Walking Therein

Lead Us Lord

2:55 AM, Sunday, January 21, 2007 .. Posted in Oh LORD, Help Me Live Biblically .. 0 comments .. Link

You know, God is good, regardless of whether our plans and our lives turn out as we expected or not. We live daily, giving our lives to Him, but still holding onto what we think will happen or what we think should happen. We know, as the Bible says, that

'a man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.' Prov.16:9

    Looking back at many times that God's grace was there to lead me, humble me and just turn me to the right path, I am thankful He directs my steps.
    When we started selling our used - and a lot of unused - curriculum on Ebay about 3 years ago, we had no idea how God would bless us in many facets of our lives. I have always loved books. Combine that with selling them on Ebay and meeting homeschool moms across the country, and I just felt at home with selling curriculum and homeschool books. Knowing the mistakes I have made and what God has taught me in the past 5 years about Living Learning Homeschooling, I wanted to meet more families and encourage them in their decisions as God led them in their homeschooling.
    I thank God He led us to start selling homeschool books through a local company and open our own website. We have done that for the past year, and have met even more people through our business. In this time, God also introduced us to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine - and some of the staff- and Homeschoolblogger (and Homesteadblogger!). We have sold to some of our HSB friends and strengthened local and long-distance relationships as well as our knowledge of some products and business skills.
    Now, however, I thank God that He has led us away from the company we were working with. He is always there to protect His people, so I don't know why I would be surprised at His hand keeping us during this, but I thank God He is Sovereign. I was disappointed at first, after setting up a website and accounts and building relationships with people. When we dropped this supplier, we faced not knowing who we would work through, where we would get our resources from, why this was happening... but that soon passed.
    My concerns turned into joy as I began to see all of the changes in our lives and how things needed to slow down to make room for these changes. It is easy sometimes to twist circumstances and call them "God's Will" in our lives, and I try to guard myself from doing that. We love the home business aspect of SoulRest and incorporated it into our teaching and Living Learning. I didn't understand why things had changed so suddenly, when I constantly saw His hand in our business. It changed our lives, strengthened our family and taught us many things. But, I wasn't worried. I actually felt relieved. I spent time asking God why this was happening and where He was leading us. He doesn't have to answer, nor does He always, but we can listen to His voice and look for how He is working and just believe that He knows.
    And, He knows. And, I don't need to know the why. I really just wanted to know the 'what's next?', anyway. He started to move that same joy I felt when I was meeting homeschool families and encouraging them to homeschool, homeschool, homeschool - you can do it - even through high school.
    That used to be the big question we got:

"So, how long are you going to do this, anyway?"
"Um, until they are out of school."
*Weird look*

     I mean, in my opinion, if I believe homeschooling is the best for our children, then what age barrier can I put up? We decided to homeschool, and I never even thought about public school - ever. It came under one of my favorite headings in life: Not An Option.
    In all honesty, selling curriculum was never really my main motivation, anyway. I love recommending resources. I have always spent time going through catalogs, finding new resources, devouring what and whom and why, researching where to buy, what would work best -just for fun. Selling curriculum was the means to meet new families and make friends, but I was more interested in sharing and encouraging God's love for us and His blessing in allowing us the freedom to homeschool our children as He created them to be.
    We have experienced over 13 years of homeschooling, which, as new as I still feel to it everyday, I can still look back on things God has shown me and remember what it was like when I only had small children, or when we used text books (the frustration), or when I felt the freedom as I started to read the Elijah catalog and listened to Chris Davis and Jeff Myers and Vision Forum Cds. I can look back and see where we should have... but didn't.
    So, I started to understand that we aren't bound to selling curriculum on our site. What a novel idea, huh? That maybe God could use the site that was already up and running and full of good books for His glory to encourage homeschool families, in spite of my wonderings! I started to get excited about it. I know I don't have a bunch of time to update it and let it consume our lives, but it can still be used for His purpose. I am in awe of how he shapes and re-shapes and teaches gently, almost without my noticing.

Proverbs 16 actually starts with: 1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD. 2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits. 3 Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.

I give God the glory for establishing our thoughts and the preparations of our hearts. I am happy this is something He moved in my heart quickly to do. He knows our every need. Amen!
Be Blessed!

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