Fruit of the Harvest

    There are days when I feel like my sacrifice of homeschooling is accomplishing nothing.  Days when my children fight, bicker and act selfish and I think they have learned nothing about character.  Days when there are tears over math problems that I thought we mastered months ago.  Days when no one can answer any questions from the reading that we just did.  Days that make me wonder if I have been wasting my time.

    Yet it seems like just before I decide to throw the towel in God gives me a gift of seeing some of the fruit of my harvest.  A child with a learning disorder who reads aloud to his siblings, or who reads a book for fun.  Going through a lesson and having children understand exactly what I am talking about.  Or having children with bad attitudes turn around the next morning and offer to do something nice for a sibling. 

    If homeschooling produced quick and easy results then everyone would do it.  My attitude and sacrifice as a homeschool mom is part of what plants the seed that harvests the fruit.  Oftentimes it takes months or years of doing something before I start to see the fruit (good and bad) of the seeds that I planted. 

     Sometimes I am so busy trying to keep my schedule running according to plan and trying to make sure that I "get everything done" that I miss the sprouts, the leaves, the buds, and even the fruit that I have helped produce in my children. 

  So while I would love a whole harvest I will be content with an apple or an orange here or there, and I'm thinking I may even keep a journal of those apples and oranges, just like I keep a journal of my garden.  Then the next time it seems like my crop isn't going to come in I have somewhere I can go to recall the fruit that has already been harvested.