Take Two!

Two weddings this weekend. One local and one an hour and a half away!  One stargazer lily, the other red roses!   Blessed by both these families in different ways.  I am praying the Lord will bless them through me this weekend!  

This little light of mine...I'm gonna let it shine~

Early morning revelations...as I laid in bed contemplating the thought of "sleeping in," even though it was 7:15 am and by all intents and purposes, I had already "slept in" considering that 6 am, is the new norm.   So, instead of sleeping I leaned over grabbed the laptop, checked e-mails, surfed Facebook...and just laid thinking.  Did I do the right thing?

Thoughts about children who go to public school, and those that go to christian schools, those who charter school, and homeschoolers, plagued my mind. Was there a "right" way of doing it?   I don't think so, but... I thought about how we ourselves have traveled each one of these roads at one time or another, over the last 20 years, or add in our own school experiences, there is much to learn from it all.  For our children, each path has served a purpose.  I truly believe, there is nothing really wrong with any of these!  God will use whatever our choices are, we cannot alter the Lord's plan for our lives.  He is faithful to complete a good work in each of us.  There is no doubt he has a reason for allowing each of our choices...who knows how he will use each experience!  I believe that!

My mind then traveled into the future, thinking of how my girls (Lord willing) will live longer than any of us...who will they marry?  Will they marry?  Will he be a Godly man?  Will he lead his family in a God fearing way?  What will life be like, 10-15-20 years from now?   What will they need to know?  What will they experience?   What will they have to deal with?  Even Jesus had to come and experience and deal with the earth before he died for it!  

My mind was spinning, and it seemed like millions of questions raced through my mind...and I don't have any of the answers.  But I believe with all my heart that God does.  The God of this universe, the Alpha the Omega, the one who created all that is, and is to come.  The Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the creator of me, my husband, our children our friends my enemies all things.   The one who loved us so much that he sent his only begotten son to this earth to experience all the pain, and trials that we go through, in order to stand up against it for us, and then be sentenced to a brutal death...for us, to die for us, to pay the price that we could never pay...to suffer...for no other reason but because he LOVES us. 

This God knows me better that I do...he knows my children better than they know themselves, or me.  He is an all knowing God...a good God.   Who am I not to trust him.   

Then I got to thinking about the many arguments against public schooling...how there is allowed no prayer, no scripture reading, etc..etc... and how many christians thought the best way to deal with that was to pull out, and send their kids to a christian school, or charter school or better yet, homeschool.   Did we inadvertently, help the evil one, by blowing/pulling out our own lights.    I mean, just because we couldn't pray or read scripture...didn't mean we couldn't still love and live out the scriptures!   I then started thinking of what it would have been like if we said, ok, no problem...you can take away prayer and scripture reading, but we still have a light to shine and we are going to shine it like Christ did?  

What if ...we stayed, what if we loved, what if we shined bright in spite of the things they were taking away?    What would our country look like today?

I never homeschooled because public school was a "bad" place.  And, I did not contemplate putting my kids in christian school because it was the "good" place.   The Lord made it very clear 14 years ago, that home was the best place.  I truly was not "homeschool" material.   But God used me, he uses the very least of these, for His purposes.  I trusted that conviction and ran with it....I have no regrets.   And I cannot say that I won't be back, however, the Lord will be the one to make that call...no one else.   So, for such a time as this, the Lord has once again, made it clear, that we are to be a light to shine here in our school district.  The girls and I talk through this almost everyday after school.   It's not easy, but it's not that hard either, with Gods help...to God be the glory for the great things HE is doing through us.


As for me and my house?   We're going to shine!