Category Archives: homeschooling

wide spaces: finding grace in the overwhelm

Posted on by October 26, 2023

I drove home from an appointment with Reagan’s team at our homeschool, leaves skipping across the road while the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band sang about fishing in the dark. Just me, no distractions, no kids arguing in the back – a good time to think some deep thoughts.

It was our annual special ed meeting, a newish development for us but also one I dreaded last year. But this year I feel like a grown up about it, which means I’ve reached a new level of maturity that borders on reckless indifference. Reagan is almost eighteen and that means nothing to her development, care, or education, but it changes a lot of things legally, initiating a whole new level of well-meaning bureaucracy in our lives.

wide spaces: finding grace in the overwhelm

In the meeting we discussed goals for math, reading, and writing. Math, for instance: The team suggested getting Reagan a watch to help her practice telling time, and we talked about what that would accomplish.

“Nothing,” I told them, “other than a broken watch, because she will get it in the water, pick at its mechanisms, and destroy it in within two weeks. We might as well find a twenty dollar bill and have the fun of lighting it on fire.” (I know, fun at parties, remember?) She doesn’t understand the concepts of seconds, minutes, and hours, anyway. She does understand days (usually), months (sometimes), and parts of the day, like evening and morning, with variable accuracy. Even on the days when she remembers how to tell time, it means nothing to her, and it was bought at the cost of weeks of frustration and often disobedience.

Money? Same thing. She knows what coins are worth, but that information is meaningless because she doesn’t understand buying, selling, earning, or spending. There are no hooks to hang that knowledge on. Yes, we take her to the store and go through the motions with her, but that’s all it is – going through motions. Her mind doesn’t understand the concepts of what is really occurring.

I flipped the blinker and turned right, wondering how many years you can teach first grade math to the same child. One reason we homeschool is to keep our kids from wasting time with busywork, but for eleven years that’s all it seems like most of her math assignments have been for her. But we’ve persisted, hoping something would finally click, or she would be healed, or we would see some bigger progress.

So how do we get more basic than the basics? Are we just pushing these things to make ourselves feel better? These are the questions I’m pondering lately. Have we wasted all this time, trying to teach her useless things? I know, I hear you; it hasn’t really been wasted. God never wastes anything. But just give me a minute so I can overthink this.

I don’t want to give up hope for her healing. I want to live in the green light and yet at the same time work with her where she’s at – where she’s still at, where she might always be at. I don’t want our days to be long, frustrating exercises in futility, checking off boxes when those boxes don’t apply to her.

I want to find the right boxes, where she clicks perfectly and thrives. And yes, we are an out-of-the-box family, I don’t have a problem with coloring outside the lines. But I’m tired of fishing in the dark, firing blind. We need structure and outlines and achievable goalposts to reach for, because things have been so “too much” and yet often also “not enough.”

There were four of us in the meeting and everyone was on our side; there was no combativeness or judgment, praise God. But there are always stark reminders that these other women, kind as they are, don’t fully grasp Reagan’s challenges. One mentioned vocational rehab as an option, and I reminded her that Reagan is cognitively anywhere from two to six years old, and you would not send a preschooler to vocational rehab.

“Right,” she nodded. I appreciate her agreement and understanding, but I’m so tired of being the only one that keeps these things in mind as we live with her limitations. I don’t want to be the naysayer all the time. I don’t want to naysay at all. But here we are: The freedom to do anything, but limits everywhere.

I read this about limits recently:

…What nuns, hermits, and students do is facilitated rather than hindered by the confines of the formal structures they inhabit; because those structures constrain freedom…they enable movements in a defined space. If the moves you can perform are prescribed and limited – if, for example, every line of your poem must have ten syllables and rhyme according to a predetermined pattern – each move can carry a precise significance.

– Stanley Fish, How to Write a Sentence

…and this makes sense to me. I need the focus provided by parameters and limits within the overwhelm.

So eleven years into this, we are reevaluating how we structure her days, and praying again about how to make them the most fruitful. And this, at least, is normal for every kid I’ve homeschooled: Tweaking and adjusting is normal, frequent, and to be expected.

We don’t want to push things for the sake of pushing them, or because they’re what’s “supposed” to happen, or because it’s what she ought to be able to do in a perfect world without FAS and other traumas. I’m all done with the exercise in futility, and yet I’m also not ready to admit she can’t be healed.

Which means I’m here in the middle, realizing for the brazillionth time that I can’t force healing, growth, or learning to happen. We need His grace; it has to be His work here. And we need to find other ways to engage and grow her that won’t be a constant source of aggravation and strife for all of us.

I heave a long sigh, and the Lord corrects me. Hey Love, you do not carry the weight of the world. I do. Agree with Me. So I do, mostly…I think 99.5 percent, at least…and I remind myself He’s doing great things. Working on our behalf. Making our efforts mean something. Giving us wisdom and discernment.

Every step forward for each of us is pure grace.

But still, I haven’t had a real vacation (the kind without kids, appointments, or interviews) in 22 years and there’s this 3-inch binder for Reagan’s paperwork and future planning that I need to look through this evening. Or at least, one of these evenings. Or at least by late November.

And I want nothing to do with it; I want to fling it out the window. I want to be Knightley, napping in the rocking chair.

So, maturity…yeah, I dunno if I’m getting anywhere with that in my own heart, either. The further we get it in this, the more I come up against my own selfishness, my own disappointments, my own imperfections and limits. My own need for grace.

I have been overwhelmed with overwhelm, and am longing for some…I don’t even know. Peace. Space. Victory. Rest.

And then a few weeks ago I read this, about the Lord leading the Israelites out of slavery and into a good land:

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”

– Exodus 3:7-8

Did you see that? Three big things are happening here. One: The Lord sees their struggle. That’s super great, we need to be seen and heard and known.

And then B: He comes to deliver them to a good place, which is filled with hope and relief and promise. I can just see that good and broad land, with rolling fields, gardens, and a little stream cutting across a cluster of woods.

But then, C: In the same breath, before He even finishes the sentence, He says the place is absolutely teeming with horrible, idolatrous enemies they have to conquer.

Record scratch. Wait a second.

But I think this is where I’ve been living. I mean, maybe there’s a pattern here: We get to a new breakthrough, we start to see light ahead, and boom – new challenge, new overwhelm, new enemies to conquer. In fact, I’m almost positive I’ve written about this before, a little over a year ago. So why are we here again?

Because it’s the next level. The Lord delivers from overwhelm, but He also delivers us into overwhelm. Because He’s doing something in the midst of it.

I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
    because you have seen my affliction;
    you have known the distress of my soul,
and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
   you have set my feet in a broad place.

– Psalm 31:7-8

We can keep pushing Reagan through math workbooks, and enjoy the predictability of knowing what we’re getting into because it’s what we’ve always gotten. Or we can toss them aside and look at a wide, new land of almost limitless, overwhelming other options. Really, it’s not that different from the deliberations public schooling parents face when they first switch to homeschool.

My friend said this the other day about her daughter:

“We never had to do more than say ‘yes’ and just be there for her and love her. As long as we were faithful to do that, He did all the rest. We could’ve just rested in that instead of all the tears and worry.”

And I know this in my head but I have had to learn it over and over – which really, does that mean I’ve ever learned it? – because I have also spent many days in long, frustrating futility with tears and worry. I’ve wasted a lot of time with that useless busywork. But I’m hoping that this time the concept of grace will stick, that it will click, because I need healing and progress, too.

Learning that I can trust Him in all of it makes all the difference. Right, I’ve said that a million times here, and I think I’ve believed it 99.5 percent of the time, even. But probably because it’s taken this long to have hooks to hang that knowledge on, I’m finally learning about grace and trusting Him in new ways – like, I’m finally feeling it in my bones, and understanding that we are bound by love, and therefore, free.

If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.

– Numbers 14:8-9

I can almost grasp it right here – this shift that has been so slippery, so hard to hang on to, but it’s starting to make sense and feel real: Because if I can trust Him, then the future brings more joy and rest. Because if every step forward is His grace and not dependent on my perfection or ability, then the obstacles ahead are bread for us. Instead of the expectation of more limits and more confusion and more lack or dread or any other thing not of Him, there’s something that looks a little like reckless indifference – but what it really is, is freedom. It’s the next level.

It looks like rolling fields, and cultivated gardens, and a stream running free in all the directions He sends it.

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do hard things: the Kingdom’s response to ease & apathy

Posted on by October 5, 2023

A few weeks ago in our prayer meeting, an elderly friend quietly said, “The Lord likes bravery, and our willingness to do hard, new things.”

I think she’s right. And we can do hard things. But often, we’d rather not.

do hard things: the Kingdom's response to ease and apathy

For example, raising poultry is a lot harder than just buying eggs at the store once a week. It’s not convenient, but it is ideal, because once you know what goes into your supermarket eggs and meat and how the food supply has been repeatedly attacked in the last few years, you’ll have the motivation to do hard things. (Or at least to start looking for a local egg source.)

But it’s easier not to know, and that’s what we often opt for. Learning is pretty dangerous because it makes us uncomfortable and nudges us toward action we’d rather not participate in.

And we can’t learn everything at once – this is a long journey we’re on, and I’m nowhere close to arriving – but every year we’re learning to do things differently to align more with the values we claim to believe in.

Such as, slavery is wrong. No brainer, right? But when was the last time you (or hey, your church) bought something that was substantially cheaper than the alternative because you didn’t want to pay more? When two almost identical items vary that much in price, it’s usually because one of them was made by someone who didn’t get paid for their labor. If I had a dollar for every time in the last twenty years my kids received slave-made trinkets from their classes at church, I’d have enough money to adopt three more kids.

People need to know. There’s so much we need to know.

We need to know Who we’re dealing with and how He loves us, and how to handle others with care. Those are the basics. But also, we need to know that we can do hard things – because if we’re not willing to do hard things, our basics go nowhere.

And this right here is where the rubber meets the road in the Kingdom: It’s not enough say we value Biblical beliefs if we’re still actually living as our own god and worshipping ease.

It’s a lesson I thought I already knew eleven years ago, until I realized I didn’t. We thought we knew what “hard” was: We had four kids and parenting was hard, we’d been married for 15 years and some of those years were hard. The process of adoption – with all of its paperwork and training and fundraising – was hard.

But is it easier now? Yes.

And also, no.

Sailing a boat across stormy waters is one kind of hard. But stepping out of it and trusting the Lord to defy gravity and hold you on top of it is a whole other thing.

So “hard” is relative, and it’s not what’s really important. What the Lord is looking for is our willingness to go to the next level, to surrender and trust Him in a new way, to obey Him in something that requires His intervention and not just our own ability.

Will we mess up? Will we make mistakes? Absolutely, no doubt. But is the Lord unaware of our imperfections and efforts when He calls us? Nope. He knows and is not surprised; He’s not afraid of us making Him look bad. And if we’re honest, we’re not afraid of that, either. We’re afraid we’ll make ourselves look bad.

When Peter risked the ocean, he didn’t care what the guys in the boat thought; His connection with Jesus is what both compelled and allowed him to walk on water. But when Jesus becomes less important than anything or anyone else, we make mistakes and lose our focus, and this is when we start to sink. Ask me how I know.

If we only know Jesus as our savior but not also as our Lord, we won’t step out of the boat. And maybe that’s a good thing because we can’t survive the water without Him.

Are we willing to go to the next level and obey Him in whatever hard thing He’s calling us to next? Will we surrender our spending habits and lifestyles? Will we let go of our insecurities and ignorance-is-bliss mentality?

But if I _____ (shop elsewhere, adopt a child, quit my job, research that issue, stop living with my boyfriend, quit that habit, homeschool my kids, change my business, have that hard conversation, let go of unforgiveness, whatever) I don’t know what will happen. I don’t have the money. What will people think of me?

The Lord is trying to bring us out of our old confinements and inabilities into a broader space where we live surrendered to Him. It’s a place where we’re bound by love, and therefore, free.

He tried to do it with the Israelites, and when discomfort hit, they dug in their heels just like we do:

And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.

– Numbers 20:5

There is no Starbucks, no Walmart, no cheap poison from McDonalds.

Absolute trust in His love for us is the most critical choice we make, because life doesn’t always make sense. We forfeit control outside the comfort zone where everything operates by a different set of rules. And that supernatural trust is a secure place – Jesus is our security and stability outside the comfort zone, on the water – but the minute we look back to the boat (or the bank account, or the old habits, or anything else) for security, we expose ourselves to sinking.

But we were made to risk the ocean, and walk on water.

It’s not enough to just be on the right side. The conservative patriot who winks at porn is just as compromised as the liberal who advocates for abortion, regardless of whether or not they attend church every Sunday. The one who considers themselves a great warrior or influencer in these days while living in impurity has nothing on the person who lives in quiet, bold alignment with the Spirit, listening and interceding, confident and unassuming in the dunamis the Holy Spirit offers.

When you’re living fully surrendered, the “normal Christians” around you will wonder at your life just as much as those who don’t know Jesus.

Maybe our family wasn’t wrong. Maybe families are supposed to take on huge challenges and come to the end of themselves and learn to trust God for radical healing and restoration. Maybe that’s what’s supposed to be normal, rather than the comfortable, spacious lifestyle that lets us be the center of our own universe.

– Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom’s Memoir on Sinking and Sanctification

Living in surrender means we no longer default to convenience. We surrender to living inconveniently because that means living in power, because our bodies are a temple, because our money and time and talents are His, and we’re stewards of the King. Our lives are lived to build the Kingdom, not the enemy’s platform. This is our spiritual act of worship.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

– Romans 12:1-2

We talk about expanding the Kingdom, but if we live to pad our comfort zone – shunning the inconvenient and ignoring the uncomfortable and refusing His sanctifying work in us – we’re merely inoculating others from the Kingdom rather than bringing them into it.

The next generation inherits what the first generation backed out of. They will inherit the promise, but they will also have to fight the battles that should have already been won by the previous generation that neglected to walk in the promise.

So let’s not back out of this.

Kingdom Culture ought to be standard Christianity. Radical surrender, service, healings, joy, peace, and exploits ought to be our norm, not the extreme fringe.

Will we turn down a life fit for glossy magazine pages in favor of a life of transparency? What if we traded our shiny packaging for rough brown paper, tied with grace?

– Risk the Ocean

There’s room for each of us to grow, and Jesus knows our weakness and our desire to do better. Like with Peter, He asks us, Why did you doubt? Don’t you know that I’ve got this? Don’t you know that I’ve got you?

Surrender prevents our sinking. He meets us in mercy, reaching out to us, and holding our hands as we walk back to the boat together.

______

If you’d like to read my story of sinking and sanctification, Risk the Ocean is now available. You can buy it directly from us, or find it on Amazon, or get it anywhere books are sold.

Here are part one and part two of this series.

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with book: introducing the one I always meant to write

Posted on by August 19, 2024

Long gone are the days when I would sit here, hitting these keys until 3 am. But not long gone – in fact, extremely present and frequently of late – are the hours of overtime on the couch after the kids are in bed.

with book: introducing the one I always meant to write

I have forgotten to eat dinner, left bowls of my beloved popcorn untouched, neglected normal writing schedules, and overlooked watering the garden. But this book is alllllmost done in spite of computer disasters and apps that eat landing pages and several unplanned medical appointments including two trips to urgent care in the last month…one for a kid who broke his arm and one for a bigger kid with a cyst who needs oral surgery again.

And we’re not quite done yet because, just for fun, we’re considering a new book distributor at the last minute.

But hey, friends…let me introduce you to the baby I’ve been pregnant with for eleven years.

“It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child.”

– C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

risk the ocean: an adoptive mom's memoir of sinking and sanctification

This is a memoir of my post-adoption journey through the chaos of mothering and homeschooling six kids in the midst of multiple special needs and my subsequent depression and sanctification as I learned to surrender. If you read Upside Down and Oh My Soul and wondered what was really going on behind the scenes, it’s in this book.

Because we never know how far our dreams and callings will take us when we start pursuing them. The initial rose-colored ideas only get us ankle-deep along the shore, digging our toes in warm sand, before reality sinks in and we’re up to our ears in work we didn’t anticipate, opposition from out of nowhere, obstacles we don’t know how to solve, and expenses that threaten to suck us under.

At some point, we have to decide if it’s really worth the sacrifice to turn our vision into reality. And if it’s a daydream, maybe it’s not worth it. But if it’s a calling – a mission – then it’s a different story.

This, friends, is a different story.

In 2010, Vince and I started a process we didn’t know how to finish. We had four kids, a three-bedroom house, and two old vehicles. We lived frugally with one main income, one micro-business, and a little in savings. And God called us to adopt two children with special needs, bringing them home two years later to freedom, a new homeland, and our family. For good, forever.

And then hell broke loose.

We didn’t know what it would cost, or what it would take out of us. We didn’t know what we would gain, or how it would change us. We didn’t know how the story would end.

And I hate to spoil it for you, but years later I still don’t know how the story ends. We still live this story every day. But here’s what I’ve learned, and am continuing to learn, in the process:

We can talk about following our dreams all we want, but our calling is only achieved through giving up what feels safe and comfortable. It involves scary things like obedience and surrender, and letting go of our preconceived notions and penchant for control. We have to move out of the comfort zone and do hard things. We have to risk the ocean if we want to follow Him as He walks on water.

When we move out of that comfort zone, God may allow us to discover more about our own brokenness than we ever wanted to know. This is especially true when our dreams and callings entail facing someone else’s trauma in close proximity.

And I won’t lie to you – in our own weakness and brokenness, sometimes we look at the waves and can’t take it anymore, and we go under, to be refined like a rock worn smooth in the agitation of violent surf.

The sanctifying process might chafe you raw, until you think you can’t take anymore.

Doesn’t that sound fun? Still want to sign up?

The thing about obeying God in these big, scary callings is that it’s not about what we’re doing at all. It’s about what He ends up doing in us. Because as we follow Him in one task, He will lead us to another, and another, and another. And we discover that we’re not just called to a mission, but to a character of obedience – like children who watch what their Father is doing, and then they do it, too.

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

– John 5:19

It turns out that achieving a dream is not about tying things up in the pretty bow we always expect, because redemption and achievement rarely look like a Hallmark Christmas movie.

They usually look more like God moving in deep and lasting triumph in spite of everything the enemy throws at us.

Risk the Ocean is available here. Thanks so much for supporting our family. xo

Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom's Memoir of Sinking and Sanctification "Vulnerably shares the blood, sweat, and tear that real sacrificial love requires." "Integrity beams up and out of every page."