You Just Gotta Be in the Mood!

Whatever it is, you just gotta be in the mood! Drawing, nope, playing the piano, no, singing, no, reading, no, blogging, nope, it just does not work if you're not in the mood. That goes for learning things too. We've started a new schedule in our home-schooling efforts. This is the year of experimenting all in an effort to bring a joy of learning back to our home. I have been doing this task of home-schooling for eight years. I've been driven. I've burned my children out and myself. So in an effort to find joy, we have deviated from our course to return back to the style of schooling which was at the beginning of our journey. We have traveled from there to here to find that what we initially were doing was right for our family. That is the thing about most home-schoolers. If we doubt ourselves at all, we will jump through all kinds of hoops to correct whatever the problem might be to make sure our children are learning. But we come into home-schooling with all kinds of expectations and when we feel that we are not measuring up, well.....it is just so easy to say, "well, I must not be doing something right." Only to find out after we have been over the mountain, under the mountain, through the mountain - to find that we had already arrived before we began.

So, here we are, back to school like we began. My children are highly auditory, some visual learners. In other words, they like to talk about what they are learning. They like the format presented in a format that requires me to read to them. Puuh-leeeze, they are teenagers. Can't they read for themselves? I started buying into what others were doing... I must have free time. I must have Me time. I must or else I will not be a good wife or mother. So, I sacrificed my children on the altar of 'Me Time'. It will make them independent. It will make them responsible. Think how far ahead they will be...After two years, I found that I missed my children. My children missed me. They didn't get any smarter or capable than they already were. In other words, we believed a lie.

I am finding that yes, I do need me time, but not necessarily in the way others say you must find it. Weird how we have this need to follow the herd and then we find out that God created each of us uniquely and the herd instinct doesn't fit anymore. I am finding this true in almost every area of my life. God does not expect me to be like my other Christian sisters. He created us all different to be the person that He wants us to be for Him. What might make one sister a good wife to her husband, would drive another sister's husband totally crazy. All of us are unique. There is no pat formula that brings success to anyone's walk with Jesus Christ other than being obedient to what He asks us to do for Him.

Might I encourage you to walk in the path that He has chosen for your family. We can all take advice and use the truths we find evident in our lives. But remember, what works for my family will not work for your family because that is not how God works.