Weather Whiplash: Embracing Life's Duality

Hi Reader,

Before we get into it this week, I want to play a little game.

Three truths and a lie. Can you spot the lie?

1. The low was 18 degrees here on Monday.
2. It will be 86 degrees tomorrow (Thursday).
3. I live in Arkansas.
4. I love the beach.

Did you guess it? Keep scrolling.....

Drum roll please....Number four is the lie!

I know, I know, you think I’m crazy. But sand in every crevice, saltwater in my eyes, and a sunburn I can feel three days later? Hard pass. Give me a cozy cabin, mountains, and a good book, and I am absolutely thriving!

But numbers one and two? One hundred percent true. Welcome to Arkansas in March, where winter and summer love sharing not just weeks, but days!

And honestly, that weather pattern has been feeling a little too relatable to the rest of life lately.

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LIFE

This week is holding both ends of the spectrum at once for me, and if Arkansas weather taught me anything this week, it is that super high highs and super low lows can absolutely coexist in the same stretch of days without either one canceling the other out.

On one side of this week, my sweet girl turns four years old, and she is funny and wild and full of opinions and I could not be more grateful for every single chaotic, joyful, beautiful day I get to spend with her. On the other side of it, that same day is also nine months since we said goodbye to Myla, our daughter who was born sleeping, and nine months is simultaneously a long time and somehow no time at all.

Here is what I have learned about grief and joy: they are not opposites, and they do not take turns politely waiting in the hallway while the other one has the floor. They show up together, arm in arm, and the only thing you can really do is make room for both of them at the same time and let yourself feel the full, complicated, very human weight of a life that holds beautiful things and hard things all at once.

If that is where you are right now, feeling two completely different things simultaneously and wondering if that makes you a little bit crazy, I want you to hear this as clearly as I can say it: You are not crazy. Duality of emotions is so normal and valid in any hard season! You are loved, you are not alone in it, and while I am right there with you, even more so, God is here with you also. 💛

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HOMESCHOOL + MATH

Let’s talk about a scary word: testing!

Spring is standardized testing season for a lot of homeschool families, and I want to take a minute to reframe what those tests are actually measuring because I think a lot of moms carry way more anxiety about them than they need to.

Standardized tests measure one thing: how your child performed on a specific set of questions on a specific day. That is genuinely all they measure. They do not measure your child's potential, their intelligence, the quality of your teaching, the depth of their curiosity, or whether your homeschool routine is actually working.

What they also cannot measure is the moment a concept finally clicked after weeks of patient review. They cannot capture the conversation you had over the kitchen table that changed the way your child thinks about math. They cannot quantify the confidence your child has built by being allowed to master something before moving on.

A test score is a data point, not a verdict, and it is worth repeating that slowly: a data point, not a verdict. Testing can show you where a gap might exist so that you can address it thoughtfully, but it cannot tell you who your child is or what they are capable of becoming.

So, if testing is on your horizon this spring, the most important thing you can do is not cover more content in a panic, it is prepare your student's mindset. Talk with them about what the test actually is: an assessment designed to show YOU what they might need to work on, not a judgment of their worth or their intelligence. Remind them that they do not need to stress about it, and that their job is simply to do their best, and that whatever the results say, it is information we get to use together.

And if you are taking an adaptive test, this is especially worth explaining to your student because adaptive tests will absolutely ask questions your child does not know the answer to, because that is literally how the test determines what to ask next. Not knowing an answer on an adaptive test is not a failure; it is the test doing its job. And if you are the kind of family who loves a rabbit trail, this is actually a fantastic jumping-off point for talking about the coding and logic required to build a test like that, because actions have reactions, inputs have outputs, and suddenly you have turned test prep into a conversation about computer science. 😉

Lastly, if you are taking an adaptive test, talk about how they WILL be asked questions they don’t know cause that is how to test determines what questions to ask next, and that not knowing is not a failure on their part. And if its your cup of tea, you could even take that moment to talk about the coding and logic that is required to create a test, making it a fun exploration of how actions have reactions. 😉

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GRACE

Psalm 30:5 says: "For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.” (NASB)

Weeping in the night. Joy in the morning. Not weeping replaced by joy, but weeping and then joy. Both real, both acknowledged, both held by the same God who does not ask us to choose between them.

And then there is Philippians 4:11-12, where Paul writes: "Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” (ESV)

He has learned, in whatever circumstance he finds himself, to be content, and the word that stops me every time is learned— because contentment is not a personality trait or a spiritual gift that some people have and others don't. It is something that gets practiced, slowly and imperfectly, through the low lows and the high highs, through the want and the abundance, through the grief and the birthday cake sitting on the same Thursday afternoon.

Read Philippians 4 alongside Psalm 30 and something comes into focus that feels like a lifeline: God is present in the mourning and in the celebrating, and He does not ask you to resolve the tension between them before He shows up. He meets you right in the middle of it, exactly as it is, with the 18 degree morning and the 86 degree afternoon and everything you are feeling all at once, and He is enough for all of it.

So whatever this week holds for you, whatever unlikely combination of hard and beautiful is sitting on your calendar right now, you do not have to sort it out or make sense of it before you bring it to Him. Just bring it, exactly as it is.

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So tell me — can you relate to the 18 degrees and the 86 degrees in the same week? Or maybe the grief and the birthday cake? Hit reply and let me know what your week is holding. I read every single message.

You are loved, in every season and every weather pattern. 💛

See you soon,

Mrs. Holman