According to Plan - Giving Thanks

On Monday, February 9th, we spent our first night in our home.

As time has passed since we've sold our first home, embarked into homeschooling as we're in our 2nd year, and welcomed our son into our family, we've reached home.

Our home of second chances.

In the week prior to our first night activity moved rapidly on our property as God blessed us with dry weather. The Excavator was able to complete the drain field and installation of the septic system as this was the last and final work needed in order for us to receive our occupancy permit. 

It feels a bit surreal to be in our home, together again, in our own place. I didn't expect to feel a sense of awkwardness in the first few days of living in the house. After having to share a space for an extended period of time, I'm realizing that there will be an adjustment period. I know that in time having our own place again will feel normal.  It is a welcoming sort of awkwardness that warms my heart to put my girls to bed in their own bedrooms again, to be able to decorate and adorn our counters with our personal pictures, and to feel the peace and comfort that a personal space brings.

I've been brimming over with praise and thankfulness as I've reflected daily over God's provision in this journey. While my emotions have known deep valleys and high peaks throughout his process, God has been the One who has remained steady, faithful, and my strength.

In the highs, the lows, the easy times, and the hard.

We ought to give Thanks.

An Unexpected Blessing in a High Schooler Package

As we approach the peak of the hill of education and peer out into the horizon of mathematics, reading, science, grammar, and history, my heart is full as I think about how far the girl's learning has expanded this school year. They've continued to embrace the change this year in their curriculum and have leaped and made bounds, allowing their Mom to stretch them a bit each day beyond the typical classroom requirements for their grades. This half way point in our school year comes with great expectancy of what the Lord will do in our homeschool.

Just a few weeks ago, we welcomed a new student into our homeschool. A close relative of ours was in need of a homeschool environment to aide in their child's education and we've taken him in with open arms. He is quickly becoming acclimated and I'm quickly learning the requirements of educating a high schooler. While taking in a student other than my own children was not in my plans for the school year, I'm in awe of how the Lord is working everything out for good and for His glory. As I've prayed for wisdom on how to encourage my new student to learn and work to his fullest potential, the Lord is granting the guidance and direction that is needed. The girls love the company that an additional student brings and seem to thrive with the added competition in the school room.

To live a life abandoned and carefree to God's call whenever, and however He guides us is frightening and exciting all at the same time. It requires a trust and a hope in future events that we cannot see, a dependence upon a God that is all powerful and capable of the impossible. My continued prayer for my students is that they have an environment where they can be who God created them to be and be groomed to live their own lives with this same type of expectancy. My own recollection of high school was full of the pressures of fitting in. I hope to give my new high schooler the freedom to fit the mold that God has for him. To learn at a pace that is steady, yet challenging and grow into an understanding of what lies beyond high school based on the interests and skills that God so intricately designed into him when He created him.

What unexpectant blessing is headed to your doorstep?

Rejoice!

This is the day that the Lord has made. We should rejoice and be glad in it. Every day that we live and breath is because of God's grace toward us. Our praise to God shouldn't be based on our feelings or as a result of Our Heavenly Father just doing things for us. Instead, we rejoice just.... because.

Rejoice in the goodness of the Lord today, just because...

He is good.
He is kind.
He is faithful.
His love never ends.
He is for us.
&
 Nothing can separate us from Him.

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Inspiration

I continue to be inspired by others who allow their lives to be used for Christ.

When more than two people suggest that you read a particular book, there must be something unique about the book that is missing in your life. That's how I feel the current book that has found me, "Kisses from Katie." It's a story that narrates the life of a young woman who commits her life to serving those who are not able to provide for themselves.

Walking away from the life she knew as an eighteen year old in high school and into Uganda, she became God's hands and feet showering the poverty-striken people with her smile, a hug, her time, and with love. When other women her age were thinking about college, a career, marriage, and children, Katie rents a home in Uganda only to fill it with orphaned children and then adopt many of them to raise as her own.

Who does that? Someone who takes up their cross and follows in the footsteps of Jesus, that's who.  God can use us to be salt in this world. No matter how big or small we think our impact might be. You just might be surprised who you are inspiring in your everyday life.

According to Plan - Glimmers of The Road's End

Moving boxes, crinkled newspaper scraps, & lots of "oh, I forgot that I had that!" moments.

We've been surrounded by these items and experiencing these moments since returning from our family trip away after Christmas. The house itself is now complete, so we've received the green light to move our things in. With the abundant wet weather we've been having the septic/drainfield system hasn't been able to be installed, so we can't officially take up residence in the house yet.

The first moving box that was opened was like reliving Christmas morning as a kid. The anticipation of seeing our things that have been packed away for 18 months was high and it has been a treat to simply unpack and envision our family living this "second chance" together in this new home.

The other day I played a song for my family that sort of illustrated our journey to this home. It's about a Christian's journey to their final home in Heaven. While this home of ours that we're journeying into doesn't compare to glorious Heaven, the ups and downs of any trial teaches us about our Heavenly Father and in many ways it makes us long for Heaven. When I think back to when downsizing was just a brief consideration, it's been a long way from the first seed of it all being a thought to making a new house for our family into home. The journey hasn't reached completion yet, but with each glimmer of hope, what an awesome view of God's answer to prayer we experience.

Long Way Home by Steven Curtis Chapman

I set out on a great adventure
The day my Father started leading me home
He said there's gonna be some mountains to climb
And some valleys we're gonna go through
But I had no way of knowing
Just how hard this journey could be

Cause the valleys are deeper
And the mountains are steeper than I ever would have dreamed
But I know we're gonna make it
And I know we're gonna get there soon
And I know sometimes it feels like we're going the wrong way
But its just the long way home

I got some rocks in my shoes
Fears I wish I could lose
That make the mountains so hard to climb
And my heart gets so heavy with the weight of the world sometimes
There's a bag of regrets,
My should've beens, and not yets
I keep on dragging around

And I can hardly wait for the day I get to lay them all down
I know that day is coming
I know its gonna be here soon
And I won't turn back even if the whole world says
I'm going the wrong way

Cause its just the long way home
When we can't take another step
The Father will pick us up and carry us in His arms
And even on the best days,
He says to remember we're not home yet

So don't get too comfortable
Cause really all we are is just pilgrims passing through

Well, I know we're gonna make it
And I know we're gonna get there soon
So I keep on singing and believing
What all of my songs say
Cause our God has made a promise
And I know that everything He says is true
And I know wherever we go
He will never leave us

Cause He's gonna lead us home
Every single step of the long way home
Keep going, we're gonna make it
I know, we're gonna make it
We're just taking the long way home

It's just a long way home

Is it Just Me?

Is it just me or does it seem like everyone else that you know just always seem to have it all together?

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Everyone else's kids seem to be so much more well behaved, their homes are more tidier, and their marriages so much more romantic and more blissful and than mine own. Christmas just passed us by and if your mailbox looked anything like mines, you received a box full of cards with family pictures of well dressed, beautifully posed families. When you gaze at those pictures, am I the only one who wonders about the story behind the picture? If their family Christmas picture posing day was anything like mines it included a disgruntled preteen worrying about finding the right pair of pants to match her sweater, a cranky toddler wanting to nap a bit more before getting dressed, and the threat of a rainstorm looming in the weather report just in time for our outdoor photo shoot. Because we don't get to see the struggles, the upsets, the life lived behind the picture, we sort of get tricked into thinking that that everyone else's life is so much more easier, blissful, and happier than our own. God promises in the Bible that in this life, we will have troubles so we shouldn't be surprised when unfortunate things happen.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you;

1 Peter 4:12

If we compare our homes, our marriages, our children, and our personal successes to the achievements of others, we'll develop a sense within ourselves that we're never measuring up in life.  Is the grass truly greener on the other side of your neighbor's fence?  The truth is, no one life's is as blissful as the family portrait with a cleanly shaved husband, perfectly groomed children, and a well manicured dog. Some days your family won't like the meal that you slaved over for hours, the car will not always run as smoothly as you like and just may leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere now and then, and the weather will not always be clear and beautiful when you've scheduled a vacation.

Life is not a Hallmark Card, though we'd like to think that it should be.

The next time that we start to compare the behavior of the kids that sit so quietly in Church to your own fidgety, easily agitated kids, just praise the Lord that you're in Church and they're hearing God's Word. We need to count our blessings, thank the Lord for every moment that He showers His grace upon us, and be grateful for the grass within our own fences.

Bringing in the New Year... Together