Seek first

I'll be honest here, I've been feeling really overwhelmed. Not at the 14 kids. Just certain kids. The older ones. The oldest.

I have nursed before, diapered before, potty trained, taught kids to read and write and do math and think and look at the world before. I can pull off a mediocre job of most of the stuff that parenting is.

But this graduating and growing up stuff, I don't know anything about. I do not know what happens next. I don't know how to do it.

What I know is that I don't want to just do what conventional wisdom and the Internet says you must do. We read through a list last night of things we ought to be doing, and frankly, I thought a good number of them were stupid. Or just focused on the wrong thing.

For example, visiting colleges. That sounds reasonable. Go visit a college, see how it feels, right? Why? We live right near a lovely, prestigious and incredibly expensive university. I'm sure it would feel quite cozy. But unless we win the lottery or the National Merit Scholarship (both seem equally likely), it doesn't matter how great it feels. No one is going there from here. Maybe when we get it narrowed down by, say, choosing a major, we could visit some realistic options. But not just for the sake of visiting.

Another thing we read that we need to do is basically beef up on activities that look good on a college application. Again, this sounds right. But for us, it isn't. Doing things that are worthy of doing for their own merit, certainly. But with 14 children and a mere 24 hours in the day, we don't have the resources, time, money, energy, oxygen, to do anything just because it looks good. If it isn't worth doing for its own sake, we're not doing it so that it looks good.

I know there are lots of things home schoolers can do to make themselves look more attractive to colleges. I understand that getting a better degree from a better school can/will help someone get a better (more $$$) job. And I am simple minded and naive, it's true.

But in my simple naive mind, here is what it comes down to: either Jesus is Lord and we can trust in Him for everything, or He isn't and we are the largest and most pitiful of fools.

We are training our humans to love Jesus, to work hard, to be kind, to do what is right whether or not anyone is watching, to love, to say they are sorry, to think and write and express themselves, to look things up if they don't understand and to ask for help if they need it. We are trying to seek first the Kingdom of God. Our hope is that He will help us, when we take the ACT, when we prayerfully choose majors and schools, when we fill out applications, when someone looks at the applications, when we attend classes and do homework and take exams and write papers, when we apply for jobs and buy cars and pursue mates, . . . He will still be our only hope.

I get that there is a whole lot of crap we need to do, and I'm scared to death of a bunch of it, but I have to keep my hope in Jesus alone, because if anybody's success depends on my getting it right, we are all doomed. I don't have it in me to make sure 14 children succeed. I am not that good. But I think, and correct me if I'm wrong here (no, don't, if I'm wrong, I don't want to know), I think the same God who created the universe and who knit us together and gave us these children and provides for all our needs every day, I think He is able to lead us for this next step as well.

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning, I'm leaning on the everlasting arms