>I hate change. I like constancy, predictability, for years I didn’t buy things that were on sale that I would love to have, because I know I couldn’t get them if they weren’t on sale and that wouldn’t be a habit and predictability that I could keep on my grocery list. I want to do the same thing at the same place every day and every week. I am content with an hour by hour schedule of where to be teaching, what to be teaching, grocery shopping, churching, and praying. I am most content when I have a cleaning schedule and everyone does exactly what needs to be done. None of this is a reality for me. Very few things outside of a couple of classes and church happen the same time every week, much less every day. I certainly have not been able to conquer keeping a home with 6 kids and now 3 adults in the order that seems to make all the little pieces inside of me fitting very carefully. What is a girl to do?
For many years I justified this weirdness with the, “it’s what the kids need, it’s what is best,” line. Yes schedule is good, routine even better, mean momma because everything is not clocking in and out on time like it should, dysfunction. I see this, I know this, I am getting better. Is it to late. Will the children see this as just another system ( a system that will probably relapse often)? Will they buy into the work that God is doing in me? With prayer, I believe they will. I will seek forgiveness (I must do this often), I will pray through the tyranny of the changes moving in me as I accept the not perfect home that looks so different than almost every one I know, what with the curtained off dining room and small kitchen and re-arranged appliances in the dining room.
I will be forced to deal with what drives me to the frustration of over managing.
Did I say that out loud. I have tried for quite some time to micro-manage my way out of internal chaos and frustration and hurt….there is never enough management. I will heal on the heels of change.
I will embrace this new season, I will believe that it will not make me crazy.
Change is painful, change is scary, change is good.
Seasons change and it works for the Creator, this change thing. I will embrace the change in me.
I will not hold myself to a standard that I can’t keep, believing I am a failure because others have been able to keep it.
I will be both terrified and OKAY.
Embrace being afraid and mobilized at the same time today.
Will you?
Let me know.

>Relationship….it really is all about relationship. If you have read this blog for any time at all it is obvious that for me it is All about Relationship. I have finished The Shack and now am reading it out loud with the entire family a bit at a time. It is important to me that the children get as much input as possible to understand Relationship with our Lord and Forgiveness of our sins…and others. As I read it again I see things I missed, scrambling my thoughts, my Bible…finding more answers about this God of relationship….moving Him out of the box. Seeing Him, seeing me…through His words to me.
I am grappling. I continue to go back to the word of God, my sweet husband..and, and, and…..get the picture? Grappling without getting the firm grasp. I wonder to myself and sometimes aloud if I will ever get it. I can not grasp how far back current struggles go in the story of my life, the story of our family’s life, the story of my parent’s lives….my aunts and uncles. I saw the story at my uncles funeral as I watched my aunts and mother from behind the pew in a funeral home. I see the story in my sweet grandparents and read the regular emails and notes of hope.
The stories change the way I move, the way I think. The stories change the relationships I value AND the ones I don’t want to value, but must.
These are my thoughts, fragmented as they may be. Relationships are there good, bad, hurtful, hopeful…we have them all. These are our stories, my story. How will I weigh that in my minutes?