Grab a cuppa joe and sit a bit...

So, here we are again, enjoying the quietness.

Last night, I lay in bed wondering what I should write and why is my heart so on fire for God?  I am not even sure where to start. 

I have truly been on this journey since my 3rd pregnancy.  But I have always loved and knew of God, and put my name in the Lamb's book of Life when I was about 10 yo.  I think I signed that book every week because I didn't understand that I only needed really to do it once. But no one ever explained what it meant either. 

But the truth is, even when we give our life over to the Trinity - One God now and forever, sometimes we just need to sit at his feet and give our life again and really lay it all down for him.  

So, in my expectancy, God met me face to face and walked me all the way through those months.  I was a single mom with two boys, 18 mo and 31 mo old.  Jesus took ahold of my heart again and never let go.  He shared with me during these months that He loved me, that He loved this baby and she would be a huge blessing.  She was and still is.

It was a long few years before I really began my studying of Jesus and what He desired for me, but I will never forget that He loved me through a time when I felt unlovable.  When my son David, age 6, went to heaven and I saw Jesus face to face.  It took me a long time to grieve.  It's been 21 years and as I wrote on jan. 17, it is finally bearable and it is glorious now. 

When I began to homeschool, it was not easy, not at all.  It was the hardest thing that I have or had ever done!  But God gave me these children to bless him.  Through trial and error and the wish that I would have started so much earlier, because I didn't know my kids.  They were at school and I was at work.  I didn't know really their learning styles, their personality, their real quirks.  I knew them after school, I knew them on the weekends but ...

I know this may not make sense.  I knew my kids when they were home with me and then I sent them off to be taught by someone else.  When I brought them home to school forever, it wasn't easy.  I didn't know what I was doing, I only knew God had told me this was the need. 

I had been doing home daycare for about a year before we started homeschooling.  I had a friend that I went to the zoo with, hung out with, and she went to the same church as we did, but when I started following God's purpose.  She said if I homeschooled than we just couldn't be friends.  Well, my life didn't revolve around her, so I lost that friendship, in fact, she would see me in the store and turn around and ignore me.  It was so hurtful.  But I knew what God had called us to.  He gave me my children first.

That first year was so intense and so incredibly hard.  Never had I set out on a journey of life that was this way.  But it grew us and we were growing to like each other.  We had a lot to learn though.  It wasn't always easy either.

But through the hard times, we learned.  We had fun too!  We read a lot of books together and we learned to like each other.  The oldest graduated from home and the youngest went into high school as a Sr. when we were in the Azores, however, it was the schools Jr. year for her.  All her homeschool credits were counted too!  She had a lot of fun and learned a lot.  She graduated Salutatorian!  Too awesome!  When you follow God's lead, even when it is difficult, the blessings are there.   And now she is homeschooling her children.  2nd generation!  Although it isn't always easy, the reward is worth it.