Wow!

Wow.     God just never EVER ceases to amaze me!  

And…I never cease to amaze myself with my ability to forget--with brain-trauma-induced-amnesia quickness--just how faithful and good my God is, or how quickly I can begin questioning instead of simply trusting Him and patiently awaiting His timing. 

He always knows what He’s doing, even if we don’t.     

    

The last few years have been a journey, following God to ‘the Promised Land’ in our homeschooling…but we’re not there yet!  God has given me a clear vision of what the Promised Land looks like, but a road map to follow?  Not so much.    While I have head-knowledge and cling to catch phrases like, “less is more”, “relationships first (with God and people)”, and “go with the flow”, I have had a difficult time consistently practicing the principles day to day.  My goals are clearly defined, the target is bold, but the details of how to HIT the bullseye…that’s been another story.   I see what I want to build in my children as clearly as I can see the houses that I design, but I question which tools I should be using to accomplish each task.  I feel the weight of the importance of this responsibility I have been given to bring up these children to the glory of the Lord...

I am, and always have been, a person of extremes.  There’s rarely a middle ground, rarely moderation.  When we began our homeschooling I was on one extreme end of the education spectrum.  I was the ‘mean teacher’, purposed to drive my son to academic excellence, speeding through curriculum from a box that crossed all the i's and dotted all the t's of modern 'education'.  In my heart, my highest goal was to build Godly character in him, to nurture our relationship, to have his heart, but for so many reasons that didn’t become the practical priority.  And it showed.  While he was well advanced for his age academically, many days would end in tears and frustration--for both of us!  

Thankfully God convicted me and provided encouragement, support, and some pretty sobering motivation for me to stop what I was doing and reassess.  And I have been reassessing ever since.  

This year, the idea of beginning the school year has been overwhelming.  Not only because of the new responsibilities of caring for a needy infant and a small farm, but because we haven’t quite figured out how to fit into the glove that I know God has prepared for us (a ‘plan’ that fits like a glove…get it?  …  anyway…) but because it is a daunting task to sift through the limitless choices to figure out what to teach, how to teach, when to teach, etc. and without God’s clear direction, without divine inspiration, it is impossible to accomplish the task His way.  And I don’t want to settle for anything less than that.  And let me tell you, there are many ‘good ways’ to homeschool.  But “there is a way that seemeth right to a man…but the end thereof is death.”  I don’t want to homeschool any ol’ way.  I want to do it God’s way, and no one but He can show me that plan!

So here I've sat, patiently awaiting the unveiling of “the plan”, month after month.  The picture of what life and learning should look like was becoming clear, but I needed more!

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I have been praying for years that my quiet, reserved, laid back husband would step up in a big way to lead our family.  Let me stop here and add, for those who don’t know me, that I am a natural leader.  I have a very strong personality, and it has been a constant struggle for me to stay out of the way and really let my husband be the head of our house.  It's not that he's not capable, but I think sometimes it may just be easier to let things just be as they are instead of purposing to make changes...It’s easy for me to make a quick decision, it’s easy for me to know what to do and where to go when God is directing me, but it is also easy for a laid back man to go along for the ride instead of leading the way  ;)  Figuring out how to step back and encourage that change has been an 11 year learning experience.  Recently, I have felt a stronger desire (maybe it’s because our kids are reaching a pivotal age) to really see more clear leadership from him.  (or maybe I’m just getting tired of bearing a burden that’s not mine to bear…I don’t know)  But what I do know is that with so much lack of direction in where to go with school, how to reach our desired end, and feeling a bit alone, I finally poured out all of my frustrations to my husband.  I fumed for a while about not knowing what God wanted me to do, questioning whether or not I was seeking Him enough, wondering if my prayers for wisdom somehow weren’t enough, was I just missing something?  Was I being too stubborn or deafened by my own thoughts to notice God’s gentle voice?  Was I expecting too much of God?  Did He expect me to just be able to do what is right?  All of the things that have stirred in my heart for so long just poured from me…and it ended with, "I NEED YOU TO TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD DO."  I opened my hands and let it go, I gave it to him.
 

Now, my husband does not talk much, especially not about spiritual things.  He doesn’t feel the need to give me the play by play about what God is doing in his life, so much unlike me…because of his ‘communication style’ (yes, let’s call it that) I really don’t know whether or not God is doing anything in his heart.  Sadly, often that leads me to conclude that he isn’t seeking God and I lose a little faith in him.  Judge all you want, people, I’m just being honest, but we’re getting to some good stuff here.

So.  No direction for school.  Wishing for a stronger leader.  Two unrelated things, I thought.  

But.

After asking my husband to tell me what to do, he thought about it for a moment and proceeded to give me a small list of things to implement.   “Well, after everything you’ve struggled with, what you’ve said and what I’ve seen, and given what you really want to achieve, I think that we need to do A, B, C, and D.”  He gave me a clear, concise list. (No, I won't expound on that list because, as a wise lady I know says, 'each family should seek God's unique design for their homeschooling', and I don't want anyone to think that imitating our plan is THE way for them!)  But that small list was a practical plan, a blueprint, for how our school year should go.  

At first I was hesitant.  It seemed so different than anything I would have considered.  And a part of me wanted to take it as merely his opinion, one that I could consider along with everything else!  But, I purposed to consider it seriously and pray about it.  So I wrote a daily and weekly schedule according to his suggestions and wrote down the goals and objectives we had discussed. 

Fast forward to yesterday.   Weeks ago I had planned a get together, for that day, with a friend and homeschool mentor, a true Titus 2 woman whose purpose and passion is coming along side young moms and encouraging them to seek God’s will for their families and homeschooling.  I couldn’t wait to pick her brain and ask her all of the questions that I had!  But there seemed to be too many, so I prayed that God would simply speak through her directly to my need, needs, I acknowledged, that I didn't really recognize.  I didn’t want my questions answered as much as I wanted for God to clearly move and guide me in some way.  I don’t need to understand it all, I just want to understand what God wants for me! So we began the meeting with that directive...I had no questions for her, no outline of what I wanted help with, I just wanted her to speak as she felt led by God.  And boy was it sweet!

After a nice visit, towards the end, this godly woman looked at me and said that while she usually avoids giving advice or making suggestions about details of what schooling should look like, she wanted to encourage me to do A, B, C, and D!  Almost verbatim, she spoke the words that my husband had spoken weeks earlier…

And in that moment it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Just how AWESOME God is.  While I was getting frustrated and impatient, He was preparing to answer many of my ‘unrelated’ prayers.  While I was questioning Him and his willingness to lead me, He was waiting for me to give Him a chance to show me that He was answering my prayers for my husband to lead us!  All at once, he had given me not only the direction that I needed for school, but the confirmation that He IS leading my husband, and my husband is leading us (as long as I let him!), and what grace…because He didn’t have to give me tokens for good like that.  He doesn’t have to show me evidence above the surface for what He is doing below.  When I lacked the faith, hope, and confidence He didn’t speak to me in anger and shame me for questioning Him or for being a lousy wife--He understands my form, that I am dust! And He gave me eyes to see, once again, that He IS in control, that He IS faithful, and that I can trust Him to lead and work out every single detail, every time, no exceptions!