A return to Homeschooling

It didn't take long for us to decide to go back to homeschooling. My health is to a point where I believe I can handle it again. The kids HATE public school, and I must say that I do as well.

The amount of government game playing is unbelievable. The control from the teachers and school staff really gets under my skin. My children have spent the past two and a half years learning to take the state tests.

Not to mention the fact that in one week's time, I saw a 7 year old dragged from the elementary school in handcuffs and there was a gang fight at the middle school. We drove over an hour a day to take them to the "best schools" in our town as well.

My children spent their time being herded around in lines. Learning to accept bullying because standing up for yourself got you in trouble, not the bully. They learned to stay quiet and follow someone else's rules about what they were learning even if it was boring, too hard or just plain stupid. If they had a hard time, they were in danger of being labeled slow somehow.

There is no doubt in my mind that we are making the right decision.

I had never had them in school before. We homeschooled from birth...for 13 years....until I got ill. I ran the support group, went to conferences, talked to many people about public school but I had never seen it for myself. Suffice it to say, I have seen enough.

This time, we will be free of a lot of the things that wasted our time before...such as a rigoriuous, ridiculous pursuit of perfection. I am so looking forward to living life with my kids again and learning as we go along!

Testing Windows Writer

Yup, just downloaded this, trying to see how easy it is to blog with it…

Healing and freedom

This title, to me is so powerful. I have spent these past few years pondering and brewing on these concepts. There is a steadily growing part of myself that will not tolerate these concepts to remain conceptual, but demands that they are realized in all areas of my life.

Not since the terrible illness and the brain surgeries...but I believe way before this time. That part of my life was simply a larger spring board. In some ways, I believe that I allowed or contracted this illness to bring about my healing and freedom.
Perhaps in some place before time and space, in the stillness of being where my creator and I planned my existence. With love and grace, I believe we picked and chose the lessons I would need to become fully me, to realize my destiny. Free will came when I would again and again need to choose to surrender to love and healing, or to continue on in bondage and delay my freedom.

 I believe that we do choose bondage constantly. We seem to desperately seek it out.

 Consider for a moment all of the people, places and things that we run to in order to remain bound.

 Religion, that was a biggie for me. I am wholly united and in love with God, don't get me wrong.
 I am Him, and He is me...if you can get your mind around that without labeling me a heretic.

 Religion, however gave me SO many chances to deny myself in a not-so-healthy way. To choose the style of conservative, Patriarchal brand of religion that I once embraced was probably one of my sickest moments. To believe that my God would have created me to be any less than His other creations, and that I should remain in abject submission to man in order to be right with God now strikes me as sheer insanity.

 Part of my healing and freedom over these years has been the process of unwinding my beliefs and taking them to God for review. So far, no matter how ugly or angrily I have come to him, he has yet to smote me on the ashes of ruin.

 Next to religion, we choose bizarre and hurtful cultural beliefs as a way to be bound. Just looking a the cover of a popular magazine in the supermarket should show us how harmful our cultural concepts of female beauty are. How many girls and women utterly hate themselves because they cannot look like the airbrushed model before them.
 Even the word model...as if this standard of beauty should be adopted and modeled my us.

 Let's not forget the desperate seeking of love and acceptance that most of spend our lives dedicated to.
 I think it is because we are so bound, of our own making and sometimes from the abuse another bound person perpetrated upon us...whatever the reason, we cannot find God or love or freedom, so we choose again and again to be bound and hurt by people.

 If religion, unattainable standards of perfection or people aren't enough bondage...we will choose harmful substances and behaviors that will further bind us. I will not elaborate, but I have had more than my fair share of experience in this area of addiction.

Addiction is not only choosing to ingest harmful substances, but addiction is any form of self abuse, mentally or physically. Stress and worry are one of the most popular forms of self abuse around!

 Knowing this, and knowing that only I can free myself from the many bandages that I willingly walk, or run into is such a powerful thought for me right now.

 Where once I strove to have it all together (whatever that means) and to please God with all sorts of things that He never asked of me, I now stand in a place of complete surrender and brokenness.
 Not a brokenness of spirit or soul, but a brokenness that I fought for and agonized over for so long. A completely dismantling of all my beliefs and a realization of how they allowed me to perpetrate bondage.

 Why on earth would I/We willingly stay bound, in fact seek out new ways to ensure that we do?

 It is easier to stay bound than it is to surrender to LOVE.

It is easier to feed the distraction, the sickness and the chatter between our ears than it is to sit in stillness and realize, slowly and perhaps for the first time ever that we are already perfect in God's sight.

That we are ENOUGH.

That there is nothing more that we have to do to earn God's love or approval.

 Realizing that will completely change your life. It has mine. Every time something else pops up to challenge that is an opportunity to reexamine the belief behind that distraction and the freedom to cast it aside. 

 Healing is surrender to LOVE.

 For me, at least for this moment, I choose LOVE.

Left Turns

Today I was struck with the thought that my life has been a series of left turns.

 It was one of those moments where I believe God spoke to me and showed me this whole picture of my life and answered many of my questions in just a brief moment of inspiration. I am sure that my words will not be able to convey the fullness of that moment.

 I saw that I am always making left turns...which bring me back around in a circle instead of a straight line. This was not a discouraging thought as if I am not "getting anywhere" instead, I was wrapped in comfort at the knowledge that no matter how far I think I have gone in any direction, right or wrong, I am actually only circling back around to where I started, in the presence of my Creator.

 The bible says "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you." Psalm 139:7-12

 In my journey I have experienced what the Psalmist says here. I have thought that I was in the heavens and I have made my bed in the depths. I now see that both of these are illusion. I have never left God's side, or rather...He has never left mine.

 The course in Miracles says that the belief that we are separated from God is insanity. I can relate to that. Insanity. To come back to sanity is to realize that we cannot be separated from God. To know salvation and forgiveness is to restore our sanity.

 The threads of this concept have been ever woven through my tapestry. I saw that thread when I realized that the so called "goodness" I was walking in when I was an ultra-conservative Christian was nothing. It was all vanity and trying to be "good enough" to reach God. It took me many years to realize that I was already perfect to God through the sacrifice of Jesus. For me to deny that by working to be good, was for me to deny that work at Calvary.

 Why build towers of goodness higher and higher to reach God like the tower of Babel? I had spent so much time stacking bricks for nothing. I thought that I had come so far, come to the mountain tops...when I was only making left turns.

 I have also seen the other side of this Psalm. I have made my bed in the depths, I have thought "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me." I have walked down dark places trying to escape God's presence because, surely I am not good enough, surely I have messed up so bad that there is no coming back this time! But, I was only making left turns.

 In my twisted humor, I picture myself charging off in these directions full speed and see God just shake his head and smile at me as I am actually only making tiny circles in the dust. Wearing a path down in the mud when I should be sitting beside him in the green grass.

 There is nowhere that I need to go. There is nothing that I need to do. I just need to realize that I cannot be separated from God.

To think otherwise is insanity and the origin of all my troubles, "sins", pains and suffering.

  "I am like God, and God like me. I am as large as God, He is as small as I. He cannot above me, nor I beneath Him be." Selatius, 17th Century. S

Hello

Well, it has been over a year since I posted. So much has happened and so much has changed that I can't even begin. I am still fighting Chiari every day...it is an incurable brain disorder. We have moved to Georgia to help DH's elderly mother. That is a LONG story. Life is not what it was..I have changed in so many ways, as has my family. I realized this morning that we have made it through the very fires of hell together. I am grateful for my family...there are not enough words. I hope to begin writing again, as my health allows. I have days where I just sleep, but I can walk on my own again, cook, clean, drive (some days)and do my best to care for the kiddos. They are all in school now...homeschooling seems like a distant memory tho I did it for 13 years. They are growing like weeds and thriving where they are planted currently. My oldest is about 6'1 driving, shredding on guitar and has a wonderful girlfriend that we adore. Life goes so fast. Things are not perfect, not ordered as I might order it but I am grasping to believe that God has things in line. I hope to share some of what has transpired but how do I begin to tell of total and radical changes in my body, mind and spirit? How does one begin to tell the story of loss of faith and utter hopelessness once that dark grip has loosened? How can I tell of the undying devotion and love that I have gotten only from my husband and children in the midst of needing total care? This has affected all of us in ways that are yet to be seen. We have lost and gained and grieved and rejoiced and screamed and cried and yet we are still here, being moved forward still. Today, my heart is full and my mind is quiet. I call that recovery and healing as I know it to be now.

Isolation?

since I have become ill, I have literally lost most of my friends and acquaintances. It's been very hurtful and confusing. Reading that it is a common thing for people to get scared and run from illness does little to make the sick person feel better. I've been lonely and bitter about the sudden isolation. I can't get out to see people either, so that doesn't help. Somedays, when I'm having a bad day and I can't get out of bed, I think about the people I'm missing these days. The last 3 days have been hard. I'm too dizzy to walk. I am finding it hard to want to get out of bed when I know I'm just going to stumble around and hope to not fall. My headaches are severe lately, my arsenal of pain meds don't touch the pain. It's hard to keep going, especially when you feel alone. Today I realized that maybe I'm not supposed to have any of these people in my life. Maybe they are not really what I need. If I need to walk this path with just my husband and kids, that has to be ok. Maybe I don't need anyone else? I know that I have to move forward with or without other people. We have been handling this on our own so far, maybe that is the way God wants it? Who knows God's will, not me. I do know that I have learned so much about the ways of man, the ways of myself and the reality of hard times. You really, really do see who has your back when the rubber hits the road. Peoples words really mean nothing unless you see the actions too. These are my realities, not written as a downer, just my feelings in writing.

Smart phone my foot! It's tough getting this thing to write on my blog! Hopefully it makes sense. This has been so hard on my family. I wish I could make it go away. I have seen my poor husband doing my job and his. I have to say that I have seen the icky side of people in this too. Like the man beaten and robbed in the ditch being blamed for his misfortunes by the religious right who cross the street to walk by me Most troubling. There have been a few good samaratian moments tho and I God loves me and will see us thru, with or without anything else.