Yesterday I spent the entire day with my girls and some really close friends and their girls. First, we had a tea party and then a movie night. It has been a really long time since I have done something like this. I am typically one that doesn't need a lot of "me" time. Sure, I enjoy a few hours alone or a date with my husband as much as the next gal, but I am not one of those that has to get out of the house the second my husband gets home. I guess some people do, because I get asked that question a lot when people find out we home school (and have five kids). "When do you get your "me" time?" or "I just could not handle not having any time to myself." Now, don't get me wrong, I don't really have a soap box on Mom's Night Out. In fact, I think they are important, and as I said, I enjoy a dinner out with my girlfriends. However, I do have a soapbox on selfishness. That is not today's post, however, but the short version is that if you refuse to home school your kids because you won't get enough time alone, then that is selfishness. Hey, let's call it what it is. As a believer, we are to die to ourselves and follow Christ. If you do that, I can guarantee you that He will give you the sustenance you need and you will get time alone. Maybe not as much as you want, but you will get what you need. I can attest to that after being with my kids almost 24/7 for the past seventeen years. He really is enough!
Today I didn't intend to write about selfishness, though, I intended to write about girlfriends. As I said, I don't often make it to our groups monthly Mom's Night Out. I enjoy it when I do, but something usually comes up and I don't get to go. That's ok. I do often make it to our Friday morning beach days during the summer. This is when we bring all of our kids and sit on the beach under our umbrellas, and chat while the kids play. It is an amazing time of refreshment - and someone always wants to play with Patrick, so I truly do get a couple of hours "off."
Yesterday, however, we ended up with two events on our "girlfriends" calendar. A "big" girl tea party - for high school age girls and their moms and a "big" girl movie night. I realized yesterday, not for the first time, but anew, how much God has blessed me with the women He has put in my life. When we started home schooling 14 years ago, I knew no one who home schooled. No one. I did not do it because my friends were doing it. No, my friends were all sending their kids to school. God told me to do it, and for the first time in my life, I obeyed His voice without argument. I had NO clue what to do. No clue how to do it and no clue as to who we were going to "hang" around with. Pretty soon, He led me to our local home school group and I met these amazing women. The same ones I was surrounded by yesterday, 14 years later. Our kids have grown up. They are driving now, some are in college, some have graduated, one is about to get married. We are a long way from pigtails and reading lessons. These young ladies are beautiful, inside and out. They love the Lord and they want to live for Him and share Him with those they come in contact with. They have not been sheltered to the point of not being able to hold their own in the world we live in. They are true examples of being in the world, but not of it. They want to find godly husbands and raise godly children. They know who they are. I am so blessed to know these young ladies and the mothers who raised them.
I don't ever want to take one minute of having these women in my life for granted. I have a unique perspective because I have children at so many ages. I get to be around these ladies because I have high school age kids, but I also get to meet younger moms because I have a baby and an elementary school aged child. I know that I have been given much and I pray that when Mom's of young children come into my life that I can be half the mentor to them that these ladies have been to me in raising my children. They will likely never understand, this side of Heaven, what they have meant to me in my home school journey, but I do pray that God blesses them immensely for the sacrifices they have made - for their families and for others that He has brought into their lives.
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