• Aug. 14, 2008
Blogger Class Mates 08-09

I've joined the Blogger Class Mates for this coming year. The assignments will be posted every Wednesday. Since I am so new to blogging, this should be a great opportunity to learn more and meet other homeschool moms (on the web, of course).

I am so very proud of myself right now; the first assignment was to add the class's button to my blog page... I figured it out!! It's there, and I put it there!  Yeah... I'm learning already !

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• Aug. 12, 2008
The Man Without the Military?

When my husband told me that he was thinking of getting out of the military- for a little while- I was shocked!  He's been in the reserves for almost 10 yrs and he has been working toward becoming a full-time military Chaplain.
The shock was not only from his news, but also from my own response to his news. I wasn't always supportive of his being in the military. In fact, when he first decided he should join the reserves (three months after we were married), I was quite upset. Being newlyweds, I didn't know how I should let him know how much I didn't want him to join... so, I prayed about it (kind of).  Rather than praying that God would show us His will in the matter, I basically spent the next month telling God how he could stop my husband from making such a foolish mistake. Not surprisingly, God did a lot of work on my heart at that point, about the way I was approaching Him in prayer, about the plans that He has for our family, and about submitting whole-heartedly to my husband's leadership.
I spent the first 5 yrs, learning to deal with our new adjustment to life (these first 5 yrs also included 3 children, and a deployment). These last few years have been less of an adjustment and more of a time of becoming content with where we are, where we are headed, and the sacrifices necessary to get there.
For the last 3 1/2 years my husband has been working a full-time civilian job (working with the local mentally ill population- very stressful), going to school (distance learning through Liberty University),  involved in our local church as Education director, and working with the reserves (which requires at least one weekend a month and any training that they desire to send him to- he was gone for most of three months this spring, making his civilian employer pretty unhappy).  His desire to get out of the reserves at the end of this enlistment is for the purpose of being able to step back and focus more on his schooling and church involvement in order to fulfill the requirements for Chaplaincy. Of course, scaling back somewhere in his schedule will hopefully help him to spend more time with our family through this process of reaching his goal.

My reaction was different than I ever thought it would be. It's still hard for me to grasp the idea of my husband for any length of time not being a soldier. This has become who he is, even though he is a part- time soldier at the moment. So my initial reaction was  shock, fear, doubt, and stubbornness. Now that I think about it though,  this may be the best way, even if it doesn't seem like it at first.  God has shown us over and over that His ways are not our ways. His way is often something we would never have thought of on our own, or opposite of the way we planned on going. Stepping back from the reserves at this point may also provide my dear husband with a different perspective as he looks toward a life in full-time military service; those two worlds are vastly different. 

So, as you can see I am still working on trusting God with His plans for our family and submitting to my husband's leadership decisions. At least this time it didn't take me a month of pride and a chastisement from  our Maker to come around... that's improvement, isn't it? 

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• Aug. 11, 2008
Adoption Update

We have just received an update from our adoption agency. We were told that our fingerprint reviews would take 8-10 weeks to come back, but they only took 2 weeks!! Our homestudy can now begin, as we prepare our family's portfolio to present to prospective birth mothers. We are one step closer to our new family member(s).  I am so excited! Our children are now bouncing around the house singing at the top of their lungs in excitement.  God is so good! He alone knows how we are going to pay for the rest of this adoption, but He's gotten us this far. I believe He will provide the rest of the way, too. I can't wait to see Him work it out.

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him... Do not fret—it only causes harm.  ^{Psalm 37: 7a, 8b} 

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• Aug. 6, 2008
God is Good

    Today was another good day... though I was a little distracted. Well, maybe a little more than distracted. I was terrified of the dentist today! I was to have a crown taken off today.  This crown was supposed to have been a temporary- just through childhood... long story short, 20 yrs later it was finally removed this afternoon. The dentist had not been sure of what would be under this "temporary" crown which was too big for my tooth. So the morning went very smoothly considering my mind was preoccupied with trying not to be overcome by fear.
      Praise the LORD! He not only helped us through our homeschooling day, but He made my visit to the dentist not so bad. The temporary crown was removed, and revealed a tooth that didn't need a root canal! God has been so good to me!  Not only did this news brighten my day and make the visit to the dentist actually enjoyable, it saved us some money too.  

     I need to have record of when things like this happen, when God blesses me and blows me away with the depth of His grace and mercy. He is so patient and loving;  I am so feeble and fearful.  I praise Him for His faithfulness!

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• Jul. 31, 2008
"What... are you nuts!?"

This is the half-joking response I normally get from people who find out that I homeschool our three active and very outgoing children.  I am used to reading blogs and stories about large homeschooling families, so for me homeschooling three doesn't seem all that outlandish. The response that I got yesterday, at the dentist's office, was even more exuberant as I shared that we are in the process of adopting a baby (and possibly twins). I am never sure how to respond to people when they react like this; I usually just end up shrugging and saying that I love what I do. I really do love what I do, but the excitement bubble kind of deflates when people think that I am absolutely out of my mind for wanting to spend time with my children, and even wanting more children. To state that I love what I do seems to be such an inadequate defense... I guess there really is no adequate defense against people who do not share the same worldview with me. They cannot see the eternal significance of spending every moment I can teaching my children about God and His world. It is at these times; when I am beginning to question my own sanity based on what other say or do, that I need to just get on my knees before my Savior and set my focus on Him again. When my focus is on Him I realize that our lifestyle is not simply a choice that my husband and I made, but what we were called to do by God. I really don't need any more of an adequate defense for our choices to homeschool and increase our family. God called us and my response needs to be to keep my focus on Him, trust, and obey.

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• Mar. 28, 2008
Looking for the positive.

It's been one of those months, nothing has gone as planned. I'm trying to stay positive, and connected to the Lord amidst the stress of it all. So in the spirit of being positive I won't go on and on about what's gone wrong this month, instead I'll focus on the blessings.  I homeschool my three children in Oregon; my oldest son is 8 and in 3rd grade, and must take his first standardized test this year. I am so thankful that the day that I remembered to make some phone calls about the test  was the day before the registration deadline (I hadn't known this before I called). So he was registered just in time- Praise the LORD!
     My second son is now 6 yrs old, and we've been working SLOWLY on learning to read for about 2 yrs now. Though this month has been crazy, we've pressed on,schooling as much as possible, and he's getting it! He's reading, not just with me or what I assign to him, but on his own for fun!!!
    My youngest child is a 5 yr old girl, and being the only girl on one side of the family,  is the apple of just about everyone's eye. She is starting her journey toward reading, and loving every minute of alone time with me that she can squeeze out of our lessons.  She's a joy and a blessing to our family.
    My husband has been wonderful this past crazy month, with helping out with the family and I've seen him grow as the spiritual head of our household.  He works full-time with the local mentally-ill population, is in the Army reserve as a Chaplain Assistant, and going to Seminary to (eventually) be a full-time military Chaplain.  Wow! Writing down what he does makes me even more thankful for his help this past month!
    Looking back and focusing on just some of the blessings that have come from this past frustrating and difficult month I am able to be thankful for the trying times. I guess that's what growing in Christ is all about  Trusting and Obeying during the difficult times and when you come out on the other side of the trials you can see where you went wrong and where God did everything right in spite of you.

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