Settling In Just Fine

Last year, 2011, was a year of change for me.  We had just welcomed our fifth child six weeks before the new year, and I was trading my full-time job outside the home for full-time homeschooling.  I began the year with so many questions - can I really handle all this?  Will I do a good job teaching my own children? Can I keep up with all the demands of running a household with one more little one?

With more than a year under my belt, I am happy to report that things are going just fine.  In fact, better than fine.  I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.  You see, I never wanted to work outside the home once I started having children.  But it was just always a reality in our family, and a sacrifice that I made for the sake of everyone.  I don't regret those years, as I know I made the best decision I could, prayerfully begging God to make another way for us, and walking on the path before me when I could find no other alternatives.  I believe He blessed me through those years of sacrifice, and there are many skills that have come from my time of working that have proven invaluable to me in this new season of my life.

Nonetheless, I did get used to going back to work once each of my babies were one year old, and so I never really had the chance to experience this stage of life at home.  To be honest it frightened me a bit, because I always sort of felt that just as I was at the peak of chaos, I would head back to work and take my kids to someone else's house, to make messes, eat meals, play and fight with each other.  And I would pick them up at the end of the day, bring them home to a clean(ish) house, feed them supper, and get them off to bed.  While I was overjoyed not to have to juggle such a complicated schedule anymore, it did force me to face one thing - that I was now 100% responsible for all of this.  And a newborn.  And school.  Could I really do it all?

I knew it was going to be a tremendous amount of work, and so I prepared myself (like a football player getting psyched for the big game).  But I never could have imagined the incredible blessing this life would be.  It is work, of course it is.  But the payoffs are a million times better than I ever could have expected.  I have spent the last eight years of my life working with injured workers, employers, executives, doctors and patients, and I have to say that my kids are by far the most wonderful (and merciful) of any stakeholder I have ever worked with.  There is such a rhythm to my life, and there is so much comfort and security in it.  Not only am I able to be here for the big milestones in the first year, I get to be a part of everything throughout their childhood - when they learn to read and write, add and subtract, think critically, and do projects on their own - I am part of that.  I am not just looking on at some grand life that is happening without me, I am living it - walking each step with them.  It is glorious!

And so, with a little over a year under my belt, I look back with tremendous gratitude for where the Lord has led me, and where He is taking our family from here.  I waited a long time to be here, and it is worth every bit of work it requires.

World's best bosses!