Random thoughts......

This past week was a rough one. Usually I would have been helping out with our churches VBS program, but I was not feeling well and decided to wait till the end of the week to help. As I was sitting around in my very quiet home (all or most of the kids were helping out with VBS this week), I decided to read a book called the" Fruit Of Her Hands" by Nancy Wilson, its about respect and the Christian woman. I never thought I had a problem with respect, until I read this book. It was harsh ! Some of the things I have said and done have not been very respectful. This is a hard thing to find out. I think I knew some of it in the back of my mind, but had not made the connections between my dis-respect and the way my kids are dis-respectful. While reading the book I made some resolutions to practice respecting, in particular my husband. I also realized that my lack of respect was a direct result of my not trusting God. All this time, I was fairly certain that trusting God was not an issue for me, but it is. He either is who he says he is or he is not. I believe he is exactly who he claims to be, and that I CAN trust him with the issues in my life. This is almost always easier to say then to do. We show it everyday in different ways and in different areas of life. It reminds me of a poem I once read called Let Go and let God, because if we don't trust him how can we let go? I have been so angry with my husband over things that are big and small and it is ALL because I did not trust God ! Not only that, if I didn't trust God how in the world was I ever going to trust my husband the way I should???? The bible commands me to be respectful to my husband, regardless of whether I think he deserves it or not. This flies in the face of currant societal norms, and is very difficult when there is no trust. The point of all this is if you truly, truly trust God the way you should as a Christian, then respect will not be so difficult because you KNOW God is concerned with your everyday journey. You KNOW he is kind and compassionate. You CAN trust him with your marriage, husband, children, work, friends, your LIFE!! So, Let Go and Let God!

LET GO AND LET GOD!

As children bring their broken toys     with tears for us to mend, I brought my broken dreams to God, because He was my friend. But then, instead of leaving Him, in peace, to work alone; I hung around and tried to help, with ways that were my own. At last, I snatched them back and cried, "How can you be so slow?" "My child," He said, "What could I do? You never did let go."

Calgon..Take me away! (trademarked of course )

Have you ever just had one of those weeks, where that line was so appropriate? In my case the mantra was "Jesus,Take me home!" Usually I start out with such good intentions, like with our homeschooling, or laundry, or "insert your project here". No matter what I try to accomplish, there is some point where I want God to just take me home and get it over with. Everywhere I turn, it seems that everyone else is having this great time and I just don't get it. For me it has been truly hard to maintain a positive attitude in the face of adversity.
Take our homeschooling experience so far. It has only been 3 days and I have already been tempted to throw in the towel, so to speak. They fuss, they fight, they argue, where is the peaceful, calm, homeschooling experience I keep hearing about? I can tell you it is definitely not at my house. Where are the kids who want to cooperate and have a great time with each other while doing school work? What about the peaceful walks in the woods looking at birds and squirrels and talking about Gods creation? Not here. As a matter of fact the last time I took my kids out to the woods for this nature walk thingy, I almost left them there. No worries though, they would have eventually found their way home as we only got a couple hundred yards away before they were pitching fits.
Every family is different, for instance, my kids have learned that I will cave at the slightest hint of noncooperation, because I want to have a whole day where there isn't any yelling or bickering. Another thing they have learned is the harder time they give me, the shorter school time will be. I have trained them well. They know exactly what buttons to push and how to push them to get their ultimate goal, which is to go do what they want. Just for the record, I have great kids, even with all the fussing, they are better than most.
Fortunately for them and me, I have a Savior who loves me. Left to my own devices, with no relationship with the Lord, I would have given up long ago. I can not let them win this battle of the wills, as in the end they will actually end up losing. I don't know what that looks like right now, but I'm working on it.
Yesterday I was watching a Voddie Baucham DVD from a homeschooling conference I went to a couple years ago and he was talking about parents being a blessing to their children, and I asked myself, am I being a blessing to my kids? Honestly, I would have to give myself an F in that category. I just don't know how to do that on my own, but I know that Jesus can help me with that. I want to be a blessing to my husband also, and that seems even harder than being one for my kids.
So now that my rant is done, I am reminded of a verse that seems to fit my circumstances at this moment, which is
Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also ^(A)lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us ^(B)run with ^(C)endurance the race that is set before us.

To me this means, there are people watching, set a Godly example, put aside your worldly struggles and sin that can trip you and keep going until you reach the goal, that being telling people the Gospel and going home to be with Jesus. What a great encouragement for those of us who seem to have more problems then others.
Funny how that works. I can always find a scripture verse to fit my struggle or to give me encouragement. I don't know how anyone can make it in this world without Gods Word. After the week, or maybe month,  I have had,  it seems impossible to even conceive of living without it.

Once Upon a Time.....

These words are the beginning of your typical fairy tale. Well my week was anything but a nice sweet fairy tale. This is life, no one said it would be easy, at least for me. Everywhere I turn there seems to be some sort of struggle over any number of things. I spent the majority of my weekend upset and angry, and not getting any sleep. I didn't want to be angry, but I was, and it was a real struggle. I also had a yard sale this weekend, so you can add tired onto the list. On the second day of my yard sale, I wasn't feeling well, so I sat in my vehicle the whole time, only occasionally crawling out to visit with someone who had stopped. This week didn't start out much better. Monday had its own troubles and today has started out that way, (I don't think I want to do the checkbook or bills anymore) so the tone has been set. Tuesday was actually very productive as I was able to have the whole day to organize my office space. It is now nice and neat and you can see the floor! As always though, I managed to forget to do something. I must have early onset Alzheimers, as sometimes I cant seem to remember to do the smallest things, like take out something for dinner.
On the blessing side of things, I'm not angry anymore so I am getting much more sleep, and with the sleep and rest, I'm not as tired, and I feel better. Another blessing, I have a checkbook that I can mess up, some people don't have one right now. I have a house that can get messed up and cleaned, another thing some people don't have right now, and I have a fridge that has food in it that I can forget to take out for dinner.
All in all comparatively speaking, I have a great life, a great husband, and a great family. I should remember my blessings instead of complaining about my struggles, which are many. I am hoping that this week will get better somewhere along the way, after all there is only 2 more days to it. Maybe I should go take something out of the freezer for dinner, then get some laundry started, then get my living room straight. All the school books (and most of the other books in the house) are on the living room floor and stacks. I managed to get most of it sorted on Sunday, but when I went and cleaned the office/computer space yesterday, I found a bunch of things I forgot I had, things my children will wish I never found I'm sure.
I think that we will be ready to start school next week, hopefully. I am feeling excitement and dread all at the same time. Excitement, because we are starting a new year, dread because I know my kids will most likely give me a hard time. Our homeschool life is never easy. There is always some sort of struggle going on the whole time. No matter how prepared I am, there always seems to be something. The blessing side of this, I live in a country where I can still homeschool my kids, some people do not have that option.
This is my reality, even though my life doesn't always seem as pretty as someone else's , Jesus still loves me and my family, even if we don't have the perfect home, the perfect homeschool, the perfect menu plan, God has the perfect plan for us, always.

Lessons learned....

I decided to go back through my blog and see if I had learned anything at all from the past week, and if so share it here. Being a Christian, I think the biggest lesson I learned this week is that I can do nothing without Jesus. The overwhelming amount of organizing I started last week is just that, overwhelming. But according to Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through him (Christ) who strengthens me.
This is the scripture verse I need for right now, actually I need it for everyday, but it rings of hope that the task before me can be completed with Christs help. As I look at the piles of assorted boxes, bags and containers my motivation to be organized wanes. If I depend upon myself to do this it will NOT get done, so this is a verse I really really need to keep at the forefront of my mind.

Unfortunately I totally forgot this on Monday at Silverwood. I depended upon my own power to get through the day and forgot to pray and give everything to Him. As a result, things did not go as well as planned. Any time you plan something without including Jesus in the decision its bound to be a problem. It is a lesson I'm sure will take the rest of my mortal life to learn. Hopefully it wont be anything major.
The past week has been long, I'm still trying to pack and sort, my house is a wreck (I'm really hoping no one decides to come over), the kids are still bickering for some reason known only to them, and my lack of motivation is a sure sign that I stayed up wayyyy to late last night. I think I will need to go have a quiet moment with God before I try to do anything else. I am so glad for Jesus in my life. I know my life doesn't always look pretty, but that's OK. I know there is hope for me and my family yet !