You Can’t Change The Wind, But You Can Adjust Your Sails!

With the new school year starting, there is excitement in the air. Kids are excited to get new school supplies and see their new curriculums. Parents are excited to get back into a routine and have some normalcy back after a hectic summer. With all this excitement and familiarity beginning, there is a heavy air of what’s to come. The days will unfortunately take a bit of a turn. The excitement begins to die down as the kids struggle to learn new techniques & get discouraged with tedious lessons & boring worksheets. The liberties they have had over the summer are now lost and the restlessness starts to settle in. Moms may feel the strain and the frustration of feeling inept and inadequate as they struggle themselves to teach on a daily basis. Not to mention still taking care of a busy household full of chores and it’s own separate demands. Tired, trying to teach their kids to be disciplined as they themselves battle their own apathetic, comatose and lifeless self. It’s inevitable for the tide to turn and the winds to change direction. The storms will come, the waves will rock your harmonious new school year and if your not careful, smash you into emotional pieces. You may be thinking right now, how uplifting this article is and how it’s encouraged you so far. But the reality of this article is not for encouragement purposes, but to prepare us all for what’s to come. If we are aware of our history we can use it to make a better future. In other words, if it didn’t work the first time it’s utterly fruitless to repeat it a second time. Personally, history tells me that meals during our school year are a bitter pill. So to change that this year, I have implemented a weekly meal plan. For the month of September we will be having Meatloaf Mondays, Spaghetti Tuesdays, Hamburger Gravy Wednesdays, Stew Thursdays and Baked Chicken Fridays. In October it will be Enchilada Mondays, Potato Soup Tuesdays, Tetrizini Wednesdays, Spanish Rice Thursdays and Pizza Fridays. Did I mention that on Mondays and Thursdays the food is made in a crock pot to further my ease? History also vehemently screams at me, concerning our learning styles. I’ve realized that if I mix into their school time, things they are actually interested in, then the things they don’t care so much about are really no big deal and get accomplished with less hassles. I’ve become less concerned with what grade they are in and more connected to the enjoyment of learning itself. Weekly Library visits geared towards the questions they want answered fills this bill perfectly. This helps foster healthy appetites for learning and not only do they enjoy the investigation process but will feel a certain dignity that comes with self-education. I can here it now, the not so silent shrill of a frustrated mother trying to be somewhere on time. My history has repeated itself one to many times in this area. This assuredly needs to be nipped in the buttocks of procrastination. This starts by getting up earlier and waking our kids up as well. This sadly has destroyed my tranquil, undisturbed and peaceful mornings, but I get a continual Holy Spirit reminder that God did not put me here for me. On Wednesdays, lunch will be packed and clothes lied out for gymnastics the next day. I will incorporate the children in this new venture as well. We will do a similar thing on Saturday Nights. Cause we all know how peace-loving Sunday mornings can be, not! On days that they have sports, they will come home and put the clothes in the wash themselves, that way when I do laundry or should I say, if I do laundry they will be loaded and ready to wash. So forget the encouraging article you may have thought this to be and get prepared. Let’s make this new school year excitement last just a little longer then usual. We can ride these waves instead of being pulled down by them, we can attempt to be secured and ready when the storm hits instead of being surprised and pummeled by it, we can be the ones to turn the tide, instead of it turning on us. Together, lets all ease the main and spill out some wind.

Anchoring Your Mind We live in a world that screams "I need my me-time!" I used to hear myself say it every now and then, in-fact these words still seem to ballet across the thoughts of my mind if I am not careful. One day it hit me, I can't remember why or even when, but it hit me that this so called "me-time" just didn't seem all that biblical. As I began to share these thoughts with my then, computer friends, well, we'll just say that the welcome mat was not so welcome anymore. I was dispelling a popular and wanted myth in our culture. When I did this, my own popularity plummeted to oblivion. Which 2 years ago was good, since I needed to let my computer world shut down and restart my real world. As I began the quest to find the truth about "me-time" I had no idea the conflict that would ensue within me. I hadn't realized the slow desensitization that had occurred through television, movies, commercials and well meaning self-help books. Notice the SELF in self-help. I felt that I deserved "me-time" and I let God know this. I told him I had 4 kids and a husband who had 4 businesses. I was a home-school mom. I was a preachers wife and very involved in the community. Surly God was not aware of these things, so I maintained the idea that I needed to remind him. That word deserved is what got me in trouble in the first place. I have said it audibly as well as in my thoughts. "I deserve this new outfit, I deserve to get a massage, I deserve to sit on my butt for a little bit, I deserve to talk on the phone without being interrupted, I deserve to go to bed without having to always ..... Well, I think you get the idea. Sadly, none of these statements seemed to convince my Lord of anything. So I thought I would throw some scripture at him. Oh, yeah, nothing like reminding him of his own words, right? "Lord, remember Elijah? 1 Kings 19? Even he had to rest when life was just to much for him to manage. Didn't he deserve that rest? You even took care of him, sent your angels, fed him, gave him drink and laid him down again." Here is a little advice for you all. Don't' ever throw God's own words up in his glorious face and think it ain't gonna rain back down on you. Fortunately, for us we have a gracious God but lets not forget, he is also a just God. "Yes, Audy rest in me" Excuse me? What does that mean? Do I get "me-time" at last? Has God given me permission to lavish and pamper myself like I so deserve? "NO! Rest in me. Learn how to renew yourself in me, not in the computer, your friends, your phone, your books, your texting, your pampering. Learn what it means to rest in me." Honestly, I had no idea how to do that. 2 years later, I am sort of getting it, but have a long way to go. The last 2 weeks I found myself stretched to the max. With the new home-school year and now being secretary for my husband's business, not to mention my church duties, I am worn. I'm like an old rag ready to be tossed in the trash. So what did I do? I slipped into old habits. Stayed up to 1:00 in the morning shinning my surfboard and taking it for a spin on the net or should I say web, since that is what the Internet does to me, gets me caught in a web I can't get out of. God is gracious, so gracious. He calls us back to him when we slip away. He pulls us up when we have fallen back in to old ways. He gives us his word as a reminder of what he desires for us. He lead me to a book that has been collecting dust on a shelf for the last few years. I never opened it till last night. Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God. I cared little for what they personally had to say, but I grabbed onto the scripture it contained and dove in headfirst. The Lord kept me afloat as I rested in his words. I felt weightless and unsinkable. As I drifted from scripture to scripture I actually felt more anchored then ever. This was true "me-time." This was the rest I needed. This was the rest that 2 years ago he told me to seek out. Mark 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. If I am to truly be like Jesus who is really the only one who deserved anything. Then I will worry more about ministering to others then being ministered to. The way I see it, is the more I desire myself, the more I desire myself. Does that make sense? Serving myself just makes me want more of that. I am never really satisfied. I need to drink from the well that Jesus offers and then I will finally have my thirst quenched. Psalm 42:11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. When I feel this home-school and life uneasiness, I need to yet praise the Lord. He will give me a sound state of mind (health) favor and grace which will cheer me. John 10:10-11 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. Talk about a lack of "me-time." Look at that, read it again. What are we to do for our sheep? Christ was more concerned with his sheep having abundant life then he was worried about himself having it. Sure he rested, but always in God. Lets redefine "me-time" in-fact, lets just take it right out of our vocabulary all together. I am slowly realizing, cause apparently I don't get it the first 5 times He tells me, that I need to be anchored and rested in God. I am learning to set an anchor right, with control and confidence. The confidence that God's words will be the ballet in my mind as opposed to the worlds words.