January recap

A month gone by, the first of this new stage of life for us.   My goals for January were simple ~ make it through, and get used to new schedules and routines.  And in that respect, it was a rousing success.  We're all starting to - dare I say it? - embrace the new normal.

The kids have gotten used to getting up early and are making friends.  They're adjusting to school routines and teachers that are different from the ones we'd had here.  A corner of the dining room has become homework and backpack central.  And in the midst of the moments of "AGGGGHHHH!  What are we DOING?", God has sent little moments that assure us that we are following His plan.  A comment that "My class talks about church a lot!", an image of the Lord standing right beside the eldest, the way the other kids at the bus stop have seem so eager for adult interaction each morning . . . little things timed so perfectly.  We've found that getting up a little earlier makes not only for smoother mornings, but allows us to time to do a quick Bible reading and prayer before school.

For me, this is sacred time.  There are three months until my studies begin in full force, so I have this window of time to  . . . be.  It's been tempting to make huge lists.  But for January, I allowed myself grace and space to make the transition.  To grieve the end of the era of having the kids with me all day, and to start to put on a not-only-mom-and-teacher identity.  To rewrite my mental to-do list with our new routines.  It's a rare season where I can let God use me each day to spend time praying for others and immersing myself in His word.  I'm not taking it lightly ~ these times don't come often.

There's been reading, though not as much as I expected.  There's been cleaning, also not as much I would have liked.  There's been exercise, and a few lunches with friend.  At times it feels like I'm cheating ~ surely it's not permissible to have time for me during the day!  There's been good time talking and reading and snuggling with the kids in the evenings and after school.  

For February, it's time to tackle the used-to-be school room.  For last month it sat just as we left it before Christmas, shades drawn.  But it's time.  God has called us to this new path, and that means stepping onto it fully, trusting that He goes before us. 

A prayer marked by faith is never about what happens on our terms or time lines, but God's.  Faith-stained prayer brings us to a place of trust and hope. - Margaret Feinberg in Wonderstruck

The past six weeks have reinforced for me that once we turn ourselves over to God, we shouldn't be surprised when life doesn't happen on our terms or time lines.  It will seldom look just like the life we've so admired in a friend, and will often take us places that we never expected to go (whether that be across the world or from one room to the next).  But God is good, and He sees so far beyond what I can see.  Often the things that seem the best from my vantage point would pale in comparison to what He has in store.

PS:  For the book-inclined, here's the list of books that were finished in January.  Many of them were started earlier:

• Red letter verses of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
• Reinventing Rachel, Alison Strobel (fiction)
• Learning a New Routine: Reading the Sermon on the Mount, Jon Swanson
• When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions, Sue Monk Kidd
• A Guide for Listening and Inner Healing Prayer, Rusty Rustenbach
• Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor, Jana Riess
• Beyond the Storm, Carolyn Zane (fiction)
• Michael: A Novel, Jill Eileen Smith
• Bathsheba: A Novel, Jill Eileen Smith

Transitions and cocoons

I used to travel a lot in my mid-20s. In those pre-tech gadget days, travel was truly a time and space apart.  Once you boarded the plane, climbed onto the train, or hit the road with map in hand, you entered what always felt to be a somewhat sacred space.  No longer where you had come from, and not yet where you were going, it was a time unlike any other.  At the beginning of the trip, your mind would be filled with wrapping up details of the world you were leaving.  By the time you neared your destination, there was space for details of the world you were entering and your mind would gear up for it.  In the middle . . . depending on the length of the trip, there was that space that was just you.  Neither here nor there, just being.

These weeks of January have been marked by transition.  The adjustment for the kids is going as well as could be expected, and they are getting used to new schedules, new teachers, new friends, and new routines.  But at the same time, there is at times a retreat into the familiar, the safe, the expected.  Back in December we had been reading Farmer Boy, but had set it aside for a time as interest waned.  But during this transition phase, whenever a spare moment arises I find the book being pressed into my hand with a plea, "Read Farmer Boy to us?"  The familiar posture of sitting side-by-side and reading brings comfort in an uncertain time.

I have found myself spinning my own cocoons in this transition month.  Those moments right after the kids get on the bus, when the house seems so dark and empty . . . immersing myself in God's word.  He's been faithful to this point, surely He will continue to do so.  I cocoon in my Christmas sweatshirt with the name of my new school written across the front.  It's big and roomy and warm and I can lose myself inside of it . . . and at the same time, begin to take on the new skin of student once more.  At night after the kids are in bed and work is done, I find myself curling up next to my husband to join the Doctor and his companion on another adventure, safe in the knowledge that no matter what evil befalls the universe, by the end of that episode (or the next), the world will be saved (at last temporarily).  My cocoons.

Part of me has wanted to struggle against them and knock them out of the way with vast to-do lists and plans that would make me feel that I was bringing every bit of this new found time under my control.  But I've been experimenting with grace instead.  My lists are small, with just the essentials as mandatory must-do's.  I'm letting myself grieve the stage that is past so that I'll be able to embrace what lies ahead.  We're trying out different routines to see what works.  Learning which elements from homeschooling still work for us now, and which ones can be released. In all of this, I realize how deeply I become my roles.  Letting go of it feels like a rewriting of my whole identity at times. 

But as time goes by, we are making the transition.  No longer where we were, and not yet where we will soon be.  And I'm discovering that grace is good to extend to myself, and it inspires me to move beyond this temporary cocoon.

Learning a new song

One forged ahead boldly with a single focus, nary a look back. As she passed by on her way to new destinations, she waved from the front of the line where she was introducing herself to her new teacher.  No surprise ~ her coat and backpack had been on the moment she finished breakfast, long before the rest of us were ready. 

The other had to warm up to the idea.  Upon waking, he'd declared, "Couldn't we start next week?  I'm not prepared!  I'm scared!"  Even when we joined his class awaiting the teacher's arrival in the lunchroom, he hung back just a bit ~ this was new and unknown, and by default in his young mind, new and unknown = scary.  Seeing a friend across the way brought a smile to his face.  And we laughed when we found out that not only does he share a first name with two other boys in his class, but that their last names begin with L, M, and N.  O is in the class across the hall.

Watching these two approach this new venture with such different styles made me think of the war within my own mind and heart when God calls me to a new & unknown path.  My first instinct is often to back away with a list of reasons why I'm not ready, or must surely not be the one.  I don't have to look far in the Bible to find others who struggled the same way.  But there's a part of me that wants to respond the way my daughter did this morning, the way the disciples did when Jesus called them off their boats ~ to set off with a single focus and embrace the new.

I realize that in this time of learning a new song, I too will need to choose how I respond.  Will I let the worrying side hold me back with my cries of  "But I'm not prepared?  I'm not ready!"   Or will I jump in fully to this new path, trusting that the same Lord who told his disciples,

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear . . .  So do not worry . . . But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."  (selections from Matthew 6:25,31,33)

meant for those words to apply to me in my life today?  That keeping my focus fixed on Him will allow the rest to fall into place?

Unknown

December 19th.  Nine years ago it fell on a Friday, and that evening I found myself weeping as the last movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy concluded.  It was this scene pictured on the right that did it.  The week before I had miscarried our third child, and had no idea if children would ever be in our future.


But despite my tears, there was a new seed of hope.  Earlier that day, one of the students in my 5th grade class had given me a Christmas card.  The card that proved to me that God not only existed, but knew me and my struggles.  And through the tears, my heart warmed.   In the up and down days of waiting to hear if this baby would continue to grow, my fortune after Chinese food read:  "You' will soon receive help from an unexpected source."  At the time I read it, my mind immediately jumped to the hope of that baby making a miraculous turnaround.  I had no idea that God would become real to me in the days to follow, and become my source of help even in the midst of my grief.

In the days that followed, that seed of hope began to grow into a new faith in Christ.  But I struggled so much with wanting a baby, a child.  Some days it felt that no cost was too great.  We looked into adoption and considered fertility treatments.  But questions kept coming into my mind - Did I trust God with this part of my life?  Could I let go of trying to control it myself?  What if we never had a child ~ could I ever really be happy? 

Fast forward to December 19, 2012.  We're planning to see The Hobbit over Christmas break, and will need to find a babysitter for our two children.  Girl and boy, just like the picture.  But even as wonderful as they are, I realize now that they aren't the true source of my happiness.  We have a promise of an Abigail ~ but that promise isn't the source of my joy either (even though her name means joy.)  The very experience of walking this road of faith, of stepping out even when we can't see the end result, and discovering that God is there - ahead of us, beside us -  that's where I'm finding joy and hope. 

The hard times still come, and these next nine years may bring heartache beyond imagine.  I pray that if they do, I won't lose total sight of that ray of hope, however dim it may seem at times.   I pray that I will be able to remember that we only see part of the picture and that from God's perspective things can seem so very, very different.  I pray that above all, I will cling to the belief that God is there and that he knows me in all my circumstances.

Ch-ch-changes

This whole year, this 2012, has been one of change.  Little changes that are big, and big changes that are little.  In the first half of the year, the kids' beloved Aunt E.B. lived with us as she transitioned from college to life on her own.  It was a good, growing experience for us all.  She had been born as I was finishing high school and leaving home, so in many ways it was the first chance I had to really get to know her.

My husband made a job change from a small school nearly 40 miles away to the large local school just a few blocks away.  While it takes a while to get used to a new place, the change has opened up time and opportunities for our family in good ways, and will be great in the long run.

And then there's the second half of the year.  That whole reading through the Bible in 90 days from this past summer?  God decided to use that time to begin leading me personally on a new path back to school.  The official notice came in December that I have been accepted to a graduate program in ministry leadership & spiritual direction.  In plain English?  Walking alongside people to help them see how God is at work in their lives and helping them overcome obstacles that get in the way of living out their faith.

These past months have been filled with prayer, seeking wisdom and discernment.  I have watched things unfold in ways that have only been God's hand. And as they have, another facet of the changes began to emerge, one that I have balked at from the beginning.  Because it didn't fit with the image I had for myself or our family.  Surely not THIS?  

But how can I follow if I'm still clutching this tightly?  And gradually, my hands have unclenched and I've begun to hold them open.  To find that verse from the beginning coming up once again:

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.  Psalm 40:3

This morning found me with a stack of enrollment paperwork for our local school.  And while I wouldn't have imagined it this time last year, and while I'm still grieving the dream a bit, it's clear that this is the path we are supposed to walk at this time.  Come January we will be making a new transition to the local classrooms.  As with most new ventures in life, I imagine it will hold both great joys and great sadness, hard lessons to learn as well as celebrations.  But it boils down to following God's leading in this place, at this time, even when it doesn't fit my mental expectations.

Don't get me wrong ~ I have LOVED having the opportunity to be teacher as well as mom for these past few years.  Home schooling has helped build my relationships with my children as they grew from toddlers into more independent kids, able to read and write and love Jesus.  We've been able to enjoy each other as a family and follow their interests.  They've learned both good and bad from me as their main teacher ~ while in some areas I've put forth my best, being together all the time has meant that they have witnessed firsthand my distracted or down days, and my procrastination.  From their new teachers and classmates, they'll learn both good and bad as well.  And as their mother, I'll remain their teacher as well, especially in the area of faith.  We'll still snuggle on the couch and read and talk and occasionally do something fun and crafty together.  There's a part of me that is a teacher at heart, even if I'm not teaching full-time at home, or full-time at a different school.

To my homeschooling friends, THANK YOU!  You have given me so much support, prayer, and encouragement, and been such shining examples that it was possible to follow God's leading to teach at home.  Even though our paths will be taking a different turn (for a season, at least), I treasure your friendship and will love hearing your updates about your home schools.  I may shed a tear or two, at least at first, but that won't stop me from celebrating your successes with you.

To my friends who have children in public school, children who have already graduated, and those who don't have children, THANK YOU!  Even if you weren't sure about our decision to teach at home, you gave love, prayer, and encouragement, and trusted that God leads us in many different ways.  I continue to treasure your friendship as well, and for those of you with kids in public school, may need to get your advice on the parent side of the classroom.

Where 2013 will take us, we're the first to say, "Only God knows!"  We're trusting that His timing for Abigail will be right, and that if we strive to remain humble and obedient servants, we'll be able to hear his voice when it's time to take action.  In the meantime, we're gearing up to embrace a new season of life around here, and continue to seek His kingdom and share His light as we go.  Keep praying for us?  And we'll do the same.