Painfully awkward

Feeling off

Not understanding tone

More comfortable with children

Uncomfortable around men

It makes more sense now that I understand I am not grown up yet. It's not a bad thing. It's just a fact. It will change. But I can't rush through change. I can't shortcut through this. I want to. I want to be fixed. I don't want to do this work that seems never ending. I want to be at the end.

It's a grace to me that I don't get to shortcut through this but instead get to rely on Him and Him alone.

It's your birthday today.
But you gave up on birthdays a long time ago.
You gave up on me a long time ago.
I don't understand.
I don't understand why I care now.

Maybe it's because so many years I helped you celebrate
And it takes a long time for those memories to fade.
I always spent so much time looking for
The perfect present
For you.

You hurt me.
You betrayed me.
You dumped me as a friend.
Like I was nothing, like we were nothing.

You can't just dump 15 years of friendship
And expect there to not be consequences.

But in the last few months I've realized that
You don't have power over me anymore.
You aren't hurting me anymore
The hurt I feel is a shadow of the past
And it's not happening anymore.

I remembered your birthday because
I forgive you.
I thought of you and felt sad
Because I forgive you.

It's a new feeling.
A new thinking.
A new me.

Taking it Year by Year

A common response when one asks whether another will be homeschooling all the way through high school is, "We are just going to take it year by year." I think it's a legitimate response, and I have frequently replied this when asked the previous question. I never thought anything of it until this weekend at an all-day homeschool workshop. The workshop host discouraged this answer, explaining that you would never respond, "I am going to take it year by year" if someone asked how long you will be a Christian. I see her point, but the analogy sort of breaks down because comparing homeschooling to being a Christian just isn't a fair comparison.

In homeschooling, that's a fair response because it's probably wrong to assume that you would homeschool exactly what you plan all the way through until high school. I don't necessarily know what I'll be doing in a year let along the next 12 years. I could get sick and be unable to homeschool, I could be widowed and that would change my approach, heaven forbid I might die and I don't want my husband to feel tied to homeschooling if it's not something he's able to handle. The point is, we don't know what God has planned to sanctify us! Perhaps our sanctification will not include homeschooling.

I think this is why the Bible says, "Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." James 4:13-17

A more appropriate response to the question, "How long will you homeschool," might be, "I would really like to homeschool all the way through high school but I'm holding that decision in an open hand and evaluate this decision regularly to see if it's in line with what God is telling me."

[As an aside- how come when kids are schooled in public or private options, this question isn't even an issue? It's usually only asked of the homeschooler. How come our culture feels comfortable questioning (and therefore judging) the homeschooler when it would be ridiculous to ask the same questions of a non-homeschooler? Additionally, why are really any questions about how I school tolerable to ask? I don't go around asking public teachers what curriculum they are using or how long they are going to keep teaching their students. Just keep your questions to yourself unless you really want to know, which usually you don't or don't need to know. <endrant>]

Now to the point of "taking it year by year" for the Christian. The workshop lady has a point, and that's that we don't reevaluate our walk with Christ every year. This is true. But if one were judging by my actions, I probably don't walk with Christ every day, so I don't actually know if I will be walking with him in another year. I know intimately that I am "chief of sinners," but I also know that His grace is irresistible and he, in kindness, always draws me back to Him despite my heart and behavior.

I identify so much with Peter. Proud, zealous Peter. "And Jesus said to them, 'You will all fall away, for it is written, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.' Peter said to him, 'Even though they all fall away, I will not.' And Jesus said to him, 'Truly I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.' But he said emphatically, 'If I must dies with you, I will not deny you.' And they all said the same." Mark 14:26-31

Very shortly after this exchange, Peter does deny his Lord, three times as Jesus predicted.

We do not know what God has for us and how he is going to use it. Homeschooling or not, we should hold these things in an open hand. As James writes, "All such boasting is evil."

My heart feels scattered. So many places to go and so many things to pursue. Which is your path, Lord? What would you have me do and pursue? A few things are constant in my ideas for what to do and where to go.

Writing
Encouragement
To Women

How will this be a part of my path? You Lord have clearly given me a heart to write. Please let this heart be to glorify your name, not my own.

My brain lies to me. It says that I am stupid, fat, ugly, unworthy. I says that people don't want to be my friends or spend time with me. It refutes the nice things people say and tells me they're lying.

"Daughter, you are loved."

My brain fills my days with judgement, to-do lists and reminders of stuff I need to do to be worthy. Sometimes the noise is too loud for anything else.

"Sister, you are loved."

My sleep is interrupted by people needing me and when I do sleep I am unsettled by my dreams and anxieties. Remembering things I need to do or things I need to remember.

"Friend, you are loved."

My brain lies.
God tells me the truth.
My heart is swayed.
The Father is true.
The enemy whispers lies.
The Shepherd leads me in the right way.

"Come to me, all who are weary and I will give you rest."

"My sheep hear my voice."

Thank you Father for being greater than my brain and better than my desires.

Before my feet touch the floor
in the morning
I have
failed

My mind reminds me
"You slept in too late"
"You need to help Bill"
"You are doing it wrong"

The judgement is coming
from me
Nobody says these things to me
But myself

Jesus please let me feel your
Peace
Please let me hear your voice
Not mine

Help me see you
Not my
faults

You are perfect
So I don't have to be
You are perfect
So I don't have to be
You are perfect
So I don't have to be

That's your job
Not mine
My job is to
Trust you
Not my abilities

Just
You

Please Jesus
Help me

The Black Hole

I wake to a breeze brushing across my face. It is cold and makes goose bumps upon my back and arms. A shiver of anxiety in my throat tells me this isn’t my bed in which I usually wake. I open my eyes and see tall brown grass in each direction for miles and miles. Nothing is familiar and my heart is racing. Normally I know what is going to happen in every situation. Here I have no control, no understanding, no influence over which way to go; how did I get here?

In the distance I see a circle in the grass and it catches my eye and seemingly calls to me. Like a bog, it is lower and darker than its surroundings. I begin to walk toward it with a magnetism pulling me. I am barefoot but the scratchy grass doesn’t make me itch, I barely feel it, as if I am floating across the grass. I arrive to the lowland circle and realize it is a gigantic hole.

I stand at the edge and peer down into the hole. It seems to go on forever; there is no bottom in sight. A strange part of me has an urge to jump because the pit is strangely inviting. I am afraid of the unknown. What will I find down there? There doesn’t seem to be anything here anyway. I look around the edge of the hole. I look to my feet and see smaller jagged rocks and sand. I am not wearing any shoes, but the jagged rock beneath me doesn’t hurt. I feel strangely safe and at peace.

Far away I see a rock pile probably one-hundred feet high. The rocks look like solid marbles stacked upon one another, but marbles that are each a ton in weight. How those rocks got on top of one another, I wonder. No human could be great enough to build a pile such as that. Behind the rocks, the sky is a strange purple, pink and orange, like a sunset, but there is no sun in the sky, no clouds to provide any shade. The sky just is.

A draft of wind pushes my skirt in front of my body and my entire being toward the hole. I hear in the wind a whisper, “Peace. You are loved. You are safe. Face your fear and step forward. This is your next step,” the voice is calm and peaceful. “Be daring, be brave, be courageous,” it continues, “I am your protector. I am your friend. You are loved…you are loved.” It’s like everything else is a blurry sepia in the background. This voice and that black hole in front of me are clear. My eyes begin to tear up, a lump in my throat; this vague feeling that I am unworthy of the kind words being spoken to me. The words are like a healing salve upon me. Like a baby who does not know its mother, but still loves her, that is how this voice relates to me.

Trusting this voice, but full of fear of what I will find on the other side, I lean my body into the hole in what feels like slow motion. I am falling, but to where I don’t know. Someone will be there to catch me. I feel the cool breeze against my face and my skirt flying. My feet are still bare and remnants of the sandy ground are stuck to my toes. I must be taking that with me to wherever I am going.

Falling, falling, falling. It’s dark and there is no one beside me, but somehow I am not afraid because I feel The Voice with me, he whispers, “Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.” My eyes are still heavy with tears because I know I am loved and protected while stepping out into an unknown place. The sand between my toes reminds me from where I have come; that strange wasteland. I am not afraid of where I will fall because I know I will be caught by Him.

I softly reach the ground and I am in my room, in my bed. This, I remember. I reach out my arm and feel my pillow. The softness of the material is all around me like a baby wrapped in a receiving blanket. My hand touches a form and I recognize it as my husband, next to me now as every night for the last thirteen years. My hand rustles him awake and he snuggles close to me. “You’re back,” he whispers, “I wondered where you’d gone. I missed you.”

I lift my chin to kiss him. Smiling, I say, “I’m glad to be back too.