Embrace the Change

As a family we made the prayerful decision to pull the kids from our local school district and sign them up with an established cyber school. We finished the applications a few days before they announced a cap on new enrollments. Last week we docu-signed the official paperwork. On Friday morning we got an email with the kids new user names and passwords and instructions on how to access the school website.

Since then I've spent several hours each day (and I didn't realize I had any extra to spare) learning how the new school will work, reading questions and answers from other parents on the Facebook pages, ordering supplies off the lists that we now have access to, urging the kids to plow through as much of the summer reading homework as possible, and continuing to prepare our house to become school on Monday.

I feel like I should be stressed and overwhelmed and nervous about how this is all going to go down. I mean, all the other parents seem pretty nervous. And, honestly, I am stressed and overwhelmed, but not about this. I'm approaching this school year with much less stress and anxiety than usual. When I realized that I started pondering why. Why am I not riddled with nerves? Why am I not freaking out with questions about how I'm going to effectively supervise the real schoolwork (the end of last year was rough on families and teachers alike and did not conclude with much real schoolwork) of four kids at four levels while still running the house and engaging Topher?

And here's the answer I've come to: because it's the right choice. This is the right thing for our family right now. Peter is adamant that this will only last a year. Phoebe is ready to embrace it long-term. I have no idea what will happen educationally for our children when this school year is done. But I do recognize that peaceful assurance that comes from seeking divine guidance, then following it.