Sleepless

Tomorrow is the first day of school.  We explained the new (old) routines, read, prayed, tucked in, and enjoyed a little peace and quiet before going to bed.  Here I am, 2 hours later, wide awake!  I think I almost have the Christmas Eve feeling; excitement, anticipation, curiosity.  You would think I was the one getting on that big yellow bus in the morning!

It will certainly be strange to have all 6 school age kiddos gone for the day.  With eleven years of home schooling all, most, or some of them I am not quite sure how I feel, or what I will do with myself!  I am missing the comfortable familiarity of pouring over the curriculum catalogs, making lists, and placing the orders.  The UPS man hasn't been ringing my doorbell.  It is a big change, and I don't do change well.  It is going to be an interesting year.

Not that I will lack for things to do.  It seems that the years of expanding our family combined with taking care of them, including the schooling, have left many thing undone around here.  I'm not sure how the molehills turned into mountains.  Maybe it was the every other year pregnancies.  I didn't do them well.  Each time I started out with high hopes - this time I will NOT be exhausted and sick for months on end.  It always worked out the same; with me on the couch, semi-alive, and in a state of DPD (During Pregnancy Depression).

With the baby turning 4 in a month, I suppose the hormones have finally returned to "normal".  (Just in time for pre-menopause, I'm predicting!) I am now faced with with re-training in almost every area of my life.  My physical body, my mind, my emotions, and my spiritual life all need work, as do my home and my relationships.  I will have to fight my natural urges to jump in and just start fixing things as opposed to making the needed changes one step at a time so they can become habits and have a good chance of sticking.

The past year God showed me many things I didn't really want to see.  He showed me how much I was living in little boxes that I put myself in (and tried to put Him in, as well).  I am more than a little overwhelmed at facing all the messes, both the literal and figurative.  I want to wiggle my nose like Samantha and just start fixing stuff.  That's not how it works on this adventure though.  There is work to the "working it out", and being transformed doesn't happen in an instant, but is a process.

I'm a little bit scared (read totally terrified) that the ones He brought into my life to help me get to the path I need to be on are leaving.  Yet I know that fear does not come from God.  Ultimately, He is all I need, He is sufficient, He is more than enough.  It is time for this baby bird to leave the nest.   We were talking with the kids tonight about the lessons they will learn in this new school year.  The most important thing any of us can come to know after we choose to follow Christ is how to live a life that pleases God.  Yet all the knowledge we can attain is useless if we never put it into practice.  What good does it do for me to know how to make a fantastic chocolate cake if I don't ever bake one?  Does it benefit me to learn to speak French but never utter a word of it?

I have been given the information.  I have the tools.  It is time to pick them up, and intentionally enter the training phase.  When May comes around, and I am rejoicing at the summer spread before me with all it's freedom and lazy days, I plan to be a different woman than I am today.  I want to please my Father in all I do.  I want to be refined until His image is reflected in me.  I'm not going to just try.  I am going to train.