Ok, so I am on a roll with the story of our marriage journey. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was being pursued by God, but still not really listening. I was daily meeting godly people who were challenging me, but I was still really busy wallowing in my own self-pity. Stan even took to calling me Eeyore I moped around so much at this time in my life and he taught the children to say, "Don't worry about me, nobody ever does!" (directed at me!) Joshua especially got really good at this and could drag out the "eeeeever does" just like the real Eeyore! It was really sad, but thankfully, even at this time I was able to laugh and therefore it became kind of an "ice breaker" if things were tense at that moment. Joshua was just so cute when he said it you couldn't help but crack up. We even have it on video!
So, life went on. Stan traveling, me pouting, and the children growing up before our eyes! I won't lie, we fought a lot. We only saw each other on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, but I was always dreading Monday, so my attitude would be pretty sorry on Sunday, and usually we would end up in an argument. My journals from that time are full of phrases like, "we are just too different to be married" - "I love him, but I think our goals are too far apart" - "I don't know how this is going to turn out." I am often tempted to trash those things now, but I keep them to remind me of how far I have come and hopefully to encourage other people who find themselves in the same place that there is always hope. God is the one who knits souls together and He is the one who changes hearts.
We moved into a house in 1997 and soon after I found out I was pregnant. Well, we were thrilled. I will never forget the look on Stan's face when I told him. Joshua and Bryce were thrilled as well. They were going to be four when the baby was born. Things were settling down, we were growing in the Lord, but still not to the point we should have been. Sometime during my pregnancy is when God called us to homeschool. I think I can safely say this was the turning point in my relationship with Him. I don't remember the exact date, but I distinctly remember the day that everything came together for me. The day I remember lifting my heart up to Jesus and saying "take it, it is all yours." It wasn't a particular "rock bottom" day or anything, just the time that I finally let go. I finally surrendered to the fact that I was not going to find satisfaction is the soap operas I was watching or the novels I was reading. I wasn't going to find it in the Mom's playgroups or even in the Bible studies I was attending. I was only going to find my heart's desire in giving my life to Jesus. Completely. After that day, the first thing He did was speak to me about homeschooling. It was such a distinct calling that to this day if I didn't know better, I would tell you He said it out loud. Joshua and Bryce were in pre-school and the next year they would have to go four days a week. I was struggling with this. I missed them so much the two mornings they were gone, but I thought that all "good" parents sent their kids to pre-school and I certainly assumed I would send them to "real" school, but I was having a hard time with the thought. Plus, I was pregnant, so my emotions were running high. A friend of mine casually said one day, "why don't you homeschool?" Well, I am from a really small town and I had never heard of homeschooling, so I used my fledgling internet skills and I searched for all I could find on the world wide web. I certainly didn't know any real people who did this off the wall thing! To say I found a lot of information would be a gross understatement. I overwhelmed myself with information and I was soon convinced. Research is a real passion of mine, as any of you who know me know, so I researched homeschooling with as much gusto as I had. I was ready to present this to my husband. Stan likes statistics and he likes well-organized and well-thought out proposals (he's a numbers kind of guy). He does not respond well to highly emotional pleas, and tears move him not a bit! So, I was ready. You would think I would remember exactly what I said, but that was eleven years ago and as I sit here today I have no clue what I said that day, but whatever it was he shrugged and responded, "Well, I guess you can't mess up pre-school, so why don't you just not send them next year and make that the trial year?" As if that wasn't enough of a vote of confidence, the very next day, he brought home the USA Today and on the front page was an article titled "Homeschooling- It's not just for Weirdos Anymore." Wow, my self-esteem is rising by the second! I couldn't mess them up "too bad" and I might not be a "weirdo." Good thing God spoke so loudly on this subject, otherwise I might have morphed into Eeyore on the spot!!
So, since this is a marriage post, you may be wondering how our marriage was doing during all of this. Well, surprisingly, I think a little better. My being pregnant really brought us together in a unique way. Our whole family was very excited and we didn't know if the baby was a boy or a girl, so we had that element of surprise. We were talking about names, and now I had a mission. I was finding out all that I could about homeschooling. I was participating in message boards online, looking for cirriculum, compiling folders, and best of all, God was once again leading me to amazing people. Even though most of them were "cyber-friends" I really met some wonderful ladies online who loved the Lord and preparing to homeschool was turning into a spiritual growth experience for me.
Lyndsey was born in May of 1998 and we were beside ourselves with this new addition. Joshua and Bryce were wonderful with their new baby, and things were good. I had a plan for pre-K and I had a true conviction. Unfortunately, we had some family problems about this time and had a real conflict with Stan's mom and dad right after Lyndsey was born. We went several months without contact with them and it was a very emotional time for us. In some ways it brought Stan and I closer together because he had to defend his family and our choices and in some ways it caused more friction between us simply because emotions ran so high.
We settled into life and we began to homeschool that Fall. It was everything I hoped it would be. Joshua and Bryce were easy to teach and they loved being home, so the academics fell into place so easily. This left me time to explore the spiritual. To figure out why we were doing this. I don't think we really figured it out until the following year when we attended the Florida Parent Educators Homeschool Convention in Orlando. The convention happens every Memorial Day weekend and it brings together the majority of homeschoolers from the state of FL, plus speakers and vendors into a whirlwind weekend of sensory overload. It is amazing! As much as I loved the encouragement and the motivation of the weekend, the thing that convinced both Stan and me that homeschooling was the right choice were the older children. At the time, we had two five year olds and a one year old, so we were in the training stages of parenting. We were not seeing much fruit in our children and our own spiritual lives were just starting to grow as well. When we saw the older children, especially the teenagers hanging out with their parents and playing with their siblings and carrying on adult conversations....when we met the children of the vendors and they spoke with us about their family ministry and we saw the kind of character they had, the light bulb went off. That is our heart's desire! We were sold hook, line, and sinker to homeschooling and we have NEVER wavered in that decision.
I think it was a huge turning point in our marriage as well. We both realized that it would take both of us putting in a huge effort to attain these goals. It was the beginning of Stan releasing his career into God's hands and me releasing Stan from being the sole provider of my happiness. My journals at that time show that I was beginning to realize that God wanted me to understand that He was sufficient for me. That His grace would provide all I truly needed. I was looking to Stan to make me happy and no human being on earth can do that. I have to center my life around God and allow Him to fill up those holes in my heart. Stan can't and shouldn't be expected to do that.
Well, as God always does, He had a wonderful plan for our family, but He was waiting on me to get to where I needed to be so He could work it out. We moved into a more family oriented neighborhood in November of 2000 and around the same time Stan was promoted to a new position within his company and he stopped traveling! It was absolutely amazing the way God worked things out. Things really did improve drastically in our lives. We still had our ups and downs, but we were growing steadily in the Lord at this time.
I'm going to stop here. I think I can bring my story up to the present next time I post. Thanks for sticking with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment