Latest from the Homefront

Friday, April 18, 2008
Latest from the Homefront
Since I posted much about our son, in a pretty negative light, I would like to post some good stuff. Right now he is sweating it out, literally, in Honduras. If you go to the orphanage/mission site, our son can be seen welding, carry a huge rock on his shoulder, and yes, he is the one in the tree tying the tire swing up. The orphanage buildings are coming along, but the heat is taking a heavy toll and slowing the work down. Most of the folks are northerners, and just emerging from winter temperatures.
You can look back in the archives, around Nov. Dec. -2007 and Jan/Feb 2008 and you will see my lamentable posts requesting prayer for broken fellowship with friends of our family for 10 yrs. I am HAPPY to report, that although we will never hash out all the reasons behind what was said, done, and thought-past & present, The LORD has given us all an extra measure of His Grace for restoration with these folks. Truly, I am the one who is struggling most with my feelings of wanting to know why, but in a way not really wanting to know. Like Paul, putting those things behind..., we have to choose-- do we want to hold on to being right about a statement/situation that we thing was wrong/handled wrongly, OR do we seek the LORD's mind on the matter, and ask him to help us to forgive, forget and be fruitful? We have to make a choice between becoming BITTER or BETTER. In our flesh, with both hands tightly clenched, we want to hold onto being right (even when we find out we were really wrong, or think so), because in the beginning, it feels good, but it all turns bitter in the end. The one who loses the most is not the one who wronged us, or who we think wronged us. It's US who misses out on blessings, friendships etc. God had enabled us to choose to become better, not bitter.

In a few weeks our twins will be graduating from high school. When David graduated it was really hard on me. When people asked how many children we had, and then found out that we homeschooled too, they would almost always look at me in amazement. Being used to schooling 6, feeding 6, getting 6 up..... I knew downsizing to 5 would be strange. The first day of school the following year was strange. I kept feeling like somethign was missing..it was someone. On top of that, he was going to go out to A SCHOOL for the first time ever, and all the worst thoughts and fears came to mind. It wasn' that I doubted God's ability to protect him, but rather his propensity to follow along. Overall he did ok. I am sure that some of the pressure from school had an effect on the recent choices he made, both good and bad.
Graduation is sand in the hourglass to me. Besides making me think about my age, it makes me take inventory of my life. What will I leave behind when God calls me Home? Will people be changed for the better because I was a part of their life?
2008-2009 will be the most dramatic drop in students to date. Each year is passing like a vapour. Truthfully I don't like it. Before too long, my years of homeschooling will be behind me. I used to think glorious thought of what it will be like to have free time to sew, bake, read, write....all without the pressure of trying to put in our 180 days in a manner that was acceptable to the powers that be...now I am not so sure those days will be glorious, in the sense that the structure, what little we have, that has been in place since 1990, and I had only been out of school myself since 1983, will be gone. Perhaps some of my children will live close-by. My children tell me quite often that they will be bringing their babies to me for schooling, so I suppose I have not been such a mean teacher after all.
All I can do is trust the LORD to use me, and comfort me in the day ahead. Only HE knows what lies before me.