Thanks for all of your fun encouraging comments on my highlights post with Mary Jane. I'm hoping that I'm going to be able to get back to blogging a bit more often. I'm kind of going through a season of change, and although I'm kind of resistant to change, the Lord has been using many things (like your comments) to affirm that I was following Him in the right direction.

I've been wearing a lot of hats at TOS for the past few years as a writer for the magazine, editor of The Homeschool Minute, and also the Director of Marketing. It was pretty much a full-time job in addition to homeschooling and although it's been a HUGE blessing in so many ways, the time has come to step away from the Director of Marketing part of it. And I don't know about you all, but stepping away from things is NOT my forte!

God had been calling me to soak in the blessings on our farm and just take time to focus on my health for awhile, but I just kept rationalizing all of the reasons why I didn't “have” to give up that part of my job in order to do those things.

I mean it's all about balance isn't it? And I just kept thinking that I was going to get things back in balance again – right after the next big project. But really I was doing more juggling than balancing, and after wrestling with God for some time about it, I felt like He finally asked me if I trusted Him enough to lay down that part of my job.

Did I trust that He would provide financially?

Did I trust that I He knew what was best for me?

Did I trust that He really could say that it was ok to work less?

Did I trust that I would still have value even though I was giving up a title?

Did I trust that He would give me another opportunity when the time was right again?

And I wrestled and I wrestled. My husband and my friends kept reminding me that I needed to take better care of myself. I knew that God wanted me to, but I really felt like I should be able to just manage my time better. I kept trying to figure out how to do it all. I kept reminding myself that I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me! But then it was like God hit me with a frying pan and I realized – maybe God isn't asking me to keep doing ALL of these things.

I had started to feel so consumed by all of my responsibilities and like I was falling apart, but it was still so hard to make a change.

Can any of you relate?

That's why I'm sharing this on my blog at all. I'm still going to be writing in THM and the magazine so you all probably wouldn't have even noticed the difference, but the whole giving up something was HUGE for me. I know that many of us get a lot of our self-worth from what we do for others and even though God had taught me years ago that His love and grace wasn't based on all that I DO, it's still sometimes hard to put that into practice.

Matthew 11:28 says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

And then Deb Wuehler reminded me of another great verse. Lamentations 3: 21-25 “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.”

So, now you know why things have been a little quiet on the blog. I've been kind of busy wrestling with God and battling exhaustion and pain. But truly He is patient and persistent and stuck with me while I wrestled. His mercies are new each morning and His compassions do NOT fail (even when we wrestle). I am SO thankful.