Wednesdays With Words: Your Neighbor’s Schoolbus

You probably know that I was on vacation with no internet last week because Anna did a fabulous job hosting Wednesdays With Words from her new (beautiful) internet home Little Drops of Water.

We were on a Disney cruise.  A generous gift.  It was wonderful and relaxing, and frankly I didn’t think about the post on Wednesday till we came back on Friday.

I also didn’t have much time to read because we were so busy relaxing. And sight-seeing.

And then, when we got back, it was hectic.  Part of the hectic was yesterday’s release of my very first eBook!  I released I Am, I Can, I Ought, I Will: Charlotte Mason’s Motto Explained for Upper Elementary Students. So I didn’t read much of anything early this week, either.

And I’ve been thinking about my own words, so today I’m sharing some of my own words. I hope you don’t mind.  This is from “I Ought Day Nine” in my eBook.  I start with the Tenth Commandment:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17 ESV)

You shall not covet your neighbor’s iPad. You shall not covet your neighbor’s library. You shall not covet your neighbor’s parents. You shall not covet your neighbor’s schoolbus.

Today is the first day of school for our school district. We are cleaning and resetting, trying to get on top of bedrooms and the school room and bathrooms and laundry and all those things that are easily shoved aside by me.  Sometimes we all have an inordinate desire for those things which belong to our neighbor.  Sometimes it’s the children who wish they were heading off for the day on the big yellow bus, sometimes it’s me who wonders what days would be like if they did.  None of us consider it for long, but sometimes the desire is there.

Mason’s motto, when underpinned by scripture, reminds us of our identity and His great power to aid us to do what we ought and to choose it.  To choose to be content in the call He has placed on our lives. Even on the first day of school.

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