“What else am I here for?”

Today we took our first step back into HOME SCHOOLING for this year. I have home schooled for 4 years now and by no means have mastered it. But, one thing is for certain, I understand again and again how much I want to be a part of my children’s lives. That’s not to say you can only be a part of their lives if you home school, that’s just what I have felt led to do personally. I was reading this article online and I was so stirred with excitement, if we could all take a hold of this and run with it how different would our society be. Of course I don’t mean that we would have to be so extreme (running off and leaving our husband’s to learn how to train our children, we need the fathers too!). But that we would understand how valuable our role is as PARENT first, then our role as: doctor, travel agent, dentist, president, missionary, engineer, mechanic, world changer, etc…

(This is the article, it really encouraged me!)

“In fact, no other educationalist has had even a small percentage of the influence that Rousseau has had. People who fell under his spell in the fashionable world, such as Princess Galitzin of Russia, abandoned society to take their children off to some remote area where they could devote all their time and resources to their parental duties. Refined mothers retired from the world and sometimes even left their husbands so that they could learn the classics, mathematics, science, and anything else that might enable them to teach their children themselves. 'What else am I here for?' they asked. And the sense that raising their children was the most important obligation for any person kept spreading.

No matter how extreme the methods Rousseau had suggested, he still would have people following him, because he happened to touch a nerve that affected the hearts of many people. He was one of the few educationalists who appealed to parental instincts. He never said, 'There's no hope that we can rely on parents, so we'll have to work on the children without them!' That's the kind of disheartening, pessimistic thing we say today. Instead, Rousseau basically said, 'Parents, this task is yours, and you're the only ones who can do it. It's up to you, parents of small children, to be the saviors of the next thousand generations of children. Nothing else matters. All the schemes that people work so hard at are nothing compared to this one serious business of raising our children to be superior to ourselves.”

"MAMA! SLOW DOWN!"

This last week I felt like the Lord specifically asked me to lay aside all things that were not necessities and to just focus fully on Him, my husband, and my boys... so I did. Basically what that looked like for me was being willing to put more focus on God and my family than "my projects" which are like a continual train speeding through the tracks of my mind returning very consistently and on time, and I'm the passenger never wanting to MISS that train! Therefore, it is not always a good thing, because sometimes those dreams and desires (which are good) turn into feeling like I have so much to accomplish, that I can't even function in my normal life which includes:
Laundry, dishes, cooking, playing with the boys, homeschooling, time with my husband, down time, reading, college, homework, housecleaning, grocery shopping, training my children, etc...

So to say the least it was very refreshing to just refocus and get back in line. What I found was the freedom to know that I am of the personality and character that I will probably always get tempted to "over busy" myself but I just need to remain willing to hear when the Lord or my husband is asking me to slow down and re-assess my priorities. Knowing how to get back on track not feeling condemned for getting off track, and remembering I can use the breaks anytime. Also realizing I don't need to accomplish all the ideas in one day or work on all of them in one day, one step at a time, one project at a time, one day at a time. Thanks for the reminder Lord.

Sometimes you need to be willing to just enjoy the moment, and to be able to laugh at yourself, even when you fall through the chair!

Being Authentic

(photo by me )
What's on the inside???

I once watched this show they had on air a few years ago, called Starting Over, it was about women who wanted to be free from their past and embracing their present fully. So anyway, one of the women was having a hard time understanding how to be authentic. She thought about it for weeks, then one day it hit her, me being authentic is saying what I AM REALLY thinking about something.
So that got me thinking! Wow, that is so good, it's not just speaking what I think the person wants to hear, it's not guessing what the person needs to hear, it's not speaking a certain way around certain people, it's speaking in love what I really think or feel. Whether it be that I really don't like wine, or that I really really did want that person to come over and when they changed plans and did something else it did hurt, or I have a great idea that might help you, or offering you a piece of gum even though I don't know you and you might decline because you feel awkward too, or when I honestly do not know the answer to a question or am ignorant about GEOGRAPHY and the list goes on and on.

Am I really letting you see me?

I am thoroughly enjoying sharing who I am with others and finding out more of who they are too. When I was so focused on saying and doing the appropriate or right thing, I could hardly hear the other person anyway because I was so afraid of messing up. Just like when you ask someone their name and you are so busy thinking about telling your name that you don't even catch what they said, and then you feel dumb that you don't remember their name. And then the more times you see them the worse you feel for still not knowing their name, and yet you are still too afraid to let them know you don't remember because you don't want to hurt their feelings or look foolish. When in reality they are probably most likely doing the same exact thing!

It's so fun and free to just be me, and I so much more enjoy getting to know you!