Wow! Fall has just blown by and it's been a while since I've been here. Once the school year started, I found out that adding one additional student exponentially increased the amount of workload for this teacher. It is now often that we are not finishing the 3R's until well into the early afternoon and finishing the rest well after the school bus has dropped off the public school kids. We are getting into a rhythm, but working with 2 students who aren't reading independently yet is just going to be more time consuming. I think I'm finally coming to grips with it, realizing that it's just a season and in 6 months I may well be in another one.
This fall has been full of highs and lows. Last month, while BW was at men's retreat for four days I drove down to visit my parents. On the return trip, the transmission in our van died--again. We(me and 4 kids) were literally stuck in the middle of nowhere. God was so good though and I had enough juice in my cell phone(I was down to two blips) to call a member of our church (though I really should put the entire church directory into my cell phone!) who came to pick us up and follow the tow truck. The van is still in the shop-almost a month. It's under warranty but the warranty doesn't specify how long they can take to fix it. In the meantime, members of our church have been lending us cars to borrow. We are hoping to get it back by early next week.
Another high was the women's retreat I attended. It was so good to get to know other Christians and to just be loved up on and ministered to. God showed me His goodness as He helped me to see that I had made an idol out of being settled in one place. After moving 3 times in 3 years, I just wanted to be in one place and have my kids raised in the same church family for the rest of their lives. Now this isn't something bad to hope for, but I believe I had put precedence on my wishes over being open to what God might have for our family. When I became a Christian, I remember telling God I would do whatever He wanted, but each time He told us to do something, my heart said "But not that, Lord!" And through the love of the women at the retreat, I realized that wherever God places me with other Christians is my home and I can give my future up to Him, knowing that He knows better than I do what is best for me and my family.
Then another high, we are buying a house! God is so good! When we decided to come to seminary, we sold our dream house and lived off the equity(which went awfully quickly). While I was at the women's retreat, BW found a homebuilder who was trying to get rid of their last few houses in a new subdivision. This floorplan is almost identical to our old pre-seminary home but with 500 additional square feet and some modifications to some things we didn't like about our last house and we will be paying about the same mortgage payment! It's also only 7 minutes from the church(as opposed to the 20-25 minutes away that we are now). It should be done in March, when our lease is up at the house we are currently renting(God's perfect timing). I was a little bummed at first because I have gotten used to living on some land and having some pretty views, but quickly came around when I saw how good God has been to us(Amazing how even when God is blessing us we can slip into discontentment)! God was also good that we already had to choose the stuff for inside(floors, fixtures, etc) so it quickly became "ours". We are taking lots of pictures(which will be up in a new slide show soon) and the kids are enjoying seeing how it changes each time we go by. They are trying to get all of the outside done before the winter weather comes so it is literally different every single day.
We went from that high to a low last week. BW had what he originally thought was a zit or allergic reaction on his lip. We later learned that it was a staph infection and then found out it was MRSA, a bacterial infection that is often very resistant to antibiotics. The scary part was that because it was on his lip, if it got into his bloodstream it would go right to his brain. Fortunately, he had a great doctor (goes to our church and made housecalls all last week), they were able to diagnose it and find some antibiotics that would respond and he is doing much better. Of course, we then had to deal with the side effects from some of the harsh antibiotics, but compared to the alternative we weren't complaining! But then there was a chance that it has been spread to the rest of our household so we had to all get tested on Monday and we are praising God that we there was no infection found in any of us! We have no idea how he contracted it as he hasn't been in hospitals, played contact sports, or frequented gyms(all the places that it is usually found). Praising God that BW is healing well and even went back to work this week.
So that, in a nutshell, is what's going on in our family these days.
Blessings!
-J
|
