The First Day of School

Summer vacation officially ended yesterday. The big yellow bus lumbered up Harbor Hill, and my two oldest learners climbed onto the school-bound-mobile without looking back. Joshua waved until the bus was a gold dot on the horizon, and Maggie stood at the end of the driveway and cried.  I thought about crying with her.  Summer was simply too short. 

 

Thankfully, Hannah still likes a personal chauffer on the first day of school.  So once the bus disappeared, we piled into the mini-van and headed to Lincoln school. Hannah proudly hung her backpack on the hook in her new locker (a SERIOUS upgrade from the kindergarten coat hook), then waltzed into her first grade classrom like a pro. She opened and closed her shiny wooden desk (another SERIOUS upgrade from last year’s little round kindergarten tables) and sharpened an already perfectly pointed pencil just to be sure that the first grade sharpener was ready for business. 

 

When the final bell rang, I waved good-bye to my six-and-a -half -year -old and strolled down the hall. Strands of red-eyed moms still lingered outside of the buzzing classrooms, and I was reminded once again that the first day of school is often more difficult for mommies than it is for children.

Without a doubt, I am grateful for the amazing men and women who tend to my children’s hearts and minds between the hours of eight and three. I don’t take lightly their job or their stunning dedication to the little learners who fill their classrooms. However, as I headed out the school doors with Joshua and Maggie skipping joyfully at my side, I realized afresh the  privilege of being my children’s first teacher. Commissioned to teach, not because of who I am, but simply because of Whose I am, I am humbled by God’s summons to school my children in Kingdom matters.

 I am grateful for lessons taught in the dirt of our own backyard “science lab,” for questions posed climbing the jungle gym at the park, and for creativity sparked by messy projects at the art studio of our kitchen table. I am delighted with textbook moments scripted by the Creator Himself; for butterflies that teach of transformation and sunsets that speak of beauty.

And as I entrust my children into the hands of other marvelously capable and gifted teachers, I am equally grateful that motherhood is God’s personal invitation to learn as well as to teach. I may never acquire an advanced degree or receive a title of academic distinction, but the instruction I’ve gleaned from the four-foot professors beneath my roof have left me a wiser woman indeed. My son’s squeals of delight over the unusual colors of a passing beetle have instructed me in lessons on wonder; while my daughter’s tears have enrolled me in the difficult course of compassion. And though I may never have chosen to pursue advanced character training on my own, my toddler’s tantrums in the middle of the grocery store have plunged me into a graduate-level course on humility.

I don’t know how many more classrooms await my offspring’s charms or how many more teachers will grace their lives with wisdom and kindness, but I AM certain of this: I will continue to delight in the Lord’s invitation to join Him in the mighty task of instructing His children’s hearts in truth. And this grateful teacher will pray that each lesson learned in the humble classroom of our home will be one thing my precious students (and their mom) never outgrow!

(Much of today’s post comes from an article I wrote on Lizzy’s first day of kindergarten. It was published first in P31 Woman magazine.  Ironically, though the article is a bit outdated, it still speaks my heart every year on the first day of school, whether or not I have a kindergartener in tow. Some things just never change! For those of you who are new to my blog, I hope you were blessed by my musings.  For those of you who have faithfully followed for a while, I hope you don’t mind a repeat!)
Today’s Overflow: Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates…” Deuteronomy 11:18-20