awaken

It is amazing given a little time what can awaken.

Deveraux and Bobo will have been in music camp for two weeks.

As a mom to young children who live at home, quiet time is not a commodity.

I realize when I get it how filled I am.  I know I am thirsty for it.

Breeze  And I just get to sit.  Its like you are called back to yourself.  There is no replacement for quiet sitting,  You cannot receive that same filling in any other way.

I take stock on this particular morning.  I read of homeschooling, other families and how they move in their days.  I want to give it over...yes, keep some things but have new ways of doing things.

Then I have to ask, do I want it to be different?  What do I want?  It just takes changing course, stepping out, dreaming dreams.

I feel this dilemma, this bind in my soul.  Of what I want to be and who I fear I am. I want freedom.  I want to read books with hot tea and delight my children.  I want the freedom to follow their leanings and not always have to finish the workbook.  But I am a "tie it up neat in a bow" kind of girl.  I live my life wanting sometimes a clean floor more than a messy creative one.  But I value the creative one.

My children will grow and be gone.  Workbook or no workbook.  Reading at the level I desired or not.  Getting in all our subjects and feeling good about the amount of work we did.  So the end is decided.  How does that impact or determine how I live these days.

I am such a doer.  Doing means accomplishment.  Doing means feel good.  Doing means, "job well done."  Often the gage for a good moment is a productive one.  I think that is why celebrations are bitter sweet.  There is a lot of pressure on a "doer" during a celebration but I love marking the moment.  I think that is why just being with my family away from the house are my best moments.  I can engage and I'm not thinking of "doing" and I can be me with them.

There were many school days I was just trying to get the check list marked off yet wanting more for my kids.  I grew up in a home with those inconsistencies.  Wanting more for us but being in a bind themselves.

I met with a friend recently and she spoke some good words to me.  That I have this manager inside my head often telling me to get on task.  This is incongruent for me in my life tasks right now because I want homeschooling (and the very nature of it) to be free and creative.  Those are the aspects I am always drawn to.  But my "over responsible" self won't allow me to be free, so often I do not enjoy the process.  I am at battle.

I had the realization that maybe I was a thinker, all this time thinking I was a doer.  But then another friend pointed out through the enneagram (which I am just starting to study) that I am a doer, but it can appear as a thinker. 

If I am always thinking (or doing) the next things to do, I can't be present.  But I do worry about the workbook getting done.  But just maybe, the workbook will get done if I am present.

I can't remember now where this thought came from...but setting a timer and allow myself to get lost in that time with the kiddos.  This could help with feeling more free. 

All I do know is I want different.  I have some good tools. The past 3 years of homeschooling are not
wasted, they are our story.  There are things we do that are good.  But I want more than good.
I want to thrive.  I want to love most our days. 

I think I will know it when I am there and that will be my prayer....Direction for our days and the shape of homeschooling for our family.  Grace for myself and my three.  And the eyes to see when we are hitting that mark, not perfectly, but more than we are now.  Trusting His provision and the process. 

Awakened.  Stirrings.  Ponderings.  Ready to open a new door.