I grew up in such a way that loving people doesn't come naturally to me. Scratch that, I love people, but I think I hold a lot of it at bay, and I have difficulty showing and receiving love. I am much better with my sons than I am with anyone else, but still ... I felt I still wasn't giving them everything I had within me.
Until now.
Now, my heart bursts with love for them. I must sound like a broken record because just about every night I tell my husband how very much I love our sons. It's just such an amazement to me, that I can't help but point it out, in awe over how such a thing could be happening to me.
Who would have believed that spending all day with your children could actually help you love them more?
And it's not just me feeling it for them, it's them feeling it for me.
For instance, the other day I was feeling exceptionally tired after we were done schooling. I laid down on the couch while the boys headed outside to play. A moment later Charlie came back in and lyed down beside me. He just wanted to snuggle, he said.
A few minutes later, Xander came in and wordlessly lyed down beside me too.
We lay there together for a good twenty minutes. When they finally stirred, it was not to leave me, but to gently stroke my hair.
Then they finally left to go play again, and I was left wonder what had just happened. Don't get me wrong ... we are a very affectionate family, but usually such things have a time and a place. After school time, when freedom is allowed and friends are home to play with is usually not that time.
That they chose to come and snuggle me, to quietly give and receive love without asking for anything in return, was something sweet.
And it helped me to see that this increase of love I feel for them is not one-sided. They, too, are feeling an increase of love for me, and for each other.
There is far less bickering happening between the two boys. I would have thought there would be more, being cooped up together for so long.
Rather, homeschooling has been a great blessing for us, in so many ways, but the most cherished of all ways is this increase of love we are experiencing.
Now I understand why those homeschooling moms expressed such love for their children. It wasn't a requisite nature that made them good homeschooling moms, it was the companionship, the closeness and time spent together that yielded the love.
I expressed my faith in this homeschooling lifestyle, by planting the seeds, covering them with warm earth and providing them with needed sunshine and water. And now I'm seeing, much sooner than expected, those precious seeds bearing fruit, and the blossoms are fragrant and beautiful and far beyond my wildest dreams.
