Sunday, March 23, 2014

Bertha, my much loved laptop

Kicked the bucket.  It is hard to type out a post using my husband's iPad, but I am going to give it a good try...

Spring is here - well at least according to the calendar :).  We are at the tail end of a yucky tummy virus, it felt like a train took us out.  *sigh*. We had so much planned for last week, but we stayed in bed most of the week and watched movies.  I have been increasing my walking and am ready to start running again, my knee holds up well (most days), as long as I don't forget and squat rapidly or pivot on that leg.  All in all life is mostly good, and for that I am profoundly thankful.

Oh, before I forget, I read three awesome books this last week, Divergent and Insurgent (I read enough reviews that I am not willing to read book three...), and Slammed.  I have slowly begun to write again, I have a story rambling around in my head.  I am scratching it out by hand...which is harder than I remember it being!  Bless Bertha's heart...she has been through a lot with me as the owner and three kids and a dog knocking her over from time to time.

Any awesome plans for spring?  Read any good books?

Thursday, March 6, 2014

sigh

Have you ever gone through a dry season?  Dry for just about everything, dry enough that it left you gasping for even a drop of water...desert, drought kind of dry.?

Life, for me, is easier to make sense of when I compare it to something.  For example, if I had to compare last year to something I would say it was the stormiest, rainiest, windiest year we have faced yet as a family.  It seemed like the sky would never clear, that the clouds were suffocating in their intensity.  Then just as quickly as it started it stopped and I was really not prepared for what has followed.

Everything has felt dry as bones.

Reading the Bible, talking to God, relating to others, homeschooling, reading a book, writing a story - there just isn't any extra to pour into any of it.  I can read the same line in the Bible four times and not get a single.thing.out.of.it. 

I have set down here to write a post and nothing.  Not a single insight, not a single thought, nothing.  I have had absolutely nothing to type.

My book...I wrote a book, it may very well be the worst book ever, but I wrote a WHOLE book - from start to finish.  I haven't been able to do anything with it, because I have nothing.  No ideas, no creative fresh thoughts.  And it needs some work.  However, I have nothing to give to it right now.

I have tried to journal our days, our kids are changing so fast, I don't want to forget the funny things they do and say...but I grab a pen and nada.  Not a single word comes to mind beyond: we got English, Math, Science, History, Read Alouds, etc; done today.  It was a (insert: good, hard, ok, etc;) day.  Where is my joy?  Where is my excitement?  Where is my creativity?.  I have prayed.  I have thought.  I have prayed some more.  I have asked God to let me know He is here, He is working, to remind me that He is my joy and my salvation.  Because right now, I'm feeling absolutely zilch when I read or talk to Him.

Ick.

But that all changed earlier this week.  Three big things happened that I know, that I know, that I know God heard me.  1) a friend of mine who spent January in ICU in a medically induced coma, has since been back in the hospital again, has basically been through a nightmare from what I understand...she is going HOME.  Not to rehabilitation facility like the first time they released her...but H.O.M.E. to be a wife and the beautiful Momma that she is!!!!!!!!!!!!  2) a family is getting to stay here in the US (I am sure everyone by now has heard at least a part of the German homeschool family's story) and 3) I started a Kay Arthur study called Teach Me to Pray in 28 days and WOW!  The Bible has come alive again.  I cannot explain what it's like when you read the Bible and it speaks to you.  Word fail to capture the bliss of His presence.  I don't know why I went through a dry season, unless it was just utter exhaustion from all that we have been through last year...but I am so glad to see the rain drops on the horizon!  Because this time it feels like a gentle, healing rain has begun.