letting go

So we've decided to send Brianna and Reese to our local public school come January.

A big change and a tough decision and I'm all a mess with crushing weight of carrying a heavy burden for two years - the burden of trying to do it all and be all. Yet, I can see how God orchestrated these events for a time such as this...

...my continued prayers to shower focused love attention on Luke and Ben - the attempts to incorporate them into our school day falling far short of what I envisioned.

...the reduction in out-of-home activities - outlets needed for them, for me, yet not seeming to fit into the first season of the school year

...the promise of joining a homeschool coop in January slipping through the cracks

...my continued tinkering with the shape of our days leaving me feel fragmented and frazzled and frustrated why finding a rhythm eluded me

...seeing many of our days dissolve into lessons in discipline and it feels like sandpaper, smoothing the rough edges yet leaving us raw in the process

I see now I also was fighting two parts of myself - the part that wants to fully immerse myself in motherhood, focusing on bringing up our children in instruction of the Lord while imparting knowledge for navigating the ways of the world. Then there's the other part - the creative one where I want to write and sew and craft and give myself to the making of a home.

Though I see this and the promise school away from home brings, a part of me feels the bite of failure. Of not finishing out the school year. Of not being able to focus fully on the kids and lay my other interests down. Of feeling overwhelmed by the intensity this parenting stage. It's a serpent's bite to the flesh and a whispered lie but my spirit feels its sting nonetheless.

Writing helps. Tracking the lies and the Truth in black and white.

See God's goodness and answer to my prayers, though not in ways I expected.


Expectations.

I heard or read recently, though I forget where, that expectations kill relationships. Especially with God.

So I'm learning to let go. Of the homeschooling, of my expectations, of what I believe God expects of me. I feel unsteady, yet I know the ground is firm beneath me. It always is when we let go and let God.

And because He is faithful, He gave me glimpses of what was to come for it does feel like the images He gave me. If you need to be encouraged, perhaps reading what He spoke here and here, may bolster your faith that He never leaves you, He's always with you and is never surprised by that which may catch you off guard.

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