When Then Meets Now

My husband and I have been eating our latest book finds!  They are scrumptious and filling, but still leave you hungry for God's word in an awesome way.  It has sparked some heavy discussion about our spiritual journeys, thus far.  But books are not what this post is about! You can find that post here.

Watching my husband these last few years in this amazing transformation before my eyes and my heart has made me keenly aware.  While he is talking of God's love and the presence of the Holy Spirit and praying for our homeschool and planning field trips and bible curriculum I stand beside him with my mouth open on the inside, so as not to appear obvious in my shock.  Not bad shock, but overwhelmingly good shock.  You see, God has revealed to me for my viewing pleasure, hindsight.  Not very often do we remember where we've been, what it felt like then, what we longed for so much our stomachs hurt, but I got to go there this past week.  

There I was, years ago, standing beside the bed once again wondering when he would rise, not just from the bed but from this ugly, dark sludge of a depression that would not let go.  It was sticky and heavy and pitch black.  I remember thinking and praying for him to want something, anything.  I remember wanting him to be the dad I knew he was, the one God made him to be.  I remember wanting him to want me.  I remember the whole heartache of doing it myself.  Then, I remembered where I really was, at home in 2010 beside my husband again listening to the most beautiful words coming from his heart.  It was like a forward winding of our life years later and boom!  We're here and now! What an awesome image for God to reveal to my heart.  It was eerily real, being back in that room in Colorado.  Then to fly ahead as if in fast motion to the here and now.  Thank you, God, for the work you've done in him.  Thank you, God, for the work you've done in me.

I don't ever want to forget where we've come from.  I don't want to ever take God's work for granted.  My patience and David's patience with me through our lives together.  God has created such a beautiful, graceful union between us that I will always be humbled by it.  God lives and moves and breathes in this marriage with us.  Although, hindsight was hard to once again be a part of, I wouldn't change that moment for the world because it's made me so keenly aware of how we couldn't have gotten through everything thus far without the profound love of an Almighty Father!

^{Psalm 139:1-14}

¹ O LORD, you have searched me 

       and you know me.

 ² You know when I sit and when I rise; 

       you perceive my thoughts from afar.

 ³ You discern my going out and my lying down; 

       you are familiar with all my ways.

 ⁴ Before a word is on my tongue 

       you know it completely, O LORD.

 ⁵ You hem me in—behind and before; 

       you have laid your hand upon me.

 ⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 

       too lofty for me to attain.

 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit? 

       Where can I flee from your presence?

 ⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there; 

       if I make my bed in the depths,  you are there.

 ⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn, 

       if I settle on the far side of the sea,

 ¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me, 

       your right hand will hold me fast.

 ¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me 

       and the light become night around me,"

 ¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you; 

       the night will shine like the day, 

       for darkness is as light to you.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being; 

       you knit me together in my mother's womb.

 ¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

       your works are wonderful, 

       I know that full well.

I'm weird, socially awkward and politically incorrect, duh

All that to say, "what the heck is up with homeschool groups anyway?"  I mean, really, I just don't get it.  I suffered through two years of NOT joining a full fledged group, because I was scared of being rejected in a situation where a bunch of females my age point and laugh and giggle at my expense (unresolved middle school, high school issues aside).  I also didn't join because it was unclear which one was a good fit for my family.  It's hard to crack the code for homeschool groupery knowledge.  I've even thought of calling up some of my hubby's Navajo buddies to see if they could take a stab at maybe some code talking to get me in the right one.  Not happening, apparently the natives are scared too.

I ventured out this year, because my bestest had such a wonderful experience last year with her group that I thought I should be proactive and get out there and realize that I could relate to some of these ladies on some level in order to glean important life changing tidbits on how to homeschool my kids.  

Um..... well..... I still am having a really hard time getting "in".  I joined a group that has been rumored to be geared more to high schoolers and their needs solely based on the demographic of those who come, of course, and I thought, "yes!  I need that."  So, I went to said website and joined ....in June.  Now, their first meeting wasn't until last night, but I had been receiving emails in the last week about how classes were getting full and some were on a waiting list, yadda, yadda, blah, blah.  I thought for sure that this must have been for a younger group since I had not received any notifications on class schedules to choose from.  Uh-uh.  You see, just because you join the "group" doesn't mean you join the "co-op", but you must be a member first of the "group" in order to be a part of the "co-op" or to get on the waiting list for classes.  But noone filled in this newbie of how you're supposed to find out this little bit of info until last night when the nice lady was laying out the rules about the "group" and the "co-op".  "Just because you join the "group" doesn't mean you have joined the "co-op" and your duties for each are separate so don't think you're getting out of volunteering to do a job in the "group" or the "co-op" or either-or, because they are separate."  

I waited patiently for the interpreter to stand and tell me what the heck she was saying.  Then the nice lady was gone and no information on the "co-op" was given.  

I have come to think it is actually a secret society where you must be invited in based on your social structure, age of your dog, color of your mother's eyes and whether or not you breastfed as an infant.  Seeing how I was not wearing my LLL (boobie club) patch last night I guess I was out of the loop.  But I did learn a very important lesson about the "group"! 
Brace yourself, hold on to your hats.....

Very important, most important rule of all rules, 

never, 

never, 

never, 

never, 

never, 

never, 

never, 

never 

hit the "reply" button on the yahoo groups 

because that just jams up 

the coordinators' email inboxes and well, frankly they don't have the time to sift through it all whilst lighting ceremonial candles, ironing long black hooded capes, applying face paint and marinating the days sacrificial meat before the "secret society" meeting, of which I am not involved.

I have joined another group, that looks a little more informative about classes, but maybe should not be considering the only class for my tomboy daughter for period 2 is Lego building or sewing a skirt.  What she wouldn't give to play Legos all day, but really, I don't have to pay to do that when she can do it at home with her bestest, "Eagle" and friends, for free.

We did finally, after 5 years of involvement give up our LOGOS program for the fall due to budgetary reasons, but I can't tell you how liberated I feel to have another day to actually spend with my kids.  So, since I've not been picked for the "team" or "group" for group #1, and not sure how we're gonna handle group #2 and no more Wednesdays at LOGOS and not sure about Thursdays, I think I will actually have time to, yes, you guessed it, homeschool my kids at, yes, you guessed it again, home.

Thank you God for the blessing of hanging with the Price peeps once again!  I am a spoiled momma!  I love the way you love me, Lord!

P.S.  I did btw enjoy a remarkable speaker last night.  Her name is Rachael Carman and she and her husband homeschool their 7 kids and own Apologia.  She is a phenomenal speaker and would encourage you to sell one of your kidneys to go see her speak.  (I hear the "secret society" pays big for kidneys.  Just sayin'.)

For You, yea, you

I love this story:

One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.

The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.

Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it.

The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat, and a stick to climb on, in the jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat.

At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress!

The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, and then walked back (because he had learned not to run with scissors…). He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!

As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly’s wings would expand.

            But neither happened!

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly…

The little boy eventually learned that the butterfly was SUPPOSED to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions hurt the butterfly.

As you go through life, keep in mind that struggling is an important part of any growth experience. In fact, it is the struggle that causes you to develop your ability to fly.

Thankful Tuesday

1. Thanks, God, for the cooler weather!  It gives me a sense that fall is on the way!  Yippee!

2. Thanks, God,  for my wonderful husband and bestest friend.  He truly inspires me to be a better woman!

3.  Thanks, God, for bringing my chickadee #3 home safely from Colorado!  He's very sweet and gracious about being here, but I know his heart is in the depths of the wild, wild west.

4.  Thanks, God, for helping me raise my young adult to know he can ALWAYS call me for ANYTHING!  I am enjoying the conversations of my 20 year old from 2000 miles away.  

5.  Thanks, God,  for my new appetite for books!  I remember the day not too long ago where half of a magazine was all I could do.  Back to front, mind you.

6.  Thanks, Almighty Heavenly Father, for the way you continue to bless my life.

7.  Thanks, God,  for my husbands passion for mission, in his life, in his children's lives and in this world of ours!

8.  Thanks, God,  for my sweet and tender Sarah, whose heart is growing daily.  She continues to amaze me with her hunger for learning!

9.  Thanks be to God for the music that flows through the veins of my boys.  To watch them in excitement write and record their own creations and say, "Hey mom, listen to this!"  What an awesome God to create such wonderful humans.

10.  Thanks to you, for loving me and bringing my life to this place through all of my experiences to know that you are a merciful, forgiving and loving God.  That you didn't just do this for me to be saved, but for me to be saved for others to know about you and your love.

An exceptionally long post on being quiet

I've had a fascination with the book of Job over the last couple of weeks.  I can't seem to get enough of the bible lately.  I want to read it and study it here and know more and more about what the words are saying to me.  I want to feast on this biblical buffet and get fat on it.

Job is a fascinating character, hence the fascination I have with this fascinating book. Enough, already.  One of the first things that really impacted me was the amount of frivolous conversation with his well-meaning friends.  "Job, dude, you must have sinned." Or, "I had a dream and God must've been speaking to you through me", or maybe it was just indigestion.  What struck me most was the use of space that God required be used to put down words that can't even be used as snippets of advice, not taken out of context and used as pearls of wisdom, just lots and lots of words, empty words.  Why didn't God just give the scribes the liberty to say something like, "Eliphaz gave Job some really stupid advice and Job rolled over and said, 'God, should I listen?' and God said, 'no'."  I mean paragraph after paragraph after word after word of meaningless advice.  

But, I had to know.  What's the purpose of this book?  What is the purpose of the majority of it taken up by friends who come to your side when you're suffering and speak utter nonsense?  Are we to learn from them a way of supporting each other somehow?

This year has brought its opportunities for supporting my friends.  I love my friends dearly.  I would never choose to have to support them the way its been going this year.  It's been a hard year for some.  Losing oh-so-tiny loved ones, losing dreams of having oh-so-tiny ones, tumors, broken dreams, unrequited love of children that may never be.  It's not been my struggle personally, but as friend and sister, its been lots of tears and hugs and aching holding back the questions of "why" to my Heavenly Father.

I just pray in each instance that God gives me the words I need to say or really takes them away from my mouth the words I don't need to say.  I have a way of shoving both feet in my mouth at the most inopportune moment.  This year I've learned to go in with God on my lips and nothing else.  Well-meaning phrases like, "It's ok, it'll be ok, don't worry, etc." are just sharp deeply penetrating words that sting hard when you're hurting.  

I do the human thing and call or email or facebook because I'm scared to death that my presence or moreover my words put to noise will fall on ears that will be pained by the noise of me.  So, I pray.  "Dear Lord, help me to know what to do for her.  Help me to know what to say and not to say.  Help her."  2010 was taken up by several of my friends in extreme pain, physically and mentally, so I prayed that a lot.  God gave me the greatest advice.  The overwhelming feeling I had was, "Just shut-up and be there.  Just be there.  Let me work.  You just be there."  One of my sweet friends said, "you know, every once in a while you need frivolous advice.  Some morsel, even the tiniest thing, to give you hope and light in a very dark place."  God is so good at what he does.

It's hard to be me and be quiet.  But, that's how it worked.  You see, Job needed his friends there for support.  He needed to know that he was part of community.  One where each had their own relationship with God, however odd it was, but they were there.  Ever present.

Be present and be prayerful.  

Constant communication with the Almighty God on their behalf.  

Go.  Without question God wants you to be there for your friends.  Drop whatever you're doing and be there.  The rewards will outweigh the cost of doing so.  We live as a community of believers, so welcome to the neighborhood!

A nice surprise

This weekend was full.  My house was full.  My belly was full.  My heart was full.  It's amazing how God spoils me in my life to the point of over-indulgences in blessings.  That was this weekend.  I am finally to Sunday night and I feel like I just munched down on an all you can eat buffet of blessings and now I'm slouched back in my lazy boy needing a nap.  

My nephew, Noah, and his bro and sis decided to head this way for an impromtu visit on Friday.  What a treat! The thing is, you have to watch the kids constantly when they're around you these days.  Not because they might fall and hurt themselves or need care from an adult, but because they don't hang out with us anymore and you must catch glimpses when you can.  My other bros kids joined in on the fun and his daughter was even here most of the weekend hanging out.  It's pretty cool.  They're like one unit and move like an amoeba when they come and go.  Inseparable.  God is so good.

When my oldest was born, my sister had her first 10 months later, when my second, her second 10 months later, then my third, then 10 months later her third.  She quit on me after that one!  Chicken!  The thing is my brothers kids are the same age as my second and my fourth.  They all get along so well and find so many things to get into together when they hang out.  Its not as often as they'd like, since my sister chooses to live in the state of VA (and denial for that matter on where she SHOULD live).  Kidding, Mel.  Anyway, they are so fun to watch them grow up to this point and now loving each other just as much, probably better because now Matthew isn't so territorial about his teletubby like he used to be and doesn't scream at Whit for messing with his toys.  But enough of memory lane and bad toy purchases!

The house rang of noise and chaos and the sounds of music and laughter all weekend and it was pure joy.  

You can come and pop in on us anytime, VA!!  We love having you and cry when you leave, no, really, we do.

God bless!

I love you, now put 'em up!

Confrontation.  Ew.  The sound of the word in my mouth usually brings up phlegm like I'm speaking German, the very angry sounding German and it's stuck in my throat.  It's not the word's fault.  It's just a simple little English word that means: The act of confronting or the state of being confronted, especially a meeting face to face.  Lame-O definition.  I like this one better:  A conflict involving armed forces.  Yes, a battle.  One to the death!  Aha! En Garde!  Because, really, that's what we think of when we utter the word.  I have always hated it.  The act of confronting, not the word itself.  I have used it for an excuse a time or two(thousand) in why I did not want to be involved in certain things.  "I don't do confrontation."  Like, I don't do white after labor day or something....  w/e.  

I've learned that the reason I like the definition that I picked was that it means something different to me now than it used to 6 hours ago.  A conflict involving armed forces came to mean to me, those who have come to the fight prepared.  Two parties, entities, armies, people that took the time out of their daily lives to sit and pray about it, study what it means, where they may have gone wrong on THEIR part and laid it out before the great God above to crawl into their hearts and mold them BEFORE they enter the ring.  Armed with the love of our heavenly Father and dressed in the Holy Spirit's anointing.  A conflict involving those who have armed themselves appropriately and have come prepared.  I experienced that tonight.  I lived through it, or should I say that my heart lived through it.  I, humanly, knew that I was going to be broken, melted in puddle in the floor, tossed aside like leftovers....I was sure of it.  But then I knew that only God could come in and intercede on both of our parts.  I knew she loved Him as much as I do.  I knew that prayers and devotionals were spent in focus with the Word of God to guide our steps.  I would have expected nothing less of her.  Dear God!  I love her!  That's why we're here.

What I didn't expect to learn was that I actually like this confrontation.  Confrontation within the Spirit.  The one where I come prepared.  Not in the usual way of "ok, I've gone over this in my head a million times and every time someone comes up with a wedgie and their bra strap around their neck!"  No, not at all.  It was littered with God and Christ and the Spirit and silent prayers going up between words of "dear Lord, please speak and keep me silent.  Dear Lord, don't let me get defensive and screw this up."  We both came to show the Glory of God as He exists in our universe.  But we both came prepared.

It will be a season of restoration and healing for us, something I wasn't sure would come to pass.  I still have a long way to go, but I didn't muck it up tonight.  I know, for sure, that you cannot have a growing Godly relationships in this crazy world if you're not willing to be confrontational.  It almost made me want to tick off my other friends just so we could confront one another and start on the growth to the next level of our friendships.  Kidding.  But, really, if you are reading this and you have the need to confront me, please give me ample time of prayer and consideration to come prepared, but be assured that I'm not afraid of it any longer.  I want to be a better me.  I want to stop being unapproachable by some.  I want to live a life set apart and love like Jesus called me to love.  I want to grow with you.  Yea, you, too.  I want to be a better friend and by shirking my duties of being a friend, a real one, a true one, I fear that I have left no room for growth.  No more.  I am open to growth, even if it involves some pruning.  I am a work in progress.

I'm taking the Boy Scout approach and using the "come prepared" motto or way of life or whatever they use it for to get my Confrontation Patch.  The ceremony will be years from now, I'm sure, but I'm on the road to recovery.

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness

One of my favorite songs says this:

"Break my heart for what breaks yours"

Beautiful lyrics and God will hold up that mirror when you ask Him to invade your spirit in that manner, but take it easy, let it go, let it happen in you.  God will not desert you in times where you have set yourself within His guide.  He will never foresake you.  NEVER.

Why

Why

-is it that I can ruin a perfectly good weekend by pouting, then its over, the time never to be had again.  What a waste!

-is it that I make understanding and living in God's will harder than it really is, seriously?

-can't I live somewhere where the temperature is always in the 70's?

-can't we all just get along? (Sorry, that one just popped in my head....kuddos, if you know where that came from.)

-is Starbucks so expensive?  I need a Tall Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte, please.

-must I feed them again?!

-laundry.

-do I need so much reassurance of myself from others?  Duh.

-do men instantly lose 10 pounds just by muttering the words, "tomorrow I'm going on a diet"?

- do birds suddenly appear 

Every time you are near? 

Just like me, they long to be 

Close to you. 

(That last one's for you, Jen! 

You can thank me later!)