Personal Reflection: Breathe

I feel as though I have been running non-stop my whole life.  It has always been one thing after another; school, high school, college, marriage, children, growing a church (in a nutshell).  Not everything has been bad, actually most of it has been good. Very good.  So, why is it that I have a desire for all of it to slow down and sometimes a desire for it to even stop altogether.  I am tired.  Very tired.  I am exhausted.

Joel and I made the decision to put the kids in school full-time back in February in order to help slow down the pace and have some time to just breath.  Deep breath. Breathe.  I think it was a wise decision, if for no other reason than to be able to see that my children are healthy kids who have a capability to adapt and adjust to new circumstances.  I am very proud of them.

So, here I am on a Monday morning breathing by myself (although Joel is on the phone in another part of the house doing the pastor-thing) and it feels good.  God is good.  So, here I sit and I have been trying to decide what to do with this gift of time and am asking myself, "Do I have 'to do' anything?"  No.  No?  No.

Even though I now have some space to breath, has my life really changed? No.  I am still a wife, mother, teacher, etc.  I am still busy.  I am still doing one thing after the other but I now feel like I can breath.  Is it because the kids are in school? Partially, yes. I think so.  But I also think it has do with my outlook and the condition of my heart.  I have spent a lot of time whining about my circumstances (busyness, my health, things I can't control) or just being melancholy about them and making no effort to personally improve them.

I am not one to read Christian self-help books.  Not at all.  But I have a good friend who recommended the book Loving God with All Your Mind by Elizabeth George.  And I reluctantly bought it on my Kindle.  Through this book, I have decided to focus on a few goals for myself and here they are;

1. To work on what is real, rather than worry about what is unreal.
2. To reach forward and press on, rather than remain a prisoner of the past.
3. To act on what is revealed in Scripture, rather that trust in my emotions.

Why am I sharing all this?  Well, because I need accountability and because I also need my extended family and friends to know and to pray for me and my family.  And because Josh wants to see more blogging.

Finally, brethren,

whatever things are true,

whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely,

whatever things are of good report,

if there is any virtue and

if there is anything praiseworthy--

meditate on these things.

Phillippians 4:8

Where is Obadiah?

My kids were looking at our photo albums this afternoon and Obadiah wanted to know where his baby album was. Oops! I actually have no documentation of him in any of our albums.  I have been busy chasing after him for the last 4 years.  Did I mention that he started walking at 9 months of age?   I am now going through an odd assortment of unlabeled CDs hunting down pictures of my son.  I have very few.  If you have any photos of my cute son as a baby or between birth to age 4, can I have a copy?  I was thinking it may be nice to have an album done by his 5th birthday.  That might be wishful thinking on my part.

Tate Kids: Check this out!

Redskins Writing Contest

First Day of Spring

Doritos!  It is tradition that on the first day of spring we eat Doritos, Popsicles,  and hot-dogs.  

Student Art Show 2011

I have 5 students whose art was displayed in a local gallery today.  I am so proud of them.  Here are some photos of our afternoon there.  .

Mona Grace

This is a landscape sculpture done by a boy in our church.  I just love it.  It reminded us of our friends, the widjiwats.

This is a fourth grade student with her lino print of a snowflake.

This is a 5th grade student, who resembles me actually, with her pointillism piece titled, "Spring Picnic."

"Many-Colored Hands"

"Winter Cardinal"

"Spring Picnic"

"The Birches" (This is done by one of my 6th grade students.)

"Snowflake Print"

A second grade student.  Isn't she cute?

A third grade student.  She is my only elfin student.

Obadiah insists that it is called, "Pirate Boobie". Makes me smile, every time he says it.  Every time.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

My grandmother, Agnes Patricia O'Reilly, would be quite disappointed with my choice of dinner tonight.  We are having rainbow trout from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Fish Hatchery, which is two doors down from my house. The director there was kind enough to give us some yesterday and we shall have a feast tonight.  As a child, every March 17, I would attend church with my grandmother or mother and we would ALWAYS have corn beef, boiled cabbage, and potatoes for dinner.  On occasion we would attend a party, in honor of St. Patty, at the Emerald Club, which was a pub for those who were of Irish decent or who pretended to be at least. When I look back, my Irish heritage was a big part of my upbringing, but not so much now.  In an effort to remedy that, I will make an effort to talk about the significance of the day with my kids and what it was like for me as a child but unlike my childhood, it will be over a feast of trout and not corn beef.