Teacher Gets a Failing Grade

Usually it turns out the other way around. Usually the youngest child gets things or gets to do things way earlier than the older ones did. Maybe I’ve become a slacker mom. Or maybe God is using my overstuffed life to work patience in my child. I don’t know. But either way, I feel bad.

My youngest son won’t get his drivers license on his 16^th birthday next week. His brother and sister each got theirs on the day. He will have to wait. He hasn’t complained. Or pitched a fit. Or blamed me. But that almost makes me feel worse! If I hadn’t insisted he get his permit a year before his license, like the other two did, we could have done the driving school in town. But there wasn’t time to take the class last fall. I should have just let him do it in early summer and forgone those five extra months of practice time rather than “homeschooling” him for drivers ed, a course we are frantically trying to completely finish, though he has been driving in bits and pieces for the past year.

I know in the scheme of things it really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not like I need him to drive—not like I needed his older brother to because their sister was leaving for college. And I know it puts off the inevitable spike in the car insurance, too. I’m trying to find the positives, see the good, but in the back of my mind the only thing I can hear is “Teacher, you failed.”

At least it was only his driver’s license, not his entire education!

Warning: Worshipping Driver Ahead

I’m a radio girl when I’m tooling around town in my SUV. When I’m on short little trips, in and out of my car, I can deal with the spurts of music that I find on the dial. But when I have to go any length of way on the highway—especially alone, I plug in my adapter and fire up my ipod. Driving and listening to music is good for me. And most of the time it doesn’t cause a problem. Except lately. You see, I’ve discovered the Genius feature.

Oh my.

Now I can play whatever is my favorite worship tune on that particular day and press the Genius button and it will pull all the similar songs on my ipod into a playlist. Now that should be a good thing. But here comes the issue: it gets hard to drive when you’re having a personal revival meeting in your car! Keeping my hands on the wheel becomes a problem. Tears cloud my vision. I’m even tempted to close my eyes! But surely the Lord will put His angels on high alert when that happens. Right?

So I apologize if I cut you off or ride up on your tail or do any of those other annoying things on the highway. I guess maybe I need a little sign on my back window: warning, worshipping driver ahead.