The End of School

 

“It’s only two more weeks,” I said in my sagest voice.

“Two more weeks till what?”  Victoria asked.

“Two more weeks till the end of school,” I said.  “Will you be sad that school is over?”

Victoria didn’t have to think long on that one.  “No,” she said.  “But I am excited about our field trip.  We are going to the zoo!”

What followed then was a long discussion of the animals at the zoo.  The North Carolina Zoo apparently has at least three different kinds of bears (Black Bears, Grizzly Bears, and Polar Bears), but not, Pandas.  Apparently, it is also lacking that, most important of animals, Naked Mole Rats.

For my children, the beginning of school seems a long time ago, an event shrouded in the distant haze of the past.  If they think hard enough, they can remember things about those early days of the 2022-23 school year, but it is almost as though it was a different person taking those classes.

I would say that my children are like most children.  They enjoy certain aspects of school, but they don’t really enjoy studying and doing schoolwork. 

They would far rather sit by a pool and eat popsicles.

All good things come to an end, but so do experiences we don’t enjoy.  Psalm 30:5 says, “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

For mountain climbers, there comes a time when they reach the summit and can look back on all of the struggles that lay behind them and bask in the suns rays as they strike the peak.  The struggle was real, but those who persevered found that it didn’t last.

So too, there comes a time at the end of each school year when children can look back and see, as in a blur, a myriad of tests and quizzes, pizza parties and papers, and realize that it soon will end.  Whether or not the year was a success is based on the lessons learned and friendships nurtured and not simply on the grades earned in each class.

It is helpful for us to remember this.  The hard times seem to last forever, while the good times, just the blink of an eye.  Even when are struggling we must remember that difficult times do come to an end as well.  The question is whether we are learning the right lessons from them and developing strong relationships.  These are things that will carry us from the sorrow of the evening into the joy filled morning.