can either be organized or I can be a writer. I cannot be both.” I cherish this final year of my first career as a home school mother and am zealously guarding my time with my daughter. But it is coming to an end; now is the time to write. He hemmed me in and gave me an impossible task; then he equipped me to do it, loving and cherishing me even though I failed often, relied on myself, did not avail myself of his grace, and was too full of myself to comprehend that he was doing the equipping.
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high; I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:5, 6 ESV).
I love to see a good plan unfold. I’m understanding now what it means to do his will to the best of our ability confident that he will provide. A new place for me to be–you are a wonderful example of living a life for God and allowing Him to carry you during the hard bits. I’m very glad that you are writing for His glory.
It is truly amazing and very humbling when He shows us that it is only through His grace that we do even those things that we once were so proud of doing, isn’t it! God certainly knows how to humble us! I am SO thankful that He does, because He gives grace to the humble. The proud He knows only from afar.
I THANK GOD FOR HIS HUMBLING PROCESS! Without that, we would remain far from Him!
Having said that, I am so glad, Melinda, that now He has taken you the next step: giving you the grace to write! We all benefit from that! What is yet to come? Only God knows!
and then God put me in line to be trained by you Melinda! and to think that I had to hear from you that you were THRILLED to turn 50, what a shame that I did not know this as I approached & dreaded 50!
I do have to chuckle when I read this one! We have already talked about this on the phone, and I can picture you realizing that the end of an era is coming. God is so good to gift us–supply our need–for the task that He has called us to do. Thankfully, He supplies our every need according to His riches in glory! He has already prepared you to have a rich and full career as a writer, now that your first career is ending. I rejoice with you in this wonderful Savior who loves to give us the desires of our hearts–first, a wonderful bunch of children and now, the joy of writing for His glory!! Hallelujah!