I’d love so much to say that every moment of our time homeschooling abroad is idyllic. It certainly seems like it would be. We’re doing this big bodacious thing, and we’ve sacrificed so much to make it all happen. It should be AWESOME. And it is. Just not every single day.

Some days are just so hard. I hesitate to ever discuss it with anyone because it sounds so insensitive and ungrateful to say, “I don’t always enjoy exploring this beautiful country with my children. Sometimes I want this amazing opportunity to end. In fact, today I want this amazing opportunity to end. Like now.”

I don’t feel like that on most days, but there are those moments when I wish I could click my heels together 3 times and end up back in the comfort of my home. My real home.

Sometimes the feeling of wanting a heavy does of NORMAL comes after a particularly difficult day when nothing has seemed to go as expected or desired. But other days, my internal refrain of “This is so hard!” sneaks up on me for what seems like no reason at all. And yet at other times, anxiety threatens my international travel.

Whenever I’m having an “off” day, my immediate desire is to go home. My mind starts playing tricks on me and a familiar onslaught of questions floods my thoughts:

• What am I doing here?
• What is the point of all of this?
• How many days are left until I can get out of here?
• Why did I waste all of this money?
• Who does this???

I haven’t found a way to avoid having hard days, but I have had an epiphany that makes the rough days easier to experience. It occurred to me that I have hard days at home, too. The difference is that I don’t have thoughts of running away when I have hard days at home because there’s no where to run. But down here on another continent? There’s definitely somewhere to go. Away. That’s where I can go. I can go away from here. I tell myself that my problems will dissipate if I leave, and they will. But it’s only fair for me to admit that other problems will take their place.

In the end, there is the truth and the Truth, and I have to contend with and absorb both.

The truth is that hard days happen everywhere. I’m not having a hard day because I’m Worldschooling in Bolivia. I’m having a hard day because I’m living life.

And the Truth is…

 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. – Matthew 6: 25-34

I accept the truth and lean on the Truth…and tomorrow will be a new day, full of promise and hope.