Today is my day to catch up on some blogging, since I have been MIA the past 2 weeks. Now that I'm home and FINALLY feeling better and life is getting, for the most part, back to normal...ish... Anyway, I've been procrastinating on sharing what I'm about to share, but I'm gonna put my big girl pants on and just move on with it. Don't be scared! It's probably really not that big of a deal to anyone other than me! :)
But before I do, I'm gonna back up a wee bit and tell you about my amazing weekend. I attended the "When Leaders Lead" conference here at the Conference Center and I can't even try to tell you how blessed, inspired, motivated, and moved I was by it. Remember how I said a couple weeks ago, in my "Hello World" post, how the Lord was doing a lot in my life and I knew it was about to be a year of change for my family? Well, let's just say that work is continuing. I feel like I've stepped into a tornado that I have no idea where it's going to take me or what it's going to pick up along the way, but I'm in and there's no looking back now. Exciting, terrifying, exhilarating, and maybe even a little ludicrous to some. But that's just life.The main "theme" of the retreat was on Deborah, someone I've grown up hearing about but never actually heard a lengthy teaching on, sad to say. Until now. I could try and regurgitate the message, but I know that would be rather pathetic and couldn't do it near the justice it deserves. Plus, it would only be my version and what the Lord showed me, which may not be the same thing He'd show you. My only advice would be to get a group of friends together and get the cd's of the conference yourself. It's $25. And it has a message I believe every Christian woman in America needs to hear right now. Plus, recordings of all 40 something workshops are included and there's something for just about everybody in those. I attended a workshop on "Those Who've Gone Before", where my friend Jasmine shared on 5 missionary women and their ministries. Women who left their families and all else behind to serve the Lord and saw Him do amazing and miraculous things. I also went to "Cooking as a Ministry" and "Balancing Motherhood and Ministry" workshops. The cooking one was so great and I was incredibly inspired by this one. I love to cook, have people over, and there's definitely much opportunity here where I live to do that! The lady who taught this workshop was a pro at this, and had great advice on how to feed 30+ people, how you don't need a lot of money or a big house, just a willing heart and a few great recipes. I'm so excited to put the things I learned to use! :) And of course, you all will be hearing about it when I do.
The Motherhood and Ministry workshop was excellent and confirmed many things the Lord has already been working in my heart for the past couple months. Basically, it was a great encouragement to us mom's with little muchkins, to keep on keepin on. Our kids and families are our greatest ministries here on earth and not to let the other, smaller "building projects" of this life distract us away from what is directly in front of us and so much bigger. So, overall, and with MUCH left unsaid, it was an incredible time. I also have started reading the book "Radical" by David Platt, and I can tell within the first 2 pages it's going hand in hand with all the Lord is showing me. Exciting times for sure! There's NOTHING on this earth that will ever satisfy or bring fulfillment such as serving and obeying the Lord will do. We can learn so much from history and missionaries and those who surrendered everything to simply say "I will" to Jesus. We can learn that their legacies were one's worth writing about. We can learn that they entered and will enter heaven hearing "Well done, good and faithful servant." And we can learn that giving up everything and following in Jesus' footsteps may seem to others foolishness, but we can rest assured when we look at the Bible, it's the only way to truly live. I want, more than anything, to be one of those people, in whatever capacity the Lord sees fit.
That was my weekend. :) And again, I can't encourage you enough to buy the cd's, grab some friends, listen to them, and be inspired! I'll stop procrastinating now and get to what I was talking about in the beginning of this post. I'll come right out and say it and then I'll give a brief history of how I came to this place/decision. Deep breathe, here it goes:
We've decided to homeschool next year.............
I can hear the gasps of unbelief. I think I just did one myself. Ok, brief explanation (or at least, my attempt to): As many of you know, while I haven't at all been opposed to homeschooling I haven't felt it was for me either. I never wanted to do it out of pressure and I never wanted to do it unless I KNEW I was supposed to. A couple months ago I got to talking with my friend who started homeschooling this past year. I for some reason, just started asking her a bunch of questions and realized that many of my perceptions about homeschooling and what I thought it was, were just plain wrong! By the end of our 15 minute conversation I was pretty jazzed about homeschooling and found myself seriously considering and praying about it. Cisco and I discussed it a lot and I spoke with a few other friends to see what they did for homeschooling, expecting at any moment to suddenly be like "What am I thinking?!?!" and run the opposite way. But I was definitely surprised to find the opposite to be true, that I was getting more and more excited about it. You see, a large part of why I've never considered it is because there is a lot of fear involved here. I'm not the most structured, organized person, and I strongly believe those are both very important things to be if you are going to homeschool. Not that I CAN'T be, mind you, I'm just not in every area right now. I know that will have to change. But this is also something I've desired to change in myself. Will I??? This is where the knees start knockin... Our childrens' education is something that's very important to us. I DO NOT want to fail them. Or us. Or God. My thread of hope that I hang on to here is that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord is leading me in this direction, at least for now. My thoughts on schooling have not changed in the least. I don't believe homeschool is the "spiritual" way to go, or the only way to educate our kids. I don't believe public school is evil and you're "feeding your kids to the wolves" if you send them there. I had a lot of fear when I put Josiah in public school. I bit the bullet and did it and found that it wasn't all the horrible scary things I'd heard it was going to be. I found that he survived in someone else's care and he didn't come home spouting off curse words or teaching his brother about the birds and the bees. It's been a fantastic and rather pleasant experience actually. I hold no other feelings but love for Alta Murrieta and the lovely teachers and principal he's had while there. We're simply trying something new for next year and the way I choose to look at it, conquering another fear. At this point, it may just be for a year. It may be for two. It may be for 10. I don't know. But seeing as we've always gone by the belief that the Lord will show us what He wants us to do, year by year, nothing's changed in that. And if, for this next year, we need to learn a whole new way to have dependence on Him, all we can say is, "we're willing". Yes, there's fear. A whole lot of it. But I have a God who loves to conquer fear. :)
