Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Judge Not

Sometimes when God talks to us, it hurts.  Sometimes really bad.  I had an "ouch, God" moment today.  I'm in my hometown and of course any time I go to town I see someone I know.  Growing up in a small town, well, you know everyone.  At least almost.  Not only do you know people, you also know their business:  the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I realized today, because God conked me on the head with it, how easy it is to judge people based on what you know about them. 

No one is perfect.  Not me.  Here it is, dear friends, God bonked me on the head today with my imperfection.  Pastor Husband is thinking of starting a church here.  I've been skeptical.  Yeah, I know people here.  I could invite them to our church.  Thing is, I know people here.  I know the good, the bad, and the ugly of some of them.  Know what?  That's why I'm skeptical.  Well, I have been.  God pointed out to me today that I'm not judgemental of people in a new town, people I don't know.  OUCH.  It's true though.

God loves the people here just the same as He loves the people anywhere else.  He knows our imperfections and faults and loves us anyway.  I should do the same. 

To those of you who live here, I'm sorry if I've judged you.  I'm so very sorry. 

Y'all wanna know what's kinda funny?  Several people I went to school with have been surprised that I married a pastor.  That means they all know me too.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Good thing God forgives. 

Friday, July 15, 2011

I've got PEACE

God is so good!  We're officially on vacation and probably will be until the end of August (or until the international offices process pastor husband's paperwork, whichever comes first).  We're staying with my mom and dad during this time.  We have been here a week yesterday.  I have lost 9 pounds.  The boys are at church camp for the very first time.  Pastor Husband is chillin' and helping out wherever he can.

We made it here just fine but had a flat tire on the Suburban last Friday when we were going to take the U-Haul trailer back.  That got fixed.  We went Saturday night to the 4 States GMA convention in Texakana and had an accident on the way home.  Our entire wheel came off while we were on I-30 about 5 miles from my parents house.  Praise God we were ok.  Because of that, we found out we needed new brake pads.  That little mess cost us about $150.  Of course that's using the spare tire/wheel; when we get ready to buy a new rim, that's gonna cost us!

I've started planning for our homeschool year for 2011/2012.  I've got a great peace about it.  I'm planning what to do since the plans I had have had to be ditched.  Our curriculum is in storage.  Well, I've been apprehensive about what was planned anyway.  I've always been kind of eclectic and I was changing to a formal curriculum (My Fathers World).  MFW is a great curriculum but I just haven't had a peace about it.  Pastor Husband tells me yesterday that he thinks it is because I feel tied down.  I think that's true.  Well, I'm back to my eclectic self again!  When we get MFW out of storage, I will use it but will be doing it MY way, not the way it's written in the TM. 

What have I got planned?  Well, I'm buying a skip counting CD for both boys and will put the songs on their MP3 players.  They will both continue with addition and subtraction at an appropriate level and Oliver will start learning multiplication.  I will be sort of following a Charlotte Mason approach this year and using some of the reading lists and suggestions from Ambleside Online.  I like this approach to homeschooling and I think it is going to work well for both of my boys.  I will be buying the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia to use as a guide for our history education.  When the boys get really interested in something, we'll stop and study that more in-depth; I figure this will be Oliver's doing!  Noah will be using starfall.com until we can get Homerun Reading out of storage.  He was doing great on this before and I think he'll do great with it until we can use our HRR.  We will have lots of copywork and narration as well.  I have a nice book to use as a guide for Science as well and Oliver will probably be using his Physical Science books I bought at a used book sale.  It's rough sometimes to have an advanced child but I'm working it out.  Oliver is at a 9th grade level in science so I don't think he would be completely fulfilled with nature studies.  I do think that Abeka's 9th grade Physical Science will challenge him well so we're running with it.  What will I do when he hits high school?  Use a different, more challenging curriculum.

One of my goals this year is to teach my children more BIBLE.  God wants me to raise them in the way they should go and learning about the Word is the way to do that.  We will be starting our school days with Bible reading and devotions.  I know the devil is going to fight me so keep us in your prayers.

All in all, I am at peace.  My world has changed and I have NO clue where it's going but I have peace.  God is in control.  He will take care of us and I am resting in that.