I've never left a funeral without more gratitude for my life and a desire to suck the marrow out of every day—to embrace all of humanity with affection and hope.

The veil between life and death is even thinner when you lose someone you never imagined your life without.

You become vigilant to accept the things you can't change, to change the things you can, and to pray for the wisdom to know the difference (from the Serenity Prayer).

At the end of May, I sat in my writing nook across from my homeschool facilitator for only a few minutes before I excused myself and came back with a handful of tissue.

Our Zoom meeting was to celebrate my children's learning from the last ten months, but two words erased any guise of professionalism:

Cancer.
Death.

I wiped my tears, explaining how just three days after our kids rode roller coasters at our city's big mall, the unwanted landed on our program plan.

We were happily learning about inventors when acute myeloid leukemia crashed into our vocabulary and took us on a wild, unwanted ride.

Glancing over our robust learning document, my facilitator applauded our many accomplishments, field trips, read-aloud books, and extracurriculars beyond our eight unit studies.

But all I saw were two more words covering every page like watermarks:

Goodness.
Grief.

I chose Gather ‘Round Homeschool’s units this year, a family learning approach, and they were a provision from God, offering the flexibility to go as deep or as shallow as each unique day allowed.

I wanted to teach our kids the creative ways people transported around the world through history; they also memorized the route to the university hospital, as I dropped off or picked up my mom for visits with my dad.

I intended to expose my kids to some of the horrors of racism and slavery; they also faced my raw tears and desperate prayers during our morning devotions, after phone calls with my dad most mornings as I prepared for the day.

Underground to Canada Novel Study with Gather ‘Round Homeschool

We celebrated Benj’s 40th birthday with a trip to the mountains, bonding fiercely over fondue, tickle fights, hot tub or pool soaks, hikes, a movie night, and new treats.

Life felt desperately fragile after my dad’s emergency surgery. And it was…

We invited Benj’s parents on various adventures with us, including the Reynold’s Museum, Telus World of Science, and Marine Life, because we saw how quickly life can change—for any of us!

Why not make memories and experience more of these fun outings with those we love?

I signed up to be their mother and teacher through all seasons and units, come what may; they were also given a unit on how an extended family bends through a health crisis, gathering for group video calls more evenings than not!

There is so much more I could share about our homeschool year but I am sure you get the point, as did my facilitator—it was amazing in many ways and devastating in other ways.

How about you?

Did something hijack your program plan or life recently?

Let’s not forget recovering from over two years of COVID-19…

Is a relational, physical, mental, or financial struggle haunting your days?

The beauty of home education is we can adjust our rhythms and routines to what truly matters for the day, week, season, and year.

Looking ahead, planning for a new school year, ordering curriculum, brainstorming ways to enhance our learning, and setting up our school room are all things I enjoy.

But this last year has shown me that “seize the day” will only sound cliche until it is all you want.

Just one more day with the one you lost—one more video call, hospital visit, or hug…

February 27th, my 38th birthday. My precious daddy passed away six weeks later.

As I think about what the next year will look like, I ask:

Are the things on my program plan going to matter in 70 years?

I want connection, laughter, curiosity, wonder, and faith to be at the foundation of all we do.

This means I need to live at a slower pace and say ‘no’ to so many good things.

I have a doing personality. Being—embracing the moment and not planning for the next—is something I have to consciously choose. This is so much easier to choose when I am not overcommitted.

If you’ve been following my writing, you’ve probably noticed my phrase for the year:

“Do the next right thing in love.”

This is not just a line for this year, it highlights a lifelong endeavor and question:

Did I love?

Do I care that we completed all our units this year?

Well, sure…

But am I thankful for every call, visit, and prayer I shared with my dad during our quarter of a year fighting cancer together?

Oh, so very much!

I worked on writing this at a coffee shop on a calm Saturday afternoon recently and was revisited by an image of my heart:

Broken but held.

John 3:16 is the crux of love: God gave His son to live and die, to pay for our sins, to bring healing and eternal hope, and to hold our broken world AND our broken hearts in the palm of His hands.

Our love is imperfect and messy but we have a rubric—the cross—to realign our hearts to every day.

Great love comes with great sacrifice.

It isn't that we need to be perfect in our execution or shelter our kids from harsh realities like death, it is living each day with the intention to move toward Christ.

Ann Voskamp calls it, The Broken Way. Dallas Willard calls it a Renovation of the Heart (a book I am currently reading).

I wrote all about “The Gift of Reflection” in a blog post earlier this year and created a resource for realigning our hearts here (scroll down on my resource page to “Integrity Project”).

Earlier this month, a group of homeschool moms gathered for our quarterly event around a crowded table.

After an evening of French deliciousness and intentional conversations, we drew a card and read aloud another woman’s struggle, adding:

“…cannot separate you from the love of God.”

Place your current struggle in front of that line and see what it does to your soul.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God!

Our hearts were tender as we embodied truth to our comrades.

Jennie Allen, in her latest book, Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World, reminds us:

“You and I need friends who, instead of trying to fix us, help us to fix our eyes more firmly on Jesus.”

Can I be that grace-filled friend today?

No pressure.

No guilt.

Simply a nod to what your heart already knows:

Not a lot matters in the big picture.

Have you been focused on what matters lately?

Did you love?

A reflective scene on our camping trip in early June.

I have ideas for the fall but I'm choosing a summer heart position of reflection and listening: to sip my coffee in stillness with a sprinkle of cinnamon and swirl of whipped cream and continue asking:

What will matter in 70 years?

A week ago, we followed a blue star balloon floating up higher and higher until we couldn’t even see a glimmer. It was our first Father's Day remembering my incredible dad by his graveside.

You can’t put these kinds of experiencess on a program plan!

We sat and read through a book of tributes, describing a life well-lived.

And we were reminded of our life’s mission, to leave a legacy of God’s love.

Thank you, Dad, for showing us how to love.

Fall 2019—before Heidi Zerbin (2020), Esther Kunkel (2021), and Orville John (2022) passed on.

To my homeschool friends: remember filling out a homeschool vision sheet over dinner in September?

It is time to pause and look back!

If you don’t homeschool you can still practice this kind of reflection with your children’s education from this last year, or something you were committed to in work, ministry, or volunteering.

This printable has a few questions that guide us to look back before we move forward.