It's been a while

Almost two years ago now, I posted my last blog entry. Unfortunately, family circumstances and situations have changed greatly since then. Now a single mom of four children and living in a new community, I am picking up the pieces of what was once viewed to be the quintessential homeschool life and existence.

Life never behaves as you expect.

Mistakes were made, lines were crossed, and life got messy for some time. That was a season I do not wish to repeat. Now is a season where my children and I and many others involved get to learn of grace and new beginnings. We all want to look back and see what went wrong, where we could have made different choices and changed the outcome. Looking back is good when it fosters future change. But where it binds us to a life of regrets and sorrow and guilt and shame, it is not helpful or healthy.

So, as life teaches us big lessons of forgiveness, grace, mercy, kindness, self-control, and many other things, we seek to press on toward the goal...

What is the goal now? With such huge changes, I have to figure that out. Is the goal to homeschool? Is the goal to survive? (Some days it seems that way.) No, I think the goal is still the same. To raise my children in the fear and admonition of the LORD and live a life I would want them to imitate. Which can be particularly difficult in certain seasons of life. And certainly shame plays a role in making me feel the failure.

But, the beauty of messy lives is that they pave the way for great heaping amounts of grace, and in that, the opportunity to share and teach and humble ourselves as parents and people of THE WAY. I find myself saying '"I'm sorry" a lot. And if I can teach my children one thing while they are with me, it will be to know that our GOD is THE great big huge GOD who cannot fit in any box or poem or slice of scripture we seek to fit HIM into. And as a hopeful citizen of HIS heavenly world, I want to model a life that is gracious and loving and more than just a cute little picture of a churchy family.

Messy. We are messy, broken, and ugly people. But our God is huge, beautiful, and beyond our imagining. Today, I will pick up one piece of my former life, one I have tried to avoid because it hurts to go back to, and try to let God use it to bless someone.

I'm welcoming myself back to my own blog. :)

May your day be full of finding God in the mess.