Yesterday panic crept up on me and the feeling of my kids dependence choked me.  My husband once said that what I’m trying to do is like trying to build an airplane while it’s in the air.  School was starting today and it felt way too big for me.

The scripture that stood out to me yesterday morning was about “do not run faster than you have strength and do things in wisdom and order”Mosiah 4:27.  It kept coming back to me like that was my answer but I didn’t know how to make sense of it because I felt like the whole idea of homeschool is more than I have strength for and wouldn’t it be wisdom and order to know what I’m doing before doing it?

Feeling this conflict I was reminded of an experience I had three years ago, my first year of homeschool.  I had decided to keep Simon home for kindergarten.  I have been a casual facebooker over the years but something about scanning it at that time  gripped my full attention: Billions of couldn’t-be-happier back to school pictures and posts.

They bawled to my insecurities and forced me to question if I was really doing the right thing.  I prayed and went to the scriptures.  I ended up reading about Nephi being commanded to build a ship and realized he hadn’t built a ship before.  He didn’t even have tools.  He was going to have to learn where to go to get the ore to make the tools to build the ship.  And… he was pretty much on his own.  The people around him told him what he already knew “you don’t know how to build a ship!”  They criticized and made fun (until they saw the finished product)1 Nephi 17:8-19.

I was starting to see the connection.  For me, the criticism was more from my own little green monsters than from the people around me but the lesson was the same.  I started to feel inspired like I was in the pregame locker room getting fired up with Nephi’s pep talk when he stood on top of the bench and said, “If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them…if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship (or you, Jessica, a homeschool)?  ” Cheers, grunts and muscle flexing! 1 Nephi 17:50-51

Then, this next part is what I needed to remember today.  Heavenly Father didn’t show him everything at once.  Instead he said to build it “after the manner which I shall show thee.”  And the Lord did show him “from time to time” how to build it. 1 Nephi 17:8, 18:1

He did build the ship just like I need to build our homeschool. He says “I did pray oft unto the Lord; where fore the Lord showed unto me great things.”    He says, “I did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men.1 Nephi 18:1-3”  It wasn’t after the manner of men, but it was exactly what it needed to be a little at a time.

So, doing things in wisdom and order is my answer.  It’s just not my wisdom but God’s and not the order I’m comfortable with but the order God knows is best.  And as far as running faster than I have strength, I will do what I can everyday and it will be enough.  It might not be how I envision it but if it’s how God envisions it, that’s pretty awesome and I’ll trust that. Eventually this curious little homeschool ship will get us all safely where God needs us to be.