Kyler has been in camp this summer. So it has been wonderful one on one time for my Piper girl and I. It occurred to me that we have not had time like this since she was 7 months old, sick and hospital bound.
Even when Kyler was in school before, she and I spent our days with my grandmother. Shortly after, we brought our boy home for schooling. So these last few weeks have been a time of truly getting to know one another on a deeper, more personal level. She has never really known me as a mother of one.
When Kyler was young, he and I had 3 beautiful years together. We played together, learned together, grew together. When Justin left for boot camp, it literally was just he and I. We knew each other so tremendously well.
Fast forward to this summer. P and I are finally getting that chance to bond in the same way. As she and I sat in the kitchen floor, putting together puzzle after puzzle (her favorite), I stared at her in awe, beginning to let it sink in that our days together, not just alone, but in general were coming to an end.
Back to school the last two years has meant digging out our books, setting up kitchen experiments, letting paintings dry on the counters, running barefoot through the creek, and yoga in the living room. This year, as they venture back into the public school arena, I find myself saddened. Greatly.
I have trusted God. I have laid my babies, my marriage, my grief, my future, all at the feet of Jesus over the last few years. He has never once disappointed me. I have trusted His callings, never questioning, obeyed and have always found that His ways have always led me to the greatest good, healing, salvation, and better things than I could ever have dreamed up for myself.
But this, this calling He has placed on my heart, to send them back to school, I find myself not understanding, questioning, hurting, aching over. As Piper and I sat there in the kitchen, tears began to stream steadily down my cheeks. Baby girl came and sat on my lap, bigger than ever, wiping my tears away, comforting her mama instead of the other way around. I told her my heart was sad that soon we would not be spending our days together, that soon she would be in "big school" and that I was going to be working.
I don't just hurt because they are going back to public school, a place I really have no faith in. But the month of August brings a stupendously, outrageously, inconceivably large amount of change to our family. Our days together at home, after 9 years comes to an end. I go back to yoga teacher training, 2 three-day weekends a month for the next six month. I start a new job coaching JV Cheerleading at Hereford High School, preventing me from being home when they get home from school. I begin teaching yoga, two nights a week, coming home only at bed time.
I keep thinking of how little I will see them, telling myself, it is only temporary. Only to lose heart, sinking back into the belief that they are my everything, nothing matters more. How do I sacrifice what I believe what is best for them in order to pursue something for myself. Questions.
But I keep trying to remind myself that in the coming days of Jesus' return, none of this will matter. Not where they went to school, not whether or not they were immunized, not where I bought their clothes, not if they learn to multiply by 7, not if they eat a strictly organic diet, not if I gave them medicine or oils. The only thing that will truly matter is the personal relationship I help them foster with Jesus.
I heard something this week that has been sticking in my mind. Are you pursuing God with your eyes fixed on salvation? Or are you pursuing God solely to know your Father, your Creator? With all of the questions and heart-ache rolling around inside of me lately over schooling, this provoked something in me even deeper.
Sometimes we get so caught up in calling on God in prayer during our time of hard-ship and hurt, we ask for what we want or think would be best, to take away pain, to give us peace, for answers or healing...we lose sight of connecting to Him, just for the sake of knowing Him. He speak and we never listen. We hear and don't obey. We forget to seek Him because He is our Father, our Creator. We lose the idea of connecting to God personally, because we are living our lives out RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE FACE OF GOD. We are always in His presence, He stands beside us, yet we ignore Him. If your friends stood next to your side 24-7, would you walk in silence, ignoring their presence? Yet, that is what we so often fall into the practice of doing with Jesus. He is walking this path with us, yet we choose to walk in silence. Not listening silence, but ignorant silence.
My prayer this week has been to see God in the flowers and in His creation, to hear God in the laughter and words of His people and on the winds that blow, to feel God in the embraces of my children and in the movement of my body, to taste God in the fruits of His land and the kiss of my husband, to sense God in the gentle stirrings of my heart and in the wisdom of silence, to be more aware of His presence, to listen more, to trust even when I don't understand, and to follow Jesus as He leads me into deeper waters, resting in the assurance that He will never fail me.
Please excuse my candor, let's get personal. How are you seeking your Creator? Are you listening for His calling? Are you trusting in His plan even if you don't agree or understand? Are you following His stirrings in your heart? Take time this week to seek Him out, not because your hope is in the salvation He provides, not because you are seeking an answer, not because you want for something more, but simply because He is your Father. Because He is right beside you, because you are living out your life before the face of God and because He desired us to know Him personally, the way He already knows us.
As we want to know our children and for them to know us, it is God's desire that we would know Him, deeply, personally. I pray that you seek the Lord, aching for His presence with you, that He would draw you near, and that you would spend time in silent prayer, listening for His breath of love.
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