Breaking News!

This just in: Isaac Allan, a high school senior from Hudson, NH, has graduated high school. It has been confirmed that the last twelve years were grueling, but Isaac is looking forward to putting off procrastinating until he begins his college education in the fall. Sources close to the student say he didn’t come through the process unscathed.

“There were a lot of assignments overdue,” says one family member.

“He overslept 99% of the time,” another one revealed.

We are now being told that Isaac Allan will take his work ethic with him to college, where he will pursue a degree in Computer Science at the University of New Hampshire. We reached out to the school but they were unavailable for comment. A source, who wishes to remain amomymous, worries, saying she knows he can do it, but at what cost?

We asked Isaac if he shared the same concern. He said, and I quote, “Cost?! What cost? It’s free!”

He has good reason to be cheerful. His accomplishments were honored during a graduation ceremony last weekend. We were told there was a good number in attendance and Isaac was the laughing stock of all speeches. Our news agency recently came into possession of one such speech and we’ve decided our public has the right to read it. Below is the transcript.

Oh, Isaac. As I sat down to compose this speech, my memory wandered, and then I remembered what I was doing at the computer. Thinking back over your childhood brings me to the fridge in search of chocolate, which brings me immense joy. Incidentally, so do you. 🙂 Other feelings are mingled in as well. There’s exhaustion, frustration, and some sadness, but enough about me.

From the beginning of our homeschool journey, it was obvious you were adept at avoiding school work, though you were also so incredibly adept at school. I know you had good reasons for not always getting your work done, however. One time when I asked why you weren’t accomplishing anything, you replied simply, “Oh, I’ve lost my invisible pencil.”

Since you’ve always been smarter than me, you learned at an early age how to find the answers to all of your questions on your own–questions which usually started with the word, “how?” I’m glad I could aid you in learning how to learn; you’re welcome. 🙂 There was that one time I stumped you with a “how” question of my own, though. At some point in your young life, you wanted to be a farmer as you enjoyed playing with a toy barn we had and the plastic animals that came with it. I wondered how that career was going to work out given your proclivity to stay indoors, so I asked, “Isaac, how are you going to be a farmer if you don’t go outside?” Exasperated, you answered, “Mommy, I’d change my ways by then!” Considering you still don’t go outside often, I’d say harvesting a dream that you’ll be a farmer is an idea that won’t take root.

Have you changed your ways since then? Well, you are still kind, generous, stubborn, witty, strong, helpful, passionate, procrastinating, intelligent, quiet, loud, creative, unobtrusive, tech-savvy, musical, articulate, and full of almost-useless trivia. Does anyone want to know why Pepsi once had the fifth largest navy? Ask Isaac. Care to know how one human earned the distinction of being the farthest away from any other human being in history? Ask Isaac. Want to hear a toaster eulogy? Ask Isaac for a recitation. I promise it will spark joy in your life as you observe his appliance of humor and wit.

These attributes of yours have added color to our typically black-and-white homeschool environment. Because of them, there have been moments of joy and moments of frustration. There have been times when you’ve outsmarted us all and times when you couldn’t pronounce “rendezvous” correctly. You’ve left us in awe of your almost photographic memory as well as your inability to remember the order of the months of the year. At times, we saw eye to eye and then you grew taller than me. You can solve complicated math problems in your head but struggle to read your shifts on Hot Schedules correctly. Just as often as I am kicking you off devices, I’m calling you right back for technical assistance. You effortlessly procrastinate yet your work seems so effortless. Your passionate excitement over your hobbies are sometimes overwhelming, but I’ve seen it spur on so many creative projects–most of which I’m still waiting for you to finish! 🙂 Your humor is hard to rival and your generosity is nearly unparalleled. The annoyance and sarcasm in your school work is also nearly unparalleled.

Who can forget the time you took the Study Skills class here at co-op and submitted these four objectives you hoped to accomplish from the course:

I hope to avoid the wrath of my parents that is put into effect when I have no work.
I hope to learn the meaning of the phrase “study skills”.
I hope to avoid being kicked out of class all semester from making snarky comments.
I hope that I will care enough to learn and apply the things taught in this course.

Or how about the time you had to finish a paragraph for a language arts curriculum you truly despised? The excerpt, from the book King of the Wind, was about a horse pulling a heavy load up an icy incline while being mistreated the whole way. The instructions asked you to add a paragraph to the passage, explaining what occurred next. You wrote, “A meteor came. It struck the earth. All life ceased to exist.”

In what was retrospectively a poor decision on my part, I told you to do it again, as I felt you weren’t completing the task in the right spirit. Your edit went like this, “All of a sudden, Sham pulled his ACL. He went careening down the hill, and he was never seen again.” *sigh* Sometimes our years of schooling together bring to mind the time you asked me to write this saying on a birthday cake: Happy birthday, Isaac. We’re so glad you’re here. Growing up with you—was extra fun this year.

And you do make it extra fun. Truly. More often than not, there is laughter and singing and light-hearted chatter and late-night chatter and sharing of almost-useless trivia and joking and pun wars and music-making and academic discussions and biblical conversations. And I love it all.

Now, because I don’t want to be up here anymore, allow me to start wrapping this up by sharing a description of who Isaac is and what the privilege of homeschooling him has been like, written by one of my favorite authors, “You guys have pushed me towards greatness. And pulled me towards greatness. And offered incentives. And punishments. And tried holding my hand. And tried letting go. And just about everything else you could think of to get me to do something. Well, here it is!”

I don’t think I could have come up with a more succinct, accurate, bittersweet way to encapsulate our experience! As I close this toasted eulogy about your homeschooling years, Isaac, I want to leave you with one thought and two stanzas of a song.

By “one thought”, I really mean four verses without comment, though I trust you can make the right application as you head into this next phase of life and school. The first one is found in I Chronicles 28:9, “And thou, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind; for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts; if thou seek him, he will be found of thee: but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever.” Proverbs 23:12 says “Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.” Next one is Isaiah 48:17, which reads, “Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.” And lastly from I Corinthians 7:17, “Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.”

I pray you will continue to follow Him as “the way of the Lord is strength to the upright” (Proverbs 10:29) and allow Him to use you as He sees fit. The words of the following song have been running through my mind for a few weeks now and seem appropriate to the message I’m trying to convey to you:

Have thine own way, Lord!

Have thine own way!

Thou art the potter,

I am the clay.

Mold me and make me

After thy will,

While I am waiting,

Yielded and still.

Have thine own way, Lord!

Have thine own way!

Hold o’er my being

Absolute sway.