"The days are long, but the years are short."
What are your goals and intentions to deepen your family relationships in 2021?
The reason I looked for my job in 2010, my Christian School teaching job, the one that almost killed me, was that I needed to feel like I wasn't missing anything. I needed to feel like I was able to parent AND to contribute to society. I really was having a hard time finding meaning in my days, and I thought the issue was that I needed to be working outside the home.
I really felt nobly about getting a job. I thought I was helping families to have as close to a homeschool experience as possible, while also being able to have someone else do it. I actually convinced myself of something noble - that I was providing a homeschool education for families who couldn't homeschool. The reality was I was making our own life way harder than necessary, and putting ourselves in a position where we needed to receive the same thing I was providing for people.
So what was at the root of all this? Impatience, doubt, a small vision, lack of faith. I seem to be thinking of Abraham and Sarah, as they contemplated how in the world they were going to recognize the promise of God. They didn't see how it would come to play, and they felt the clock ticking.
For me, it was not knowing how I could make it through seeming endless days of mothering tiny kids. I felt empty. I definitely felt the long days. I felt like I was missing out. And it hurt so much. I mean, my husband was fulfilled in his job, what about me? Ugh, I just remember so much emptiness.
But then only a month or two later, I was TOO busy. And I still felt empty. And now I felt angry, too. I was SO angry. What was the answer? What a debacle. How could I have life and feel such emptiness?
You know what made this worse? I am (was) a believer! I have been loving God for a long time! And I thought I was supposed to have a purpose. I can't explain how empty I felt, considering I was walking with Christ, I just know that I was empty. And I didn't know how to walk with purpose without something to take my focus. Idleness was definitely an enemy.
So rather than try to figure out how to deal with that idleness, I interpreted the idleness that I obviously needed something to do, rather than doing the something I had, a little better.
So, the way I decided to handle it was to heap more burdens on myself. That was definitely wrong. I will go into what happened next, in subsequent posts. I can feel the intense pain again. Please walk with me through to the other side of this terror.
This intensely emotional story gets worse before it gets better. Part of the reason I'm here is I don't want you to go through what I did. Maybe you aren't facing the exact circumstances I was. But I want to help you find the meaning inherent in your life. I believe what Christ says about His yoke being easy, and His burden being light.
As I moved to that point, it was hard. But those excruciating experiences cemented my lessons. I never wanted to be in that place again. And I'm going to share with you what I did to ensure that.
"...is better than a good day somewhere else."
Almost 10 years ago, that's what I heard as I was contemplating homeschooling my two very tiny kids.
Now that sounds all noble and sweet, but at the time I heard this audible voice in my head, I was only two months into a really challenging hear teaching at a small Christian school.
I will get into details about this job in many, many blog posts, but for now, suffice it to say if I hadn't signed a contract, I would have quit.
The experiment didn't go well, my experiment seeing if I could swing making a difference in the community, earning a paycheck, and still momming awesomely. Yeah, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. In fact, I was cracking under the pressure.
Teaching in a Christian school sounded like a fabulous place and way to serve, but it ended up to be a nightmare. I really have to think about how much I want to share, so I'm not holding out on you. Suffice it to say it's taken me about 10 years and lots and lots of work and habits designed to heal as I've brought myself out of the trauma. So, I'll figure out how to share this harrowing story
As I contemplated in October how I had to stay in my job, despite my overwhelming desire to quit, I heard a still, small voice ask, "don't you want to homeschool? Other people are teaching your kids, while you're teaching other people's kids. Doesn't make sense, does it?"
No, for me it didn't. That solidified my desire to homeschool. Now, I do believe that every family has a different path to follow for their family related to their children's education. But for us, the message became clear that year.
And homeschool for me was a healing process that had to happen. My heart had to heal, and God was going to use my kids and my new daily schedule to do it.
Follow along with me as I heal through writing. I'll share with you my painful story, and I hope you see with me that God would put me back together and create a sweet story of His saving grace for all of us as we learned and recovered together.
I get asked often for help making curriculum recommendations for homeschool families. Here's what we're doing right now to simply our life in the middle of a HUGE move! If we love it, we'll keep doing it.
Read more...
