10 Year Milestone For My Child and Me

Today, my baby boy is 10. I can not believe I have been a mother for 10 years. It feels like I have always been a mother, and if I didn't have that role, I'd be lost.
What did I do before children? How did I fill my days, besides work? How did I function on a full night's sleep ALL the time?
Life has definitely been full since that moment I laid eyes on my son and felt the tremendous gift of motherhood annoint my tired head.
Very few actual moments in my life are vivid in my memory. There are many time periods, many moments that really don't have much significance, but somehow pop out when I think of myself at that time. But one memory stands out the most. One memory is so crystal clear that I can almost feel the babe in my arms and the lump in my throat; the tired blur of my vision and the soft whisper of God.
"This child I give to you, protect him, and prepare him for the world." It was a humbling weight of responsibility. One of the few moments in my life where God's command was loud and clear. I could barely stand to let the moment last, it was so sacred and fragile. I called my husband shortly after that to let him know I was with our sweet son, and just how beautiful he was. I got the machine because he was sleeping off the full day and night of labor. But he didn't erase my message for a long time. And I can still hear my voice and the awe that filled it at the little bundle in my arms.

Now, my son is a confident (well, working on that), athletic, smart, gifted young almost-man. How quickly it all happens! Before you have a child, ten years old doesn't seem like much. But once you've changed diapers, taught abc's, cared for illness, dropped off to parent's day out with many sobs (on your part), and then watched them absorb information and skills like a flower on miracle gro x2, you realize how much life has occurred in ten years, and how full life can really be.

Since the day I felt my call to protect and prepare my son, I started saving money to send him to private school. I never had private school growing up, and I wanted to give my children the chance to learn about the world through a Godly perspective as soon as possible. I found that a good non-denominational private school worked alongside the parents by instilling a great education and a foundation for life. If you've read my blog before, you know I have struggled with this. I have checked my heart time and again, making sure I wasn't clinging to "the bubble", and I wasn't wearing blinders to all the problems that private school can have. God worked on my heart this past year, and I have felt even more confident in the reasons we sent our children to private school.
And as much as my confidence grew, our financial burden grew, and grew, and grew. Until finally, we had to sit down and face the financial fact that we were not only stifling ourselves materialistically (which is never a bad thing), but stifling ourselves from generosity and blessing others. We'd given away an old car to friends who needed it, we'd blessed families in need with part of my husband's bonus each year, we gave where it was needed.
But now?
We sit here, pinching pennies, worrying about how we're going to pay taxes, how we're going to afford to get new shoes--and it's all self-induced. It's crippling us, and while some might be willing to make the sacrifice for private school education, we feel that God is finally pushing us in a new direction.
He's telling me that His plans for me and my children are good, and not harmful.
He tells me that while I am blessed with children, they are ultimately His, and He will take care of them.
And He tells me that I am sole provider (beside my husband) of their spiritual foundation, and He has equipped me to give them a foundation, with or without private school.

So, while I sit here, on my son's tenth birthday, with God's gentle whisper on the day of his birth floating in my memory, I am at peace that I can still prepare my child, still protect his heart, still give him the courage to step into the world and fight for his beliefs, even with a public school education.
Blessings already have poured forth as we went to the school, found their new classrooms, met the staff. I had no reservation, no worry, just excitement that we are starting on a new adventure.

It won't be easy.

Just like when I signed up for motherhood, and didn't know all the bumps in the road that we surely found. But, I am equipped to handle it, and I know, that in the end, the greatest whisper spoken to me will be, "Well done, good and faithful servant," and I pray that it will bless the ears of my children as well.