Why do we hide when we find ourselves in a mess? Is that real life? That we might NEVER have our own mess? If it isn't shared, then we are left with a beautiful facade, of hearth and home and reaching out and serving others; of experiencing success... always, only reporting success? Would this then really be... "The Life We're Living"?
But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
Seems I'm not the first to try and hide away from being exposed.
I believe that this life we're living isn't just about us. And it's not just about these baby faces we've been called to serve today. I believe He wants to use our lives to point back to Himself. I believe He wanted to use yesterday to point me to what was hiding under my very big mess.
I sat in my mess... and reached out to three...
I just wanted to ask you to pray for me. I am feeling so discouraged with the quality of homeschooling going on in our home since the girls came. And so filled with a selfish desire to have my OWN family... no more loss... or brokenness, or social workers... I feel like the laundry and the meals and the visits and the chaos and the training children who've never been trained and their mother messes and the loss and the brokenness have somehow come and taken all my energy and time and drive and order... mostly my order.
I'm so discouraged. It's hitting me today what I've given up to follow the Lord down this path. I wanted my OWN family. I said "I want to see Jesus" and I thought we were going to adopt... I found my adoption papers that had gone missing, by the way. . . in my homeschool closet.
Today it feels so discouraging to engage in all this change and disruption and for what? I know He is good... I'm just wanting my OWN. This is NOT where I want my heart to stay. I need courage to follow after Him. I need Him to grow my commitment to HIM so I don't look at the Life I wanted to build, but the one He wants to build through us.
Other people are studying things... and they are making nature journals... and they are finishing what they start.... and they are lapbooking... and they are habitually sitting down to school and I am living in the car... and I still have UN-blown-apart volcanoes in the basement...
Other people are logging hours and what am I doing? Girls, what am I doing? I am training children who are most likely going to go home and unlearn all we've taught them. All the beds aren't a blessing to me today. They are a lot of washing and now the girls' room doesn't match...
What kind of heart cares more for a matching bedroom? This heart is filled with selfish desires. What in the world am I supposed to be doing anyway? The solar system and sound and light and explorers and Italy and 5 point paragraphs and spelling and how do I know what's important?
This day is a mess and the cinnamon rolls aren't going to work, I can tell by looking at them...
So there. My mess. In your laps. Help. I'm over here - under this mess...
Me.
Then I called to Him:
"God, what am I doing?
What's important?
What's it all for?"
And He answered me.
His voice speaking to me through friends,
and quotes, and finally
from His Word, His Living Word:
"And that's your homeschool right now. This is what your children are learning from you. They are learning to extend themselves to others and to put the needs of others before their own needs. This is one of the most difficult of all life lessons to learn -- if we ever learn it at all. And your children have front row seats. The math may fall behind. That volcano may never erupt. But your children will know how to minister to the hurts of others, just like their mama and their Savior."
"After the quake in Japan, I found myself questioning education.
When Christ returns, what matters anyway?"
"Remember the Word of God equips us for every good work - the periodic table won't help a bit. ...But if your goal is to raise from godly children, godly adults, then you are the one for the job. ...If we are going to worry about our children's ability to learn things we don't know, let's worry about things worth knowing. God gives us the children he gives us, and gives us the lives he gives us, for his purposes. He prepares us today for our calling tomorrow, day by day. He does this perfectly because He is sovereign. ...The point isn't so much, "Bear up under suffering," as it is "Be obedient." When we trust God in obedience, he gives the grace we so desperately need. ....We need to remember we are not only teachers, but also students." ~R.C. Sproul Jr., When You Rise Up
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 14-17)
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on your door posts of your house and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
...and there it is. He is sovereign. He is in charge of all that comes my way. This is our mission. This is our call. This is our today.
And so:
What I am doing: Being obedient. Serving Him first. Trusting Him for the outcome of my children. Training my children to love Him with all their hearts, and minds, and souls... as we "teach them diligently, talking about them when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up".
What's Important: Only ONE thing. "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
What it's all for: The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galations 5:6)
And so I've decided that it doesn't matter whether our school schedule is a picture of routine and perfectly executed. What matters is that I routinely look to Him and trust Him for each day for whatever comes, whatever consumes our days. Receiving it all from His Hand.
What matters is that people continue to be first in our home. And I trust that the days will come soon where we will fall back into a rhythm of reading and writing and multiplying and diagramming sentences. My children won't grow up uneducated - quite the opposite - they will be knowledgeable in what is most important; and will love Him with all their heart, and soul, and strength.
And to think...
all this was hiding for me to find under what I
had thought was a very big mess...
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