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“Like Jesus, we must go away from people so that we can be truly present when we are with people.” -Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

In October 2019, I took a personal retreat to the beach for twenty-four hours. Up to that point, a personal retreat with God was not something that earned much thought in my mind. When I did think of it, it was a rather flawed desire that went something like this: “I just want to go run away to a cave! Who knows when I’ll return! Nobody else can come!” This had nothing to do with time with God. It was a desire to run away and shut the door on life. That was the attractiveness of my cave–a hypothetical place where I tuned out all situations and people that needed to shut up and stop bothering me. 

God has been teaching me something very important this year as I’ve started homeschooling my five-year-old daughter, Anna, who is in kindergarten. My husband and I know that different schooling options are right for different families, and we made this decision together, but no matter how long we talked, the decision caused much angst for me. I was fearful that my decision would be viewed as an indictment on other people who do not make…