Today’s prompt for Home Education Week is: Share your greatest challenge. Or one of those terrible, horrible no good, very bad days where the only thing there is to do seems to involve moving to Australia.

My greatest challenge homeschooling, which has led to too many terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days to count, has been dealing with my 11-year-old son, The D, since his mental health took a bad turn.

Our first year of homeschooling was three years ago. The D was entering 3rd grade and Big E was entering 2nd.

That year was wonderful. The kids loved it. I loved it. And, boy, did they flourish.

The D has always had some difficulties with his emotional/social development, and he has a mild sensory processing disorder, but homeschooling was like the magic pill that cured, or a least dramatically decreased, his problems.

The kids were happy and things were going well, for what seemed like the first time in a very long time.

Then that summer, some thing happened that sent The D into a tailspin. Afterward, he was depressed, agitated, belligerent, aggressive, and sometimes even violent.

He does not have an official diagnosis yet, other than depression (and the sensory processing disorder), but he is a lot like this, in addition to dramatic mood swings and all that comes with those.

Since then, homeschooling has been very different than it was that first year.

I never think about sending him back to public school because I know that would do more harm than good, but needless to say, this has tried my patience, my strength, and my faith in ways I could have never imagined.

Just a note here, we are dealing with professionals about his problems, everyone here is safe, and he is receiving the needed care.

But these things take time. A long time. And in the meantime, well, I am dealing – we are dealing – with the biggest challenge of my life (so far).

Every day holds the potential to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. The thing is, I never know until I am in the thick of it.

On the worst days, just making it through the day is an accomplishment in and of itself. If we get to do even a bit of school work, it’s gravy.

Even as I share this, I can’t help but find the good in it all. I guess I kind of have to in order to survive. At the same time, they say through adversity comes growth, and we have all grown so much, as individuals and as a family.

We have learned to let go of our “shoulds” and our “oughts” and “what could have beens,” and learned to accept that things do not always turn out the way you dreamt they would.

We have learned to be flexible and take into consideration others’ needs and limitations.

We have learned so much about forgiveness, to forgive each other and to forgive ourselves.

We have learned about loving each other, even when one becomes nearly impossible to love, and the amazing healing power that love has for even the most broken of hearts.

And we have learned just how unlovable we ourselves can become when we succumb to the anger and ill will, and how only complete surrender to a loving and forgiving God can make us whole again.

Perhaps most importantly, we have learned to trust God though the bad times and the good. And we have learned that His plan is not always (if ever) on our timetable.

We have learned to say, even after the most terrible, most horrible, most no good, very worst day ever, that God is good – and actually mean it.

Be sure to head over to Principled Discovery and check out what other homeschoolers had to say.