Begin

"Then he said, "Who shall begin the battle?" And he answered, "You."

1 Kings 20:14

"Arise and begin working, and the Lord be with you."

1 Chronicles 22:16

We started school last week. It's the 10th year that late August arrived in our home and we started schooling, at least in a formal reading, writing and 'rithmetic kind of way. Ten years. A decade. That seems like a long time. And yet, a blink of the eye.

I remember that first year like a slow motion film in Technicolor. I was pregnant, and it seemed, about to get more pregnant, if such a thing were possible, when in mid-September we found out it was not one baby but two. I was so tired that fall. I would hold our not-quite-two-year-old by the ankle during naptime as she would squirm and I just needed to keep her on the bed so I could sleep. For. A. Moment. But my almost 5 year old wanted to read and that's what almost 5 year olds in Connecticut did- go to school. So, with the 3 year old little boy and the not-quite-two-year-old little girl, we went to school. At the dining room table and on the couch and laying on the beds and picnicing in the park and picking apples and collecting leaves and even through winter's first snow.

We moved to the Pacific Northwest that winter, and our new house had a schoolroom. Other people might call it the basement, but it was our schoolroom. It rained and rained and rained and we had two new babies join our classroom. And still, we schooled. We schooled at the Little Tykes picnic table in our schoolroom and on the couch while feeding babies and at the shore while waiting for a submarine to float by so we could wave at our dad.

I figured what we began we just might as well keep doing.

And so we did.

And so we have.

Now I know some of you are starting school now. With little ones in arm and little ones under foot. With husbands that are away. With uncertain schedules and visitors coming and going. With family that isn't quite sure what you are doing. With personal doubt and uncertainty.

You want school to look right and things to be in order and plans in place and...

Just begin.
Pray and commit it all to Him, for His glory, with His help, by His grace.

And begin.