The Accidental Homeschooler

I've received a few emails lately asking where I've been. First, I'd like that to say, thanks for asking. It tickles me still that anyone would want to come read these ramblings of mine.

Second, I'd like to tell you a story.

In April, after the Tornado, I started to feel an overwhelming desire to homeschool my boys. I kind of chalked it up as a natural response to the loss of their best friends. I felt a similar desire to keep them near after the Sandy Hook tragedy. This was different though. It wouldn't go away.

I talked to their dad. I talked to Jeremiah. I talked to my friends that homeschool. And I talked myself right out of it.

I wasn't ready. They needed school. I couldn't do it. I'm too busy. Too unorganized. Too impatient.

But the feeling.....it just didn't go away.

Sometime in July, I messaged my friend Debbie. I asked her to pray about me homeschooling my kids. She did, and she responded to me, "I feel like God is saying He is going to make a way..."
I chalked this up to "at some point in the future" and went on with our public school plans.
We bought the supply list. Gammy came and got the boys new tennis shoes and backpacks and lunch boxes. We were prepared. Excited even.

Two days before school started, I was running errands and getting ready for class orientation that night when I received a phone call. It was the transportation department head for Vilonia Public School district returning my call from almost a week before.  I had agreed to let the kids ride the school bus home in the afternoons. They'd never ridden the bus before and were really excited about it. But when the lady called me back to answer my questions about the bus route and heard my address, she paused.

"That's not in our district," she said.

Of course, I assumed, there was a mistake. They registered us. I'd called before we even moved. I was told Vilonia Elementary so as soon as summer registration opened, I took their information and our proof of address up to the school. They were in classes. We bought the supply list! We bought Ninja Turtle lunch boxes! What did she mean....not in the district?

We weren't in the district. The assistant super intendant called me from her personal line and apologized. They'd made a mistake. And I'd missed the deadline to file for an exception. Even though we live only 6 miles from Vilonia Elementary, we are in a rare pocket of country addresses zoned for Mayflower schools. A 30 minute drive one way on country roads.

I felt sick. How could I drive my kids that far and back twice a day every day? I'd be in the car two hours a day. And the bus picked up at our house at 6:40 in the morning! I barely slept. I kept praying, asking God what to do.
And I kept hearing the same thing.

Homeschool.

I argued. Yes, with God.
It's kind of something I've been known to do now and again.

I told Him all the reasons why I couldn't. But I kept hearing the same thing.

Homeschool.

I got mad. Frustrated. Why had I called about the darn bus? Why didn't I just pick them up like I always had? Then no one would have known! Why did that lady have to call me back. Just a few more days and they would have started. But I kept coming back to it.

Homeschool.

By morning, I was frustrated and tired. I woke up, went to my computer and typed in "Homeschool in Arkansas". That day, Friday, was the deadline to turn in the Intent to Homeschool form for the 2014-2015 school year. Of course it was.

I called my friend and we prayed. And then I called the boys' dad and I asked him to trust me because I felt like this was what God wanted. He gave his blessing.

And without a plan, without even giving myself time to change my mind, I turned in the form.

It's been about a month since then and as is usually is when God is leading you to something, I've found that we were made for this life.  Homeschool is more fun, more rewarding, more totally worth it than I could have ever imagined.

My kids are so....smart!  I've always known that. They get good grades. They test well. Their teachers have always loved them. But I was prepared for just how smart they are. They are so curious, just soaking in everything I put in front of them. They want to dig deeper. They catch on so fast. They already know so much.

Just in the last month, I've watched their imaginations take off in a way they never have. They are reading for fun. For fun! My kids! They are inquisitive. It feels like the possibilities are endless on what we can learn together.

I am so thankful. I am thankful at the support I have and the opportunities. And I'm thankful that when I tell God no, sometimes He just says yes and that is that.

Because if He listened to me, I wouldn't be a homeschooler. And although I joke that I came across this option on accident, it wasn't. Nothing really is. I was made for this, and He knows that. Because He made me.

Declaration.

Asher accepted Christ about a week before a tornado changed our lives back in April. It was perfect timing, because when I had to tell him that we'd lost his best friend, I could assure him they'd be together again in heaven.

He started asking to be baptized soon after, but we wanted to make sure he REALLY understood. He was so devastated when he missed the last baptism, and I felt so sad to discourage him at all. But I had to know it was HIS decision, HIS declaration. I wasn't even sure today that we were going to let him. I wasn't sure if he was ready. But when I stepped in the water tonight thinking I'd just be photographing other peoples children declaring their love for Jesus, our children's pastor approached me and recounted the conversation they'd had this afternoon. He got it.

So last night, in the hands of his dad, his stepdad, and our beloved friend (his pastor), my precious Asher told the world that he has decided to follow Jesus. 

Thank you, God, for letting me keep him for eternity.

And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 18: 2-4

What's new in May.

Many moons ago, I wrote the first post of The Hodgepodge Darling blog. I have been a pretty erratic blogger since that post was published, nothing like I'd hoped for in my original plan. But I do like to think of everyday as the perfect day to carry on with what you'd hoped you'd be.

So here we are. Carrying on.

This month has been a blur of busyness and setting up house. I think I'm more excited about the end of the school year than my kids are, not that the summer promises much in the way of a slow down.
So, to update you all, I will hit some highlights of the month of May and employ the help of my lens.



Some of what's new around here:

God did what He does and blessed us more than we could have asked or imagined. We got our own home. It came in the form of a vandalized foreclosure on four acres, after a three month limbo of financing and favor and help from more people than I could possibly name right now. 

It is perfect.  

This boy turned one.

And learned to walk.

This boy turned 7.

And this boy graduated high school.

This puppy grew quite a lot.

And we got our first chickens.

We started a journey of mourning after the tornado in April. 

(Upload your photo of the ASL Love Sign tagged #lovemovement. To donate to the Smith Family, go here. Please continue to cover them in prayers as they grieve their sons and rebuild their lives.)

And you see, April showers always bring in the May flowers….

The hope after the storm has reached far and wide.

And the life change as a result for it has sprung up as surely as the roadside wildflowers. 

I look forward to sharing with you all our new undertaking as we are given so many opportunities to pursue dreams. God is good, friends.

The verse on my heart for the last month is definitely Ephesians 3:20.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Until next time, 

Jessica

The Cheerleader

I’ve never really been afraid of tornadoes. You see, I’m an Arkansas girl, born and raised. I remember the thrilling nights as a kid when my mother pulled us from our beds and we’d spend what seemed like all night giggling under a mattress in the hall with flashlights and teddy bears. It was fun. 

And I’ve seen the aftermath, the piles of rubble, the death counts on the news. But you see, I’m an optimist. And all these things I have seen from an emotional distance. So the prevailing theme to them all is the hope that humans are able to cling to, the stories of survival. So I’ve never really been afraid of tornadoes. 

So on Sunday, April 27, when the weather man said the forecast was a mix for disaster, we decided we’d go ahead with our move to Vilonia anyway. We already had the UHaul. The house was in boxes. The helping hands had signed up. Our new house has a concrete basement. We’ll be safe, we thought. 

We were. 

While 20 people ate hot dogs and potato salad in the basement, the wall cloud blew over our mountain to the valley beyond it. The TV showed the eye of the storm directly over Cody Ln. And I stood on the front porch and saw the sucking black sky twirl in the distance. And for the first time that day, a fear swelled up because I knew that street. Because I’d traveled over the mountain just days before to that street. I’d stood in a house with a red door with my precious friend April, while our sons played in the yard. I’d marveled at her garden patch and seedlings and thought how much I loved her when she’d showed me her Hobby Lobby project, letters that spelled “Smith” above the door jam. “I spaced them out,” she said, “because I didn’t want to copy you.” 

I couldn’t reach her. The storm had moved on but she wasn’t answering. We prayed for them as the minutes passed. Five, then ten, then the rain stopped and the sky stilled. But she didn’t answer my calls. “Call Daniel,” I told Miah. But he grabbed the keys instead. He and Jud got in the truck and left. I don’t know….I think he knew somehow. The way he was praying…it was different. He wasn’t asking for safety but for peace and I found it odd. I was afraid. 

Time passed. He should have been there but the phone kept reaching voicemail. She wasn’t answering and now he wasn’t either. The group of guys that had been unloading our Uhaul left to go help. My texts to him grew in desperation. 

Did it hit them? 

Are they ok? 

Honey, are they ok? 

Please tell me if it hit them. 

Please tell me they are ok. 

Are they hurt? 

Are they alive? 

Miah, please tell me they are alive. 

And then he responded.   I can't.  

A blur. Calls to our pastor’s wife. Praying. Crying. And then another message  

April and Daniel are alive right now but the boys are gone, honey. 

I don’t know what else happened for a while. My face was on the floor and my sister was there hugging me. Stephanie and I, both mothers, both friends of April, wailed. And only one prayer, a prayer more desperate than any I have ever prayed in my life, left my lips. “God, please, not this for her.” 

It’s been a long couple of days. Little sleep. Lots of calls and messages. A group of men from the church went to the site and gathered what they could of the Smiths’ belongings. The house is completely gone.

Back in the fall, April and Daniel were still living in Sherwood. They received a 30 day notice that they needed to move so the owner of their home could sell it. She started to worry but in true April-fashion, she said “I know God will provide”. Just a week or so later she told me about the house they had found in Vilonia, about how perfect it was. The owners wanted to work with them to get them in it. It was just. so. perfect. It even had the red front door she had always wanted. 

So, you see, I was angry. Because I knew God put them in that house. And it was no act of violence or human mistake that took their sons’ lives. It was an EF4 tornado, a mile wide, and it sucked everything that seemed so perfect off the foundation that God had given. I was SO angry. 

I’ve always called her the cheerleader. Because she was one once, in a pom poms and pyramids sense, but because she still is now, in a bible and faith sense. She is who I call when my faith is stretched. And every time I hang up the phone, I’ve been reminded of how big and how good and how strong my God is. 

I spent these angry couple of days questioning why God would take those boys and why he would take the best cheerleader he had. Because who could still cheer for their God after this? 

The thing is though, my faith is not April’s faith. It never has been. 

Last night, we walked in the hospital room to see her. While Jeremiah and I held her hands and kissed her face, she wept. She had questions about that night. She had heard that Jeremiah found the boys and she told him she was comforted it was him because she knew he would have prayed over them. We all cried. A wise, young friend of ours sent us a message of encouragement yesterday that we were able to share with April. 

  

She shared the following scriptures: 

  

Isaiah 55: 8-11 

8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 

9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. 

10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavensand stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. 

11 It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.

Jeremiah shared with her what a comfort it was for him to think that everyone is here for a purpose, for God’s purpose not for our own fulfillment. And when their purpose is reached, they GET to go home. He repeated Taylor’s words to her, “How incredible it was that Tyler and Cameron were able to serve their purpose in such a short time, when it takes some people 100 years”. I told her how angry I had been, grappling with the truth that this was allowed, arranged even. 

And my beautiful friend, my cheerleader, laid in the hospital bed with her broken body and battered, beautiful face and held my hands and told me not to be angry because her God is good. She knew that her sons had fulfilled their purpose in life and that they were with the father now. 

Tyler has always talked about heaven. About how he can’t wait to get there. She said she thought it was because he heard them saying how wonderful it would be…some day. But he looked at her Sunday afternoon, before the storm, and told her he was ready to go to heaven. “Will you miss me?” he asked her. “Well yes,” she said, “but let’s not talk like that now.” “How long will you miss me?” he persisted. And she just smiled and said, “I guess until I see you again.” 

“I have peace,” she told me last night through her tears, “I know I have more pain to go through that I probably can understand. But I have supernatural peace. I don’t know what God has for me and my husband that our boys couldn’t be here for, but I do know that He is good. His plan is good.” 

I don’t understand this kind of faith. Because I think every parent who has heard this story since Sunday has wondered, “How do you live through that?” 

For those of you who have been worried about April and Daniel, worried that they would not be the same, that they could not carry on past this loss, please don’t worry any more. I have seen her hope. It is anchored in eternity. It is the kind of hope that saves people. And that’s not just the optimist in me talking. 

For those of you wondering how a mother could serve a God that might allow this, understand that Tyler and Cameron knew Jesus. Just a couple of weeks ago, they led a friend to Christ. They aren’t over. Their story hasn’t reached the end. They aren’t even really gone. They’ve just moved for now. 

We will miss them. Like April told Tyler on his last day on earth, we will miss them until we see them again, April and Daniel more than any of us. While none of us understand it, we must take up her lead and know that even still, God is good. And we must understand that while we may love these boys, God loves them infinitely more. He loves them perfectly. And with his knowledge of the lives and futures of the Smiths, God took them home. 

But he left their mom and dad. Somehow, though every bit of that house was ripped from the foundation, April and Daniel will live. They will tell this story and honor Tyler and Cameron’s lives. Masses of people will know Jesus because of this story. Because we cannot fathom this strength. 

When I left the hospital last night, I just cried and thought “She is so strong. She is so faithful. She is so selfless. She is so beautiful”. And it hit me. April is all of these things because she allows herself, even in the midst of this tragedy, to be a reflection of our strong, faithful, selfless, beautiful Savior. 

They are greatly broken. But they will mend. They haven’t fulfilled what God has for them yet. But they will. Because while she could be angry, and she may be at some point, she is holding tight to the only thing she has left: 

The truth that GOD IS GOOD. ALL THE TIME. 

  

I asked her if I could take her photo, so she could have it later when she told her story. 

She told me to show you all now. And to tell you… her God can overcome even this.  

My friend. Who remains the most beautiful woman I know. 

April, the cheerleader. 

About a year ago, our home church (Thatchurch.com) in Sherwood, AR, told April's life story. This post has gone absolutely viral. Millions have heard the testimony of April's faith. She is showing hundred's of thousands to Christ. Watch the video of her story, and you will understand a little of the plan she is so sure God has. 

Added May 9, 2014- Also, if you would like to watch the funeral services for Tyler and Cameron Smith, please go here. 

To donate to the Smith family, go here.