A Season of Change

"Time may change me, but I can't change time." -David Bowie

   As of Monday, June 27th, the Moore household is now toddler free.  After 12 years of having an infant or toddler in the house, we are now starting a new season of life.  Our three children are now all school age.  The younest two which I have called babies are now no longer babies.  What shall they be called now? Duckies, monkies, or something else? What exciting and sad at the same time. 
   Exciting, in the fact that a new stage of life has now started.  We are all big enough now to go to an amusement park if we choose.  They are all old enough to start learning and understanding each action has a positive or negative reaction.  They are old enough to all have chores. To buckle themselves, wash themselves, brush their own teeth, ride bikes, help and so on. 
    Scary, well really for the same reasons, they are all big enough to do more. Get in more trouble, understand more clearly, think trough and ask bigger questions, or challenge what you tell them. Moreover, now that we (my husband and I) have conquered the toddler stages and have lived through them.  We get to learn a whole new stage, a new routine, new likes and dislikes, new discipline and discipleship challenges.  The question is what will this season bring?  What will we learn about one another in the dawning of this season? 
     The good news we still have the same instruction manual, the one we have had since the beginning and the one we will continue to use.  I am so thankful that there is no need for an updated version. It is timeless and applies to all ages.  The Bible is the rock we are standing on. For the past season, the present season and the seasons yet to come.

Turning our gaze back

On this path we have chosen.  You know when you start out on your adventures and you are really excited on what you have set out to do?  What happens when the excitement dies and life kicks in? What happens when the world starts to consume your life you are living?  What happens when gaze shifts just a little to the left or right?  You are miles off the road you thought you were once on.  It is so easy to do.


I have noticed that on our (I almost said mine it is not mine, I will address this more) a long the way God speaks to me in different ways sometime through a radio ministry, through his Word, but most of the he uses some kind of home school or family magazine.  Don't laugh I am serious most of the time whatever is going on in out lives at that moment will be written about in one of these forms. How on earth does God do that?  I know He is God.


Our gaze:  Raise a family against the grain, bring them home in a Christ centered home, educate them with out all the lies. Talk about God from dawn to dusk.  Not shove God down their throats but speak of Him and praise Him in all we do.


My shift: Thinking that this was "my" thing not ours.  Closing out the Principal my best friend, but pretending he was still included. I foolishly alienated him from a very important part of our life. 


How did that happen?: First of all, home schooling can consume a lot of your life. OKAY! I was, eating, drinking and breathing home school.  It is what I talked about,it is what I am passionate about.  The problem my passion was consuming me, it wasn't a part of my life it had become my life.  Second, I would become offensive if anything was said about how I was doing "my" thing.  Even if it was to help our children, "my" thing was being attacked.  Therefore I was being attacked. Third, which probably should be first my love of my life became last.  Which I did not see until he took the time to say, I don't know you anymore.  Wait, what? What are you talking about I am here, at home all day? How do you not know me? 


Solution: Lets talk, we talked for a whole week.  I won't say they were all beautiful but they were healing talks.  Talks of hurts, talks of love, talks like when you first start to date. What kind of music do you like, what are you dreams, have they changed?  Pray, not alone but together, share some time just the three of you, Hubby, God and you.  Put God back in the center of the two of you.


During this whole time our magazines start coming in.  First one on communication and not understanding each other.  My husband called me and said we could have actually written that one. Next couple of articles all came from the same magazine.  One on being that girl (you know the one your husband married), another one on the secret everyone who home school knows but doesn't talk about. It is tough on your marriage if you, do what I did, shut your spouse out and try to do it alone and not communicate. Okay where were these articles weeks or months ago.  Why didn't anyone share these secrets.  Learning things the hard way is hard. I do find it amazing that God has a way of letting us know that we are not alone in this.  That more than the two of us have these exact challenges and yes there is a light at the end of the tunnel.


Finally: Marriage is always changing, you can change together or apart.  It is best to change together, to continue to learn about one another, be open to what your spouse is telling you.  Putting them before your children and other things.  Make an effort to show your love for him. Change what you need to change and love abundantly. 


Extra note: It doesn't mean quit home schooling, it means change how you were doing it and truly include your spouse.  Except his encouragement and guidance lovingly and gracefully.

Wanting instead of experiencing

   Have you ever focused on all you want, instead of all you have?  If you say no that is okay, but I am choosing to say yes.  It might come in the form of the if only's, you know if only we (or I) had this...... It might come in the form of whys, Why do so and so have so much and we do not.  It could come in the form of I'll do it myself since God is not blessing me (us).  The list is long and the wants are many.  What I have found while God blesses us daily we can miss them all looking at, focusing and wanting more.  
   When I focus on the stuff, the unimportant stuff, the worldly stuff, I find myself begrudging my family.  The very selfish me stuff, clothes, bigger and better house, nicer car, a yard, a garden, a new kitchen, to be skinner, blah, blah, blah.  Want, want, want.
        What about all the things I have, beautiful children, a wonderful husband, the gift of life daily, the joy that comes with discoveries or learning something new. Laughter, love, Christ centered life and home.  The ability to walk down the street while my children ride their bikes.  Coffee at sunrise with my husband after we have ran together.  Life is so rich when you stop to see the wealth God has bestowed on you. 
     It is when I or you might stop focusing on the richness of Christ and the wealth the world has to offer that we stumble.  It is when you might realize you are completely poor or lacking something everyone has in abundance that joy is squelched completely.  When you worry about tomorrow when today has not even started.  Not be able to take your parents every where you want to when they visit.  Instead of the gift of time, the gift of love, the gift of memories that last a life time.  It is not the quantity of life it is the quality of it. 
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, the body more important than clothes?" Matthew 6:25
   I admit I struggle with this passage, because it is so very, very easy to worry about the stuff God tells you not to.  It is so very easy to want more than you need, to be caught up in the latest fashions, restaurants, homes, decor, you get the picture.  It is so very easy to miss life's defining moments, when you look past them.  When I focus on me instead of God.  I miss out, I am ugly to loved ones, I am a selfish women.
   I am so thankful for all God renews each day, all He states here try again I love you.  I am learning that the richness of God and a God centered life is for more abundant than I deserve.  It is something to cherish and not grumble about.  In the end God's promise in the rest of Matthew:
   "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Matthew 6: 26-27.
    Is complete truth, he loves you and is faithful to those who are faithful, my family's every need will be met.  Step out in faith and experience today.