A Prayer for Today

Each day a conscious decision to follow, to surrender, to give thanks, to give words to heart-cries.

                                                               A Prayer for Today:

             

   Lord, may prayer become again a conscious, living, 

                                                                            daily natural rhythm in my life.

                             May that prayer infuse home, marriage, thought and action.

                                                                  May it be living 

                                                                   and infectious......

                 May my children breathe it in like air and catch it.

                                                                   May it be sacred and precious

                                                                   Yet routine, set in stone, unchanging.

                Like breathing, let it come.

                                                                  May it be deep,

                                                                                        hopeful,

                                                                                                    truthful.

                May it be born out of a listening heart.

May your morning be filled with the expectation of good things and the experience of His unrelenting grace.

When The Year Doesn't Turn Out The Way You Expected

Forgive the silence. 

It's been awhile.

It has taken sometime to find the words to make sense of the emotional roller-coaster that we as a family have experienced in the last year.

A post at the start of the new year seems fitting: a marker for myself; a symbolic statement that I am ready to engage again.

It has been over five years since I've experienced a northern hemisphere winter. Christmas' have been tropical affairs for us these last few years - barbecues, outdoor dining, shorts and T-shirts, and air-conditioning. It has been lovely to breathe in the frosty air and toast our toes by open fires for a change. I love the turning of the seasons and find it always speaks to me profoundly. 

I am a fascinated observer, watching as Winter strips the trees bare-naked, sharp twigs piercing blue-grey overcast skies, branches twisting and turning as bitter winds force them to bend and bow. I marvel as they remain unbroken, flexible, strong despite the unrelenting brute force of the windy gales. Occasionally, the skies break and rays of luminous light warm the cold; the sunlight painting landscapes in glittering shades of copper bronze and yellow gold - lifting spirits and turning the drab and dull into moments of eye-watering beauty. 

I find this a particularly apt symbol of my life as we leave 2011 behind and turn our eyes to a new year. I wish I could say that I have embraced the coming year full and excited at all that lies ahead. The truth is the rapid approach of the close of the year filled me with a dread that the no-man's land of  uncertainty we were in was no more likely to change as a new year began. I felt stripped bare - bereft of faith, of certainty and strength; I felt buffeted by the winds of circumstance with no clear compass or road map of what God was doing. I felt bent over and bowed down. But even in my frustration - I knew inside that I should be grateful, thankful for my many blessings; I should be thankful for the deep unshakeable knowledge that God is in control. Like the light that breaks in the midst of the grey and momentarily reminds us of the glory of nature - that felt knowledge of His unchanging nature  and the beauty of His perfect plan kept me and still keeps me going. I do believe the exquisite perfection of His timing and His purpose will eventually be revealed - but I must bend willingly and not fight and resist what He is doing.

2011 started with a decision to move countries - the timing was right and decisions were made. Our certainty and plans vanished when family illness forced us - almost immediately after our upheaval to a new country  - to abandon our plans and head to the UK for medical treatment. We left most of our personal possessions in storage because we didn't know where we'd be and for how long. All those shiny new homeschooling books I bought waiting to be unpacked, the kids bikes and scooters, the crates of gluten-free flours and products (bought because they were not easily available where we were settling), computers and precious photos....left behind. We had just what we could fit in a suitcase. To be honest, we didn't think we'd be gone this long - 4 months and counting with no definite idea of the whens and wheres. Had we heard wrong? What was God doing? How do we cope with this?


I'll have to admit to patchy sporadic bouts of homeschooling - with moving countries and medical emergencies, it was hard to carry on as normal. All this would, ever so occasionally, give rise to nights of panic and tears. Will my husband get better? How can I school my kids under these circumstances with no books, no fixed abode, constant displacement? Where are we supposed to settle now with no home of our own in any country? What is God's plan?

I'd love to say I met all this with serene grace and perfect trust in God's purpose and plan and to some extent, I think I can look back and say "Yes, I did meet every crazy twist and turn with equanimity and I did trust that all this will come to some greater purpose that would become clear to me - eventually."  But there were moments, no, more than moments, stretches of despondency, frustration and disappointment. Questions rising up ceaselessly - how long Lord?  All our plans put aside - for how long? The children's disrupted education - for how long? My husband's illness - how much longer? Living in a home that is not ours - for how long Lord? 


It was clear we wanted to make decisions that were wise and led by God but it was hard to hear and hard to be sure. Nothing seemed clear and clarity has not come with time - not yet. It seems that one-day-at a-time and trust are the themes of our new year. It is, I realise, the first year ever, where I literally have no plan for the year to come. No schedule for school, no plans for ministry, no important dates and appointments, no classes, nothing. This is because we can't plan - decisions have to be made around ever-changing health issues and we have no idea for now where the Lord wants us to be based in the medium term, let alone the long term.  We pray, answers tarry.


As I wake in the new year, it occurs to me - there is a lesson to be learnt. For the first time in my life, I can pray "Lord I have no plan (really) so show me yours." I have never ever been in this place - without an agenda. As a child - each school year was mapped out, maybe with vacations to look forward to, then came the years of work, weddings, marriage, children. When have I ever had a year where I had no plan?  This is not to say I have no desires. I have desires aplenty.

I want my husband well. I want him to be free of pain and strong.

I want a home, I want to be settled.

I want my stuff in storage.  

I want to homeschool.

I want to know EXACTLY where we are supposed to live and what we are supposed to do.

I want you to tell me straight Lord. I want certainty.

However, the "I wants" fall to the ground as easily as autumn leaves are snatched off their boughs and tumble to the soil. 

The "I wants" have nothing to hold onto. There is no certainty without Christ and I don't want to make mistakes by going my own way. I've spent so much of the last few months stating my "I wants" to God and finding myself crushed under the weight of my frustration and disappointment. I know He has a plan and a good purpose and maybe my "I wants" don't fit into those plans - not yet anyway. By His grace, He answered my feeble pleas to rescue me from my despondency and disappointment because I awoke to the new year with a desire to lay it all down and just seek Him. I know that desire comes only by His grace and not from me. I woke to the realisation that I was blessed - to enter this year unencumbered by expectation and plans and freed to choose Him. To choose the way of trust. What more did I have? But I saw I was blessed.  I would lay down my 'wants' and listen.

So begins the year of listening. The year of laying down. The year that I learn truly to trust. 

I would dearly love to go back to blogging about our homeschool adventures but it seems this pilgrim has another journey to make for now. 

The bible exhorts us in all things "GIve thanks." so I will give thanks, grateful for my many blessings of the last year:

1. for improvements in my husband's health 
2. prayers prayed to uphold us in our trials
3. for help from unexpected quarters
4. for financial stability
5. for cold weather to enjoy Christmas in
6. the joy of watching my children's faces as they saw snow for the first time
7. our first real bonfire in the garden
8. for family and opportunities to spend time with loved ones
9. for being together at Christmas 
10. friends made in the countries we have moved around in11. for a roof over our heads
12. for my favourite English desserts! and Custard!
13. for nature walks in autumnal weather
14. for the knowledge that God - you never let go of us.

Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message)

So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. 

Pursue the things over which Christ presides. 

Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.

Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. 

See things from his perspective.

Life is not a series of tasks to be accomplished

A golden note of misty light quietly slips through the velvet-black night; noisy birdsong dips and rolls through not-quite morning air. Into my slowly-waking heart, His whisper settles in me:


Life is not a series of tasks to be fulfilled.

It is to be lived and savoured, held close - filled with space and grace – space enough to respond to My call - no matter how inconvenient it may be when it comes.

Oh how well you know me, Father - even half awake you know my mind is already filled with things to do and achieve today, lists to check off. You know how easy it is for me to be structured, maybe even too rigid. How I feel happiest when my list all accomplished. Words that could almost define me - discipline, efficiency, focus...."Come on....time is ticking away", "Hurry up!".

But at the expense of what (or whom)? Are there feelings I have steam-rolled over, children I have nagged and harassed, precious moments I have failed to enjoy in order to finish the task?

Your words of encouragement flow through me -  Life is for living:

When your son builds a fort and wants you to play even though you are in the middle of your devotions.

When your children need a snuggle just when you are desperately trying to answer all your long overdue emails.

To dance in the rain when you are supposed to be cooking dinner.

To watch a movie with the family even though they really should be in bed.

To take your time over a piece of work that you are all interested in even when the schedule tells us it's time to move on.

To lay on the floor and eat cookies, listening to music when the laundry needs doing.

Taking the day off to visit the museum or swim in the pool when there is still much to be done.

To sit and enjoy being with your husband, not rushing to put the kids to sleep.

To embrace life's bumps, surprises, mistakes and allow them to be fertiliser for learning and growth.


Life is for living not just for getting through or surviving.

Sometimes we just have to survive - I know that - I've lived it. But so much more is given to us; a life to embrace even with all its thorns and cut-glass edges. We may bleed but if we feel and live grateful and find peace in the small things, we'll find God: open-armed, smiling, delighting in us. In me. In you.

So today I pray - 

 " I surrender. I surrender my need to control, to have things run according to schedule, to count my worth by what I've achieved each day. I choose to live  - not just survive. I want to learn to be."

As I open my eyes, I see a new day has dawned - brilliant blue streaked with fresh linen-white clouds, mellow golden morning-light dancing off the the tips of towering jade-green trees. I am reminded of this verse from His word: 

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.  Lamentations 3:22-24

Thankful for new mornings, I start today.

  

Losing one's way: the road to perspective

 "Mummy, try not to be too stressed." 
My elder daughter looks at me with a worried frown on her face. 

Am I stressed? Have I been yelling again? Have I misplaced the joy of being here - present - alive? 

I have to take deep breath.

"I'm sorry." This is all I know to say when I realise that I've lost my way - again. When was the last time I laughed with my kids?

I need perspective, I need to step back. 

I need to remember why I'm doing this: homeschooling, juggling family and work. It seems to always be about trying to prioritise the right thing -  time with God, my husband, my kids; or trying to catch up on things - reading, administration, sleep, life...

Sometimes we all need to look up from our ceaseless tasks and perceive the landscape of our lives and make sure we haven't taken a wrong turn and ended up entangled and so far removed from our original path that we don't even know how we got there.

I'm a do-er, a planner and a tick-off-my-list kinda girl - so it is really easy for me to get caught up in the day to day busy-ness of homeschooling and lists of to-do's. I focus on the tasks and not on the present. I miss out on little smiles, tender hugs, whispered secrets, silly jokes. I lose my grace and end up frazzled, grumpy, stressed out and just no-fun at all. My brokenness emerges and I am undone by my lack.

So when my daughter looks at me with her big eyes and rubs my back in concern - I know I need to stop:  to take refuge and check in with God, to allow him to draw me back and restore my soul. 


Our recent family devotions have been spent doing a study about becoming a woman of excellence and through our discussions one thing stood out clearly to me. In order to pursue excellence - we need to know what it is we are striving for. We need goals and a vision. I realised I needed a new vision for our family - no, wait - we needed a shared vision for our family.


At the beginning of the year, the girls and I made a list of goals - it included things like learning how to sew, how to ride a wave board, how to play the guitar, being on time for family devotions, sleeping earlier and exercising more. As we talked about how we did on these goals - we were pleased to see that we'd accomplished many of these goals. We also realised that if we hadn't articulated these goals, we would never have taken the necessary steps to achieve them. For example: because the girls expressed their desire to learn how to sew - and being deficient in that skill myself - I sought out a sewing teacher and opportunities for them to learn how to sew. The result was some beautiful bags and two glorious medieval costumes for our end of term medieval feast celebration. 

So with the Christmas season fast bearing down upon us, I thought the year's end would be the ideal time to take stock and talk about our hopes, desires and goals. It is a great way to check in with each other and ourselves, to make sure we are going in the direction we want to. So over these next few weeks, we will be working on a Family Mission Statement as well as our goals for us as a family and for ourselves individually. 


We spent the last week or so talking about the things that we want for our family. We began with a time of prayer and worship and invited Christ into our discussions and everyone had a chance to talk about things we'd loved to be doing as a family - practical things like getting back to regular games nights and about parents not using the phones during what is supposed to be family time (oops!). We got to heart issues as well - like the way we talk to each other and how that makes us feel, the need for more patience and consideration to one another. We reflected on how we could ensure that Christ was at the heart of our family and how we could impact the lives of people around us with grace and blessing.


After all the talking, we got to work on creating a Family Mission Statement - something that would reflect who we are and who we want to be as a family.  We got the whiteboard out and started a mindmap of ideas.

Out of this, we saw where we wanted to be in relation to God, to one another and to the world outside our family.

It is a wonderful thing to have at the forefront of my mind as I go through each day - it reminds me of my purpose as I mother and school my children.  I love that Christ infuses our hopes and dreams for our family. It feels like a marker for our journey - something that will keep us grounded and on course. So when the day spins out of control and all my best laid plans crumble under the weight of real life, when I am tempted to lash out, lose it, lay down in defeat and cry, I look to His grace and return to our vision and remember... 

Our Family Mission Statement

We choose to keep Christ first and foremost in our hearts and our home. We echo Joshua’s words “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

We choose to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness in order to create time and space to be in God’s beautiful presence, to receive daily strength from the Holy Spirit and to bear his fruit through grace-filled lives.

We want our family to be unified in love and appreciation, in understanding and care for each other.

We desire our home to be a refuge and a safe place where we are loved unconditionally for who we are, where our failures and mistakes are forgiven and our dreams and aspirations find their wings.  No one will be left behind or ignored and our purpose is to build each other up, not to tear down.

We desire that our home will be a welcoming place for all – that all who enter our home will breathe in an atmosphere of holy laughter, joyful peace and loving acceptance.

We choose not to ignore the needs of others, to give of ourselves generously and sacrificially, to strive always to see others with the eyes of Jesus.

We want to learn to be available to God and to respond to his prompting so that we may be vessels of blessing.

We do all this so that we may live lives worthy of the calling we have received, that we may be completely humble and gentle, always patient in bearing with one another in love. We choose to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. ~e.e. cummings

A typical day?

I've been asked by a few people now what our typical day looks like - the truth is there is no real typical day for Adventure-man who fits into the routine of the two older girls.

The plan is that we wake up somewhere between 7.30 - 8am and find our way to breakfast. During this time, if I've had a reasonable amount of sleep, I'll start singing the verses that we are learning together with Adventure-man. My two girls have their separate memory work which they attend to later in the morning but they learn too as they sing along.

After breakfast, we all get changed and ready. The girls have their usual chores of making their beds and emptying out their laundry baskets. We meet for family devotions on the sofa sometime between 8.30 and 9am (closer to 8.30 if  I am on their case reminding them of the time and more like 9am if I decide to take the relaxed approach).

During that time, we worship along to our favourite worship CDs or sing worship songs together (or do "boogie worship" when requested by Adventure-man or the girls - this consists of energetic dancing, jumping, waving of flags or shaking a variety of toddler noisemakers!). Some mornings, we take the more contemplative approach and just "soak" in the Lord's presence as we play the CDs. They will then record in their journals verses, thoughts and anything they feel the Lord is saying to them at the time.

Over the past year we have been using Character Building For Families Vol 1. I really like it because it is short, involves no preparation and there is no written work. Each day you look at bible verses around a character value like Obedience, Servanthood, Gratitude or Contentment and discuss a variety of questions and it always leads on to how to apply what we have learnt. Each Character study lasts about two weeks.

During Lent in the run up to Easter this year, we followed a different set of bible readings and devotions - The Lenten Tree: Devotions for Children and Adults by Dean Lambert Smith

I liked this very much because it had readings and devotional thoughts for both adults and kids and it also had various ideas of hands-on activities that you could do to make the Lenten period more meaningful. I'll definitely use it again next year.

With our Year 1 Tapestry of Grace History studies we had the opportunity to read through huge chunks of the bible from Genesis to Malachi (sometimes using the bible and at other times using Catherine Vos' Child's Story Bible for the more obscure parts of scripture or for when we needed a "child-friendly" telling of events). Now, this year, I am looking for something they can interact with actively and have just purchased  The Bible Study Guide For All Ages and so far they quite like having material to interact with as we read from the bible. 

After reading the bible and discussing the passages, we end with prayer. With devotions done, the girls go off and do their memory work. We have a particular system for this which I will write a more detailed post about soon. During this time, Adventure-man is free to join us in much as he wants to and if he gets a little too boisterous, the trains come out. We often will finish our devotions with a round of kids praise songs just for him.

While the girls are reviewing their memory work, I play with Adventure-man. I'll spend some time on the Calendar with him and we'll play with the activities I have set up for him the night before. This is what his shelf looks like in his room with different activities laid out.

I have to admit that his letter related activities probably only get rotated twice a week on his shelves at the moment and the rest of the week we'll do free play, drawing, crafts, tracing, using scissors and other activities like that. As I am now actively trying to include him more in our homeschool day, I will have to be a bit more organised about this.

The longer we homeschool, the more flexible I am becoming and I feel less and less bound by our schedule. This is a HUGE change for me as a Type A Scheduler! I am becoming as concerned about the quality of their learning experience as I am the quantity we cover in a day. However, if I was to come up with a general  picture of what goes on, this would be it:

Memory work (either personal review or recite to mum)

Math 

Break (outdoor) and snack (often I'll read a poem to them or we'll do a picture study while they snack)

Language Arts

Piano Practice/Typing

Lunch

Scheduled Independent reading

tapestry of Grace work which includes History/Literature/Geography/ or we may do Science/Art/ Music Appreciation - one of these in some form

Playdate or scheduled activities (this term: Sewing, Skating, Musical Theatre, Ballet)

On any given day, this will change but it is what I have in mind to achieve during the day. One morning a week they have Mandarin and Piano lessons. Adventure-Man's afternoons will usually consist of a struggle between  myself and him to get an early afternoon nap in and if he doesn't sleep, then as far as possible I try and direct him to independent play while I teach the girls. 

Of course, the beauty of homeschooling is that you can switch things around according to their interests and your time. Being freed from the need to tick off everything on my list has led me into some wonderful avenues of learning with the girls. As usual, I am learning as much as they are.