By Duffy Gibb
Lately, choice has loomed large in our world. Whether its choosing what to make for dinner, what coursework gets done today or what candidate to vote for, choice is as human as breathing. Every day we are faced with choices beyond our imagining, choices that a few decades ago were unattainable , a few centuries unimaginable. We choose where we live, whom we marry, how we want to raise our families- all choices that just a few hundred years back or a few thousand miles away weren’t/aren’t possible. Those choices were made for women and are still made for many women today. Choice, while pervasive is also, in ways, elusive.
As American women we actually have more choice than any group of women in the history of the world. Not only can we vote but we literally can do almost anything and society will not even bat an eye. We can work, or not, we can cook or not, we can drive cars on our own, move to new countries on our own, we can choose to vote or shop or go into debt or save for our future. And don’t get me started on choices in the cereal aisle. We have a problem in American and in Arizona of an overabundance of choices. It can be almost debilitating at times. But what we do have is choice.
One of the biggest gifts we share in common is our choice to homeschool. As homeschool moms, we have made a massive choice about our children’s education, and therefor about how we spend our days and time. We have chosen a countercultural lifestyle, “giving up” career and personal freedom to stay home and serve our families. There are many places in the world including Western progressive countries where homeschool is illegal – think Germany – and certainly it is frowned upon and a mark of shame. Even as we complain about the recently slow ESA process but we are given the gift of homeschooling that most states can’t even begin to hope for: an absolute free hand to educate our children in any way we wish… and we get paid for it!
Though we can choose to put our children in public school, private school, charter school, we have chosen to homeschool and we have chosen to homeschool together at Excelsior a very particular curriculum, in a very particular location with a very particular ethos. But even in the midst of that we have even more choices – how to sort our weeks, our days, our focus. What classes and skills we emphasize, which ones we leave off. We all have made choices that impact where our children may go to University – or not, that will effect their futures and their future families, that will determine their interests and their intent.
This feels heavy and scary at times, as we have the weight of lives in our hands and at stake. And yet… is it really ours to choose?
Depending on which side of the TULIP you are on, your view of free will (choice) will land on a sliding scale, from: ‘everything is predetermined’ to a ‘I still have full agency and can respond any way I please.’ It’s the sticky two-sided coin of “I chose God/God chose me” and really its a both/and sort of a deal.
To be completely free to choose God is inherent in our humanity and yet God loves and calls and has His way for He, well He is God, outside of our time and space. To begin to comprehend Him, He has given us His Word – which is incidentally is filled with choice, both God’s and humanity’s. His written word is the story of His creation, His living Word is pure love, faithfulness and redemption as an antidote of sorts to humanity’s dumb mistakes, ridiculous bargains and spiteful doings. There are some notable exceptions but really, it’s the story of God’s generous, good and great will.
Lately, I’ve re-learned the power of subverting my will to God’s. To be honest, most of my life is spent planning my own plans, doing my own thing and assuming God will bless it. I get along pretty well until, well…. until I don’t. Then He reminds me to worship Him as He should be worshipped, to ask Him as I should always and every day be asking Him in every detail. I have recently had a few on-my-face-praying-for-God’s-total-direction days – which are hard days, but sweet too, as God often lets me wait a good bit before He offers clarity. Maybe that is because I’ve heaped a ton of infill between us and it takes time for Him to clear away before I can actually hear Him. When I spend enough time reading and listening and waiting, I get to know his voice well enough and His Word deeply enough that only then His choice subsumes mine and I can rest that it is His big idea is much better than any brilliant thought I can conjure.
Choice. We have it in spades. And the best choice? Well, it is His choice. Which maybe isn’t really mine, but it’s by far the better of the two. And His choice? It is never elusive.
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