Tag Archives: faith

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So . . .

how did it go? Those of you who know me on Facebook or in real life, know that today was Katie’s big neuro follow up for the year. They check for bone growth, assess for interventions, etc.

So, the good news we got there on time and even though P forgot which building they’re in now, we still made it with plenty of time to spare.

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As attested to by the fact that Katie had an opportunity to check out Dr. T’s cool toys.

Our favorite PA was not there (good from Katie’s perspective), and she did step on the scale, allow them to measure her height, and measure her head. We made the nurse-practitioner promise that she would never tell the PA how easy a time Katie gave her.

Dr. T came in. He wooged her head. He’s pleased with the top. It’s clearly filling in and she’s not in any danger from that area anymore. Then he felt the sides. And that’s where the good news stopped flowing. She has no significant bone growth on either side. At all. We are now three years out from the surgery and she is now in the very bottom percentile. At this point, something like 90% of kids are showing some growth, so none is serious setback. At this point, all we can do is pray and hope that God’s time coincides with Dr. T’s time so that by this time next year she *is* showing enough growth to delay intervention. He swears he won’t have to shave her head and that the process is not nearly so invasive, BUT it is a series of procedures and we’re hoping to avoid having her go through more procedures.

There is more good news, though. Katie, after some whispering, managed to ask her important questions.

Katie: Can I ride a scooter with a helmet?

Dr. T: And wrist guards, yes. (Turns out Dr. T’s son broke his wrist on a scooter, thus the wrist guard requirement)

Katie: Can I play soccer?

Dr. T: With other kids your age, yes.

Katie: Can I go to Sunday school?

Dr. T: Yes, as long as we tell them not to use ice picks on your head (I would like to know what church he goes to)

Katie: Can I play on the big kid side at the Y play center? (This required visuals acquired thanks to a good friend who was there last night and texted them to me)

Dr. T: (studies the pictures for a minute) Yes. It’s all padded, she’ll be fine.

Basically, the only thing he wants her to avoid, aside from ice picks, is tumbling. Just on principle. The top is healed enough now that if she takes a hit to the top we should not wig out any more than we would if Ben hit the top of his head. He said at this point, and with where the bones aren’t growing it would take a freak accident, with a pointy object (hence the ice pick comment), to cause her serious damage. We’re to use our common sense and let her be a “normal” four year old girl.

He thinks her balance and coordination seem a bit better (thank you, Judy’s Dance Academy). Her sensitivity to textures and sounds and such are in the “normal” range for kids with her condition, so he doesn’t feel intervention is necessary. He did comment that she is very small for her age, so that is something on our side. One good growth spurt could start the process of bone growth on the side.

And he’ll see us next year.

All of this is to say, if you had Katie on a prayer chain, please keep her on it. If you didn’t have her on a prayer chain, please feel free to add her. This will all happen in God’s timing, and I hope that I can be patient and remember that through the coming year.

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Homeschool Mother’s Journal — 1/25/13

Rough week in this house. Just saying.

  • In my life this week… I had another uncomfortable end of life conversation with our vet, but emerged victorious with pain meds. I also had a lovely chat with the woman who runs the crematorium we’re going to use for her. Ben’s issues are back in full force and that pretty much threw everything else out the window.
  • In our homeschool this week… We read about the Phoenicians in Story of the World. Ben worked on the final review in Life of Fred: Farming. He still has five problems to go, so his break from math is going to be shorter than expected. We have all the necessary pieces for his science fair project, but now have to figure out how to convince him to write it up and make it what it is supposed to be. We watched the Inauguration. Ben was particularly interested in the oath after we did the the lesson on being truthful in Telling God’s Story. There’s a section in there about taking oaths, so that the president takes an oath took on new significance for him.
  • Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… Keep reminding yourself that at seven, no one is expecting cold fusion or a complete mastery of ancient history. Does he know anything at all? I think that’s the question.
  • I am inspired by…Heather
  • Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… We went to Orlando on Saturday and saw a good friend we haven’t seen since we picked up Peyton. This was her first time meeting the kids. The kids convinced P to ride the elevator which turned out to be a super-express. Ben likened it to riding Cheetah Hunt (P hates roller coasters). I think the kids were okay. Otherwise, we went to dance. This was a stick close to home week due to the issues Ben is having.
  • My favorite thing this week was… the new devotional I found. It’s called Day by Day Devotions by Karyn Henley. This was our first week using it and the theme was “Now and Always” — verse: I will never leave you Hebrews 13:5
  • What’s working/not working for us… Right now we’re blessed that we’re relaxed homeschoolers. I made a schedule, but Ben’s issues blew that right off the map this week. We’ll get it together and be a tad further behind on writing than I’d like. We’ll survive. I’m so grateful for the iPad app Hay Day — we’re able to use that as an incentive to help him focus and that’s been working wonders.
  • Questions/thoughts I have… One of the things I really have to work on is not stressing out when things get crazy. I get so overwhelmed and I need to be more focused and calmer. I have some plans to work on that. I’m also reading and absorbing Lori Pickert’s posts on project learning for adults.
  • Things I’m working on… I’m doing a lot of grading. My adjunct work has kicked in and I’m busier than I was for the last ten weeks or so.
  • I’m reading… Your Seven Year Old and Your Four Year Old by Louise Ames.
  • I’m cooking… not much. But I’m sure bookmarking recipes at Weelicious.
  • I’m grateful for… I am so very, very grateful for good friends who have served as good counsel during this crisis with Ben. My church.
  • I’m praying for… healing for Ben and a great report from Dr. T on Tuesday for Katie. Extra, extra doses of patience for me wouldn’t hurt either.
  • A photo, video, link, or quote to share…This is Ben working on his math problems. Yes, he counts on his fingers, but he doesn’t need to. He’s just not quite confident enough yet.

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If you want to see what’s happening at other homeschool’s this week, head over to iHomeschoolNetwork to check them out.

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Seasons of a Mother’s Heart: Chapter 4

The number and level of ironies with this chapter and this blog and its timing are almost too numerous to mention, but it’s a blog, so I can mention with impunity.

Chapter 4 resonated with me on so many levels. We’ve been having increasing levels of frustration on all fronts because we don’t seem to have a plan. By that, I mean that we don’t seem to have a goal we’re aiming for with much of anything. Everything is focused on getting through today. We barely have a plan for the next day, which makes a lot of my planner angst super humorous. But when it comes to a life plan, or vision for the homeschool, or a where do we want to be five years from now discussion, we are completely stuck.

We got this way, a little, because of the trauma of Katie’s birth and then her surgery and the whole life on hold thing until we got through those things. And then it was P’s parents. And so on and so forth. You can see where all of those things could put life on hold, but now we’re almost two years out from Katie’s surgery (October 20th will be two years if anyone aside from us is counting). In December we’ll have seen a full year since P’s dad’s passing. But how we got here isn’t important. The question is how do we get out.

Ironically, P has been feeling these same yearnings. We went on a date Sunday afternoon/early evening thanks to finding a new babysitter (well, new to us). The kids think she rocks, so this will become a more regular thing that we’re doing. While we were walking in the mall (yes, I know, but the first time out we didn’t want to be too far away in case the kids terrorized her and she wanted to leave), P expressed some dissatisfaction with the fact that we really haven’t had any goals for the last few years and asked that we start working on that. He feels, we both feel, somewhat rootless, somewhat unstable because we don’t know where we’re going or why we want to get there.

To me, this connected up beautifully with this chapter. As I was reading, I kept thinking, well of course we need to figure out the foundation — the goals that we have as a family, the purpose for our homeschool. The why; the divine purpose for each of our kids. We need a, God help us, plan.

As I look at our homeschool, I realize that what we don’t have is a long range plan. I have short range one: get through this year and on to second grade prek4; and I have a daily one: survive the day with minimum of tears and yelling. But, that’s really not a foundation I want to build a life on. It’s not what I want Ben to recall about his early school years: most days we didn’t yell a lot at each other.

I think the key for all of us, though, is counting the cost. What do we have to give up in order to successfully build the life that we want to have? What do we have to choose in order to make the family and the house the way that we believe it was intended to be. Our vision is somewhat different from Clarkson’s and I think that we place our emphasis on somewhat different things, but overall, we have to find, for ourselves, what the plan (or blueprint if you’re using Susanka’s analogy instead) is for us and then decide how we best work toward it.

What spoke to my heart was her planning a vision for her children for three to five years and then meeting with her children to share her vision and to hear theirs. What she didn’t say, and I wonder, is if those visions ever clashed. Perhaps not because Clarkson seems to be much better at discerning what’s in her childrens’ hearts than I am, but I also wonder if she’s better at it because she’s been at this a lot longer than I have. Hmmmm. I need to think about this some more.

Overall, we need to develop some longer range goals and plans so we can focus our day to day lives on more than simply existing. We all need to live as fully and as deeply as possible for as long as we’re here.

To see what others are saying about this book please seeHome With the Boys‘s current post and link up.

Books mentioned in this post:

*All book links are affiliate links to amazon.com. I rarely generate any income from this, but should you feel moved to buy a book or something, you’re helping out my book and game fund.

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Seasons of a Mother’s Heart: Chapter 3

Synchronicity seems to be the name of the game for this chapter. I was on a trip this week for work and I took a long a different book The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka for reading on the plane. I know, I know, a real, paper book, but they don’t let you read e-readers during take off and touch down and that’s when I need to read the most. Anyway, this book touched on a number of topics including that people have a deep need for both belonging and significance. It also identifies the fact that people need time or space to be on their own for a bit to restore their deepest intuition/soul/being, whatever you choose to call it.

In the parenting course that P and I are taking Positive Parenting Solutions the absolute core principle of the course is that every person needs a sense of belonging and significance. Failure to provide those two things are what result in most of what we view as misbehavior. Since she talked about this part in the free seminar I attended, I don’t think I’m giving anything away here, but believe me when I say there is a lot more to the program and we’re really learning about ourselves and our parenting by doing this. You can also read her book, If I Have to Tell You One More Time… if you’d rather. The book is a condensed version of the course — a sort of desktop reference, if you will, but if that’s all you have time for I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The other thing that both Susanka and McCready talk about is the importance of time. McCready is focused on time with the child, but seems also to suggest that parents need some time to themselves as well. So imagine surprise when Clarkson also suggested that an important component of her life is her “alone” time. I found this somewhat surprising in the light of the last chapter where she was discussing the submission of will and the idea that she sacrifices for her family. It almost seems contradictory to me, but then I realized that it’s truly not.

We do make significant sacrifices in order to homeschool our children and to bring them up in the way that we want them to go, and to some degree or another one of those sacrifices is our ambition or some of our personal/professional goals. But it doesn’t mean a total sacrifice of self. As she pointed out in this chapter, even Jesus took a break from the multitudes once in a while.

When I think about that I realize that it’s okay that sometimes I need that break. I need that refreshment of spirit in order to be more available to my family and more able to demonstrate and embody the values that I want them to learn/absorb/practice. I need to learn to not feel guilty about being away from them and to focus on the refreshment and engagement with God that I seek as I take that time.

Books mentioned in this post:

To see how others are responding to this book check out Home with the Boys and the link-up at the bottom.

As always, links are amazon affiliate links and can make me a small amount of money if you decide to click on one of these links and purchase.

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Seasons of a Mother’s Heart: Chapter 2

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure how this chapter was going to go. I’m not convinced that I’ve ever heard a specific calling from God for me to do anything. I wonder sometimes if I don’t listen carefully enough or if I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be hearing. I believe, though, that my career trajectory happened the way that it did for a reason. That reason is so that I would be in a position to homeschool my children when they needed it.

If I had made it on the tenure-track somewhere, I would not have been able to take the time that Katie needed for her recovery. I would not have been able to slow down and design the way I want my career to blend with my home life. I do believe that what happens in my home is one of the most important things that happens in my day each day. My connections to my children and what they learn from me about the world, about God, and about His place in their life cannot be replicated elsewhere. If I had made it on the tenure-track there is a very good chance that Katie would have to have a second surgery just before she turned five, but because I homeschool, because I chose differently, throughout my career trajectory, she gets an extra year. It allows me to make a curriculum that interests and intrigues my son and find resources that teach my daughter at the speed she is capable of.

I know that part of my resistance to this chapter is the sense of submission which is a hard word for me to accept intellectually. This is an area that I struggle with daily: the notion of submission to God’s will and accepting that he has a plan for my life that may not look like my plan. Of course, I’m a lousy planner, so some divine guidance would really be appreciated. I have found that choosing this path is seen as criticism of other paths that I didn’t choose. It can be challenging to cope with that, at times, but that’s where I lean on the rock and hope that I answer graciously and kindly.

I think what sticks with me most from this chapter: “The biggest sacrifice for me has been in the areas of relationships and harmony” (Clarkson, 2009, p. 50).

Following this path has led to strain in some relationships. It has caused some disharmony where harmony previously existed. We don’t quite fit in anywhere anymore and, for me, that’s okay if a little sad. I feel for the kids, though, when the inevitable school discussions happen and they say they homeschool. Most kids either don’t know what that means or think that they do and offer up their interpretation of what the kids do. It’s usually not accurate and we have to have conversations about others’ assumptions afterward.

All that said, I love this path. I love this life. It’s hard. It takes time, dedication, and sacrifice, but I wouldn’t change it. Not for a second.

If you’re interested in others’ reactions to this chapter, please go check out this link.

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Seasons of a Mother’s Heart: Chapter 1

My new motto, also? Two section headings from chapter 1: “Choose to be thankful” (p. 34) and “learn to be content” (p. 36).

When I decided to read this book and “join” this book club, I wondered if I was going to “fit” with it. By this, I mean that I’m a thinker and an arguer by nature. My relationship with God is characterized by struggle. Nothing about my faith journey has been easy, and I don’t suspect that will change at this stage in the game. People for whom faith comes easily have my envy and my respect simultaneously. I wish it could be that “easy” for me, but it is not and I’ve come to see that there are many different kinds of relationship with God (actually, though reading the Bible in 90 days last year) and that there are those who have my sort of relationship and it’s okay.

What resonated with me in this chapter, what made me stop and say, wait, it’s not always that easy for her either was her descriptions of her vision/expectation of events and the reality of those events. The Christmas cookies stood out for me because that’s me. I go into things full of expectation of how it will go and the things that will happen, and when things don’t happen according to my plan, I come a little unglued. Okay. A lot unglued.

And even though I know that countless women have gone through the same thing before me, for some reason, this time, reading it in this book made it click. It’s not about the cookies or the chapter in the math book or the spelling words or the way the painting looks. It’s about the moments that I’m spending with my children doing these things. Those are the moments that I should be and am thankful for. It’s those moments that are “God sightings” (to use the phrase that Ben learned in VBS this year). Those messy, crazy, sometimes awful moments are just as much God’s doing as the moments when Ben or Katie shows me in some way how much they love me.

What I know I have to work on now is contentment. I need to learn to be content with circumstances as they are, as God has presented them to me, and accept. It sounds so easy, but I know that this will be the hardest work that I do as a mother and as a person. It takes an astounding amount of faith to accept all that happens as God’s will, God’s choosing, God’s timing, and believe that it is as it was meant to be.

About ten years ago, P and I had some serious relationship troubles. The kind that led to a trial separation. One of the things that I learned during that separation is that my expectations tend to be too high for anyone to meet and so I am always disappointed. When we were working on bringing ourselves back together (which clearly we did), I repeatedly reminded myself that I needed to have no expectations of how something would go or what something would be. Somewhere in the last few years, I’ve lost sight of that and chapter 1 has reminded me that I need to get back to the place where I have no expectations (well, I’m going to stick to always expecting that we’ll live through the day because that gives me peace, but otherwise).

How much better could our lives be if, instead of setting insanely high expectations for ourselves and our children and our homeschool, we accepted each day as it comes — as the gift that it is from God?

That’s my goal, and and that’s what I learned from reading chapter 1 of Seasons of a Mother’s Heart.

If you want to know what others who are reading the book learned from chapter 1, please visit Home With the Boys and check out the links.

*As always, where possible book links are to my affiliate account at Amazon. Every little bit helps when it comes to homeschool materials.

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Bible in 90 Days: I Finished…

At the beginning of the year, I made a list of goals. Top on the list was to read the Bible in 90 days. This was a challenge that I heard about from a friend and I followed her link to Amy’s blog which in turn led me to Bible in 90 Days website. I debated with myself for a bit and then decided to go “all in” and see if I could do it. I have tried at least ten times in the last decade to read the whole Bible, but I never made it. This time, I did.

What made the difference?

In my opinion, it was the community of readers. There was/is a vibrant community of men and women who were reading along with me. When they stumbled, I tried to encourage them to pick up and keep going. When I stumbled, they did the same for me. We had great discussions on Monday nights. Over the course of three months, I missed one discussion because of illness. Those discussions were part encouragement, part Bible study, and part check in, and I found them invaluable to my reading and my feelings about what I was doing.

What Have I Learned?

I’m struggling with what I learned from the experience and how I feel now. I know that some folks consider me fairly religious and others consider me one step away from totally lapsed, so it’s probably not surprising that I’m conflicted still. I know that I’m not going to be spouting Bible verses at dinner or offering a Biblical response to any and all questions asked of me (I’ll say you’re welcome in advance to those who are going to see me in late April and in June).

I still believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, not the inerrant word of God. That hasn’t changed. I believe that people wrote what they believed to be true based on their experiences, but my reason tells me that humans are fallible reporters and that events may not have occurred precisely as they’re described in the Bible. And I’m okay with that even though I know a lot of people aren’t. I’m not saying it’s fiction, more like memoir. When you’re relying on the memory of people, you’re dealing with faulty devices that work to about 70% capacity at the best of times.

I keep asking myself if my faith has changed. Is it deeper? Do I feel like God spoke to me during this or compelled me to keep reading or, alternatively, did I feel a Satanic influence to stop at any point? On the first point, I don’t think so. If faith is a swimming pool, then I’m probably the one you see dipping her big toe in a thousand times to check the temperature before deciding to get in. And now I’ll go for 1001. I wondered if immersing myself in Bible reading for three months would have a significant impact, and I’m not sure that it did. I forced myself to read and not analyze. I didn’t let myself take notes or do any of the 101 other ways I know to create stronger connections with something that I’m reading (based on the whole, I’m an English professor in “real” life thing). I don’t know if that would have made a difference or not. It’s something for me to think about as I continue my journey.

I don’t know if I felt God pushing me to read, but I definitely felt negative influences trying to get me to stop reading. Illness got in the way a couple of times. There was a person who came in about halfway through to comment that she felt reading fast didn’t allow for serious study and if you weren’t doing serious study then why would you bother at all. There were people who came in each week to the Twitter chats to complain about the speed and how it wasn’t allowing for connection and true immersion, and those attempts struck me as attempts to stop others from pursuing this specific goal in this specific way. Honestly, yes, close textual reading provides a much richer experience, but it also takes an extremely long time and I would not have stuck it out if I had to commit to a year or more to do it “right.”

I think, ultimately, what I’ve learned is that I still have a great deal to learn. What I’ve learned so far is that God is far more patient with us than I had ever been led to believe by the comments and statements of others. I’ve learned that judgment doesn’t belong in our hands, and that we should not be casting judgment on others unless we’re sure that we are blameless ourselves.

I’ve also learned that there are parts of faith that need to be in community that need a public “face” and there are parts of faith that need to be private and belong between God and me. I think where that point is may be different for each person, but that every person likely has private and public aspects of their faith.

Where do I go from here?

This is where I think we can see the biggest change in me. If asked at the beginning, I would have said that once I finished this I’d move on to my regular reading and put this behind me. Now? I’m going to read through Proverbs in the month of April with Amy and work through my rector’s Bible reading challenge. Fr. Doug’s challenge is far less intense than the one that I just completed, but I’m going to use his M.A.P journal technique and see if that adds to my experience since the reading schedule is less intense.

I also know that I want to keep working with the Bible in 90 Days challenge group in some way. One way is that I hope to serve as a mentor in the July group. I plan to try to read and post during that. We’ll see what happens.

It’s been a good experience and one a strongly encourage others to try. There is a group starting July 5th. I’d love to see you there.

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B90Days: Tired

It’s been a very long week in adjunctmom land. Yes, I know it’s Monday, but it’s been a week since my last check in on this project and during the course of that week, I wrapped up a term; started a new term; worked on getting a new mentee up to speed (I mentor new faculty as part of my job); had a house guest for the weekend; went to a sewing/quilting expo; and, tried to keep up with my Bible reading.

The amazing news, to me, is that I am current. I am reading day 52 today, so that means I’m precisely where I’m supposed to be. It’s been rough going as I knew Isaiah would be. This is such a hard book of the Bible and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way based on Amy’s warnings at the end of the chat last week.

Compared to the books that precede it, Isaiah feels arid and oppressive and dark, but it also gives us the vision of the future. It shows us that faithfulness in the face of great trauma and pain will be rewarded, but it takes patience.

I think that’s what I most connect with in this week’s reading: the feeling that great patience is required of people of God. If you’re following him, life won’t suddenly be full of sunshine, rainbows, and candy sprinkles. There will be dark days. There will be hard days. We have to be prepared for those and trust in our faith rather than assume that this is in some way God’s assessment and judgment that we’re experiencing. In some ways Isaiah wraps back around to Job. Instead of testing a single person, a whole tribe is tested and warned of the coming darkness and given the tools needed to survive.

I was also interested that Isaiah is the source of the “your ways are not My ways” and “only the good die young” ideas. It’s interesting how much of our culture, at large, derives from this one book even when we don’t realize it. Weird.

At least, that’s how I read it. You can find out other perspectives by going over to Mom’s Toolbox and checking out the other guys and gals talking about this.