Lord, Please Remind Me Why I’m Doing This!

It’s been one of “those” weeks! Actually it’s been a number of “those” weeks that have accumulated, to the point of me sitting on the couch last night, head in my hands and asking God “Why? Why am I doing this Lord?”

It has been a busy time for Team Strong and life just hasn’t slowed down in the last 7 weeks! The problem that happens when we all get busy is that we lose our connection. Everyone goes into automatic pilot and we all hit survival mode. Everyone does what they need to to get through and grace seems to be the last thing on everyone’s mind! (God’s grace, not our own poppet in case you were getting worried!)

So for the last week or so, the busyness and tiredness have caught up with everybody, and to be totally honest, none of us have put our best foot forward around home. Our usual filters of what is acceptable in our family have been dropped and the kid’s tolerance levels for each other have also plummeted. Now, most Mum’s can just send the kids off to school for a bit of a break, but, of course, when you homeschool you don’t have that option! Nope, its kids 24/7. For 51 weeks of the year, I absolutely love it, but this last week has left me asking “God, please remind me why I am doing this, wouldn’t it be just so much easier if the kids were in school?”

And the answer is yes! Yes, it would be easier to send the kids off to school for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Yes, it would be easier to send them off on the bus at 8 am in the morning and not have to think about them till they got off the bus at 4 pm. Yes, that would be an easy option for our family. But that is not what God has called us to do.

He has called us to homeschool the kids for their High School years. He has called us to invest in them, to spend time with them, to guide them along the path that God has for them. He has called us to be a family that lives outside of what most people would call “normal” and make a difference in the world! To give them a Christian education that isn’t religious and regimented, to give them opportunities that most kids their ages don’t get. To build connections with them, and to create the life stories that they will remember long after they have left home. To equip them to be thoughtful, generous, well-adjusted adults that give to the world more than they take from it, and to impact the community around them…. Where ever that may be! Oh, and to have fun, I forgot that part! Yip, to have fun!

Right, so that’s why we are doing this God, I remember now! Time to get Team Strong back to a place where we are connected, where we are happy, and where everyone actually wants to be a part of  Team Strong!

And what better way to do that, than with a “Family Meeting” Ahhhhh, not the family meeting, I hear you cry! Why would you do that to your kids? But family meetings don’t need to be all bad, really they don’t! It’s a great way to get reconnected with each other. To clear the air. For everyone to have their say and for everyone to walk away feeling like they were heard. It’s also a great excuse to turn off all devices and to have chocolate self-saucing pudding and ice cream!

So, I am happy to say that Team Strong is back on track. We are refocused, we are all playing on the same team again and we are back to fighting for what we want instead of fighting each other! We are connected and we are back to being glad God has called us to be on the same team! And this Mamma, well she can go back to loving what she does and remembering why she chose this path for her family.

So watch out everyone, we are back, we are connected and we are stronger (get it!) than ever! We are going to make a difference in this world and we are going to have fun while we are doing it!