Letting God Love Me

 There continue to be no words that describe how absolutely insane this year has been.  One day maybe I will try, but for now, it's too raw in some ways, still unprocessed in others.  This continues to be the case.  We began this year with just so much 'hard' going on, God brought so much to light, and then like a week later we found out we would be in California for 9-12 mos.  Three weeks later we were living in an extended stay hotel in Azusa, CA.  Seven weeks later, we were living in an AirBnB in Azusa.  Four weeks later, we were in an AirBnB in Kernville, CA.  Four more weeks later, we were bouncing around Texas because we had our house rented out through June.  We moved back into our house in July, have been trying to find a routine, but honestly it has continued to be a hair pulling ride.  Did you catch that that was nowhere near the projected 9 mos?

Through all this there have been so many highs and lows, specifically spiritually.  January 2025 was probably the lowest point of our lives to date.  Things felt incredibly hopeless.  March and April 2025 were some of the best days of our lives to date.  We absolutely thrived in CA in so many ways (not in every way in retrospect, but a lot of ways).  I regularly look back on our time in CA as just some of the best of my life.  I am so so thankful for the time there.  For most of June and July, I was just baffled by why were back in Texas.  How could God take something so good from me so quickly?  I never even dreamed of CA.  He put me there.  Why did He put me there to only make me love it and pull me out?  I don't fully know the answer to that, but as time has gone on, I've gotten some better perspective.  Some.

July and August have been some of the most formative and healing months of Jimmy's life.  That's the answer I have as to why we are back.  For reasons only known to God, He has used this construction job to form Jimmy so deeply into His image in ways I never even imagined.  It's been an amazing transformation for him.  God has done a lot in Jimmy's life.  Especially January.  It was a true burning bush month for him.  But July and August have been the true deepening journey with God for him. God is so good, and I am so amazed at all He has done.  More than I imagined indeed. 

But in the midst of that, there have been some huge struggles with other areas that have been absolutely difficult for me in particular.  Trusting God in the dark moments.  Questioning how in the world is this going to work out moments.  Feeling like we are staring down the Red Sea and the Pharoah moments.  To say that I am at the end of what I can fix, what I can accomplish, what I can control is an understatement.  This is not really a situation I've been in from this context, so it's very stretching for me.  But a few weeks ago, at church I felt the Lord tell me that the only way He can show me HOW He can do all things, how HE can perform miracles, how HE alone can make a way, how HE alone can just love on me, is to have me in the position where nothing I do affects anything.  

So I am trying to embrace being completely helpless.  So God can step in and be God.  So He can save me and love me and heal me and show me His glory.  So I wait.

School Year and Jalais Hill 1867

 We are three weeks into the school year, and I have just been so enjoying it so far.  I tried some new things this year, and I think I'm going to love it.  We have settled into using Masterbooks as the core of our curriculum for the main subjects, although there tends to be some adjustments tweaked along the way.  That probably would be true no matter what.  I've always appreciated the way Masterbooks keeps everything simple and in manageable portions.  Sometimes I just need to add in extra practice or games.

I have always sort of jumped around with using Masterbooks, Good and the Beautiful, and a variety of library books for science and history.  I love the textbooks we have, but my kids always enjoy the deep dive history and science units (mainly from Good and Beautiful) as well.  Last year, I discovered Generations Taking the World for Jesus series, which is essentially history through the eyes of gospel advancement, so we use those for various units as well.  On a typical month, we rotate through the Masterbooks core workbooks and one deep dive unit.  I don't always finish the textbooks within the school year, but we for sure have done over 180 days of study in the general subject areas. 

Avie age 9

What is making this year different though, is that I am focused mostly on notebooking through the subjects instead of worksheets combined with using amblesideonline.org for various Charlotte Mason components.  I started with the literary resources for 1st grade from ambleside, but I am doing them as a group with my kids.  We just kind of loop through what we can- I have no expectation of finishing all their activities within the year.  I love that homeschooling allows us to just go as we go, especially with the extra things.  We always finish math and language for the year, but everything else we just plug along knowing we Are doing that much learning.  Just never in the same continuous resource.

Lily, age 5

I have just been delighted though with the bits of notebooking we have done.  It is just precious!  It holds all their copywork, which can be anything from a line from Aesop to our hymn lyric.  So many sweet little drawings in these notebooks, and we are only 3 weeks in!  But the most touching for me thus far happened this week- we are currently studying Camille Pissarro's work via the ambleside suggestion.  The first picture we studied of his was Jalais Hill, Pontoise, 1867.  I had each child try to draw the painting as they see it in their notebooks.  It is amazing to me how each child focused on different parts, but all saw the same painting.  I love how it is accessible to all 3 children who are 5, 6, and 9 currently.  It was one of those moments where you glimpse the good and beautiful foundations being laid and you are so thankful that you get to be here in this moment with these precious children.  So thankful that our days are spent together.  Not every moment together is sweet.  But the moments that are that sweet, are treasures forever.  Thank you Jesus!

Will, age 6

On Sundays

 I recently read that sometimes you need to just schedule time to create, show up at that time, and see what happens.  I have waited around for the last decade seeing if inspiration would show up, and between the last 10 years of pregnancy, diapers, coloring outside the lines, homeschooling *shockingly* that inspiration never came or I was too tired to acknowledge it.

So I am starting a new thing- Blogging on Sundays.  Maybe I will be inspired.  Maybe I won't.  But I am going to try to show up anyway.  I probably won't post many of these "officially" on fb which is the only social media platform I even attempt to use anymore, but it's fine.  I'm showing up.  For nothing else but to continue doing something I used to love.

I recently posted about how I thought I changed a lot more than I have over the years.  And going to California taught me I was really just the old me with a Texas coating.  Like an old house and you find out it has some really vintage wallpaper behind the paint.  I still don't have any idea what that means for life when you live where you live.  But at least I can admit it to myself now.

I've been mourning the loss of what was, acknowledging what is, and trying to find out what my place is in its midst.  California was a spiritual awakening for me.  I was so undistracted for the first time, probably in a decade, that I heard God so much more clearly than I had in certain ways.  I saw so many hearts on fire for Jesus from so many different walks of life, viewing certain verses somewhat differently than I do, yet The Spirit was still there in our midst.  It was a powerful lesson on the importance of looking for where the Spirit is for there is where Life and Truth are.  And not looking at the rules people follow.  That's not necessarily where the Spirit is.  (To be fair there Are some very real important truths that require true faith, but most of what we major on are not those important truths.)  The Lord really shattered my perspective, shifted my values, and upended my own Christian posts.  I have to confess that I valued some things more than I needed.  

The tricky part to both of these facets- both realizing I am still a New Orleans girl living in Texas and that I am more interested in where the Spirit is moving than I am in doctrinal nuances- is that coming home feels confusing.  What do I even do with myself now that I am back home?  To everyone around me I look the same more or less, but I'm just not.  My entire way of viewing the world has really shifted.  

One thing I did learn very deeply through California due to just the lack of uniform living situations is "Be Here Now".  And this statement is profound in the manner of ways it can be applied.  But one way is that I have learned I don't actually have to understand today how I fit back into the world around me. Being here now lets me wait until God shows me what to do next.  If He hasn't shown me something to do, it's not really in my control anyway, so just be here now.  Be who I am, but be it here, now.

So for now this looks like acknowledging that our family schedule changed, so we go to a different church on Sundays because it better fits the kids schedule, we get to go with Jude, etc.  It means we go to our regular church on Wednesday because that still works for our schedule.  And it doens't have to look pretty or make sense yet.  It will in time.

Today its early-mid August and we are going to rest and go to work and do school and celebrate Lily Fay's birthday and just generally live life as authentically as we can while we are here now.