Planting at the Harvest

Photo courtesy of www.wallpaperfolder.com

So...we are in week four of our homeschool year and it is HARD, y'all.  While the learning material has ramped up in some cases, I am speaking mostly about the attitudes I am facing each day.  The prideful, unteachable spirit when I show someone how to solve a math problem, and they say, "I KNOW THAT ALREADY," (even when they don't).  The tantrums that ensue when I ask one of them to read a story.  Oh, and all-those-incessant-selfish-questions, such as: "Why does HE get to...why is SHE already done?..." The slothful spirit behind, "Can I just do this ONE sentence...can I only do THIS math problem..."  They whine and bicker; I lash out in frustration.  It is a painful cycle.

And so...I am backing off, changing up curriculum, adjusting our routine, trying desperately to introduce "fun" times with art and music, and so far, nothing has really helped to ease the tension, foster the joy, and restore the peace to our homeschool.

Where are the children who enjoyed reading Shakespeare stories with me last spring?
Where are the read-aloud snuggle sessions on the couch?
I confess I am grieving those moments right now.

"School used to be fun," one retorts today, as they leave the school room in a huff.

I feel defeated.  Again.

I have asked each one of them for their suggestions, and I am only more frustrated by their answers that contain no real solutions--just camouflaged requests to do little to no work and learning.

Oh, but I do love this time of year.  The back-to-school anticipation, the smell of freshly sharpened pencils, the sight of sharply pointed crayons in crisp green-and-yellow boxes.  And my favorite season is soon to arrive in all of its earth-toned glory, as the days grow shorter, and I anticipate the sight of gorgeous leaves fluttering into a messy array of color on our lawn.

Harvest time.

But not in our household, I am afraid.  There is so.little.fruit to be reaped.

Instead, I find myself in a season of plowing up the hardened, fallow soil and going about the back-breaking and tedious work of sowing.  This is ugly, sweaty, messy, HARD work.

 These relationships are just so much harder and messier than I'd ever thought they'd be.  And aren't these relationships why we are homeschooling in the first place?

There are no signs of growth right now, and the harvest seems just.so.far.off.  And after I till up the ground, working alongside my husband, all the while praying for rain from Almighty God, I can only do my best to scatter seeds and cover them with loose soil and straw.  I must be content to not see how they will transform on their own time, in the hidden place of the soil, and just work and trust.

I chuckle as I look outside my kitchen window this morning to see such a poignant visual aid: our backyard that my husband dug up a few days ago.  Since it has consistently failed to grow grass, he had to till it completely up so that it can become fertile again and grow back a lush lawn.

Oh, but it was so much harder and uglier and messier than I thought it would be.

I thought labor was over after a few hours...and then you were able to hold your child in your arms on that first day of life outside the womb.

Oh, but no...the labor continues on!  Even now, it can take my breath away at times, surprising me with how sharp the pain bores in when hurtful words and hateful attitudes intrude into my morning.  I am reminded how Paul states that he labored in prayer, and how all of creation groans for the return of our Lord, waiting for things to be made right again, how things should have always been.

And yet, like so many times before, the Lord is faithful to continue to teach me and guide me step-by-step, day by day.  Like Elijah's ravens, He feeds me by my brook and sustains me with just my bread for the day.  For example, I was at the soccer field yesterday, lounging back on a picnic blanket, watching the sky as I waited for my child's practice to draw to an end.  And in the sky, as beautifully blue and clear as it was, I noticed a small wisp of a cloud.

Elijah's cloud.

I quickly searched for this passage of Scripture on my phone, and reread 1 Kings 18:41-45, which speaks to how Elijah prayed during a season of drought for rain, and sent out his servant to look for a cloud.  Six times the servant came back and reported that there was no cloud in the sky, but on the seventh time, the servant came back and reported that there was a cloud, the size of man's hand, rising in the sky.

And like most other times when I reread a passage of Scripture, I saw something new, something I had never noticed before.  One thing I noticed was the posture of Elijah as he prayed.  Verse 42 says that "he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees."  Some commentaries describe this as the "fetal position" but I think of the fetal position as being more when one is lying curled up on one's side.  No, I think this is more like the "emergency landing" airplane passenger position...or upon more introspection...more like the birthing position; the position I was encouraged to assume by the labor nurses as I bore down to push during the final stages of delivery.

Gasp!  Elijah is laboring in prayer!
And labor always leads to a new birth.

The second thing I noticed in this passage is that Elijah tells King Ahab at the start of this passage to go and eat for "there is a sound of the rushing of rain."

The sound preceded the visual confirmation of rain.
The sound preceded the visual confirmation of a cloud.
The sound preceded the miracle.

And this reminds me of a few other passages of Scripture where sound is noted before the experience of a miracle:

Pentecost, when the sound of a mighty wind precedes the tongues of fire as the Holy Spirit descends upon the huddle of disciples.

The valley of dry bones, when Ezekiel is instructed by God to prophecy over the bones, and he hears a rattling as the bones begin to come together...before they stand as a living army.

And of course, I am reminded when I heard my own miraculous babies cry as I made that final push, before I could see them and touch them, and yet I knew they were going to be okay.

Lord, let me hear.  Give me the strength to labor on.  To till hard soil, to be faithful to plant those seeds and not only pray for rain, but expect a mighty torrent.

Rain down your righteousness on these hardened hearts and willful, prideful, slothful spirits, and may the flood waters soak me, and my household, to the bone.  May your humility wash down over us, as we are saturated by your grace upon grace.

 Planting at the time of harvest.  Not what I was expecting this year.  But I trust God will birth something marvelous in it.