His Good Pleasure

Since  my spiritual retreat earlier this month ... oh wait ... last month - today is February 1! I have been realizing how at peace I have been. That week of quiet changed something ... and boy am I glad!!

Even before I returned - I really wanted to see my kids. In fact my husband wanted to prolong our stay by several more hours and I said 'no way!' I wanted to get home and spend my birthday with the kids and my mom and step-father. This shocked me - AND my husband ... since what I usually want for my birthday is to get away from them! (I love them but everyone needs a break.) I guess I had enough of a break by then, but I think it was something even more too. I think spending all this time with them in homeschooling has actually helped me like spending MORE time with them, and as a result, I simply missed them. More time really does make a difference. Let me explain.

When my kids were in public school my time with them was a practice in rushing through everything. 'Hurry up!!!' 'We need to leave!' 'We're going to be late!!" 'Get your butt MOVING!!!' 'Let's go, let's go, let's MOVE!!!' All my time was spent with these phrases on my lips. Running thru the morning routine, getting them out the door to the bus or the car, getting them home and into their homework, rushing us through dinner, pushing them thru the night routine and into bed ... and then the next day would begin it all over again. I am not even exaggerating... this all happened EVERY day. Even if I tried to be proactive and start earlier we were still always rushing. And everyone hated it, and ME, for constantly pushing them through everything.

My kids never had time to be kids. I never had time, energy, or opportunity for a good conversation with them. There was very little time to play, and enjoy one another and more than ANYTHING I wanted to have time to talk about Jesus ... not just in the cracks and crevices of time but everywhere - and not be in a rush!

Some of that rushing in me still needs to be killed off. For some reason I still feel an urgent need to get a certain amount of things done in a day. And get the kids in bed 'on time' ... so that I can have my time... because let's be honest I am still tired at the end of a day and need a break. And part of me still worries that they are not learning enough by 'school' standards. But I know that is all residual fear leftover from doing things the way your 'supposed' to, and homeschooling is the exact opposite of the normal course of things.

So I definitely have much to learn, and fear to purge, and I still want Jesus to be preeminent in our day and I don't feel like that is true - yet!.... but I do see change!

My kids ARE happier. My kids are not rushed everywhere anymore. The extent of my conversation with them does not involve me pushing them onto the next thing. My kids play with their toys, and have time to run around outside. We start the day praying for Jesus to come and be with us, we are memorizing scripture, we are studying the Bible together. We struggle through math - together - but there is no homework at the end of the day! No uniforms (I hated that Florida schools had uniforms!)! We can take vacations when we want! Take a day off when we need to - or just want to! Nothing is perfect ... I am NOT perfect - my kids are NOT perfect, but it is BETTER. There is quiet and peace in each day.

But the restfulness that I feel is not from any of these changes however, because I knew all of these things before my spiritual retreat and yet I still wanted to run away screaming everyday. In the paragraph just above - those are all the reasons that I knew homeschooling was better - that it was going to work out in the end - the problem that still remained was ME.

I did not want to submit. I did not want to submit to a life that kept me SOOO at home. I wanted to be able to get out and do ministry the way I had been doing it. I wanted to mentor women, and I wanted to have lunches out - and important conversations, and be able to study and learn the deep things of the Bible that I wanted to press into. I wanted people to need me and think I was important. Because who wants to relearn 5th grade math? or teach handwriting all day long? or spelling and grammar? I certainly did NOT. I felt like my day was a waste, and that I was dying a slow and painful death of obscurity.

And maybe I am.

But maybe that death is worth it. Because that death is killing off in me the things I hate, the sin I have been screaming to God to be done away with in me! And perhaps I am not as needed as I once thought.  Just maybe God has other people doing the things I love to do - and that is good and right.

And above all, THIS is where God wants me. At home, in obscurity, quietly learning to submit to His will - for His purposes, in His way, for His glory, and His good pleasure. THIS pleases the Lord, and now I am finally ready to do WHATEVER pleases Him. Whether it is big, or what feels very small.

The rest came from surrender. Surrender to His will. Surrender to HIS GOOD PLEASURE. This pleases Him. And I could either be really grumpy about what I am not getting, and what I THINK I need and want (heck I was down right bitter!), or I could just let all of my thoughts go, and let God say 'but this is what I have for you now' - and let that be GOOD. Because He always leads us in the way we should go. He is always for us - never against us. He is always on our side, He is always bringing us to completion - He never leaves us undone. And THIS is what I need to be made more into His likeness ... not just so that I will better (for me - so I am less ugly) ... but so I will be more like Jesus - so that I will bring God more pleasure. And that is what I SAY I want ... now I am learning to live it.

And now I get it... It pleases me... to please Him.