I debated on wether or not to blog about this, but after the commotion this whole mess caused in my family, I realized that this may be as more of a spiritual battle than I though.
My mom called me shortly after I posted this. Now I had not told my mother all of that was going through my mind. She hadn't had time to read it as I had JUST posted it. And she said something to the effect of, "God has been dealing with me, with all the stuff that is going on in the world, that I need to seriously declutter my house. We don't need to be tied to material things right now. We need to be ready to move at a moment's notice."
Now I didn't say these things, but the very feeling of needing to be unencumbered right now has been quite prevalent for the last couple of weeks. I don't know. Maybe it's just watching people's homes being obliterated on TV that gives me that feeling, but I believe God uses those kinds of feelings to motivate us sometimes. I mean, what if...? I don't even want to put utterance to the thoughts.
Anyway, here's something to think about: (for the sake of time and space, I am linking these to the whole chapters.)
Matthew 24
16Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
17Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
19And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
20But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
Mark 13
15And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house:
16And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment.
17But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
18And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.
Luke 21
21Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
22For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.
Okay, so it's just an impression I have, but I've learned to pay attention to impressions. I don't think fear is the point here, I just think "Be ready" is the point.
I have always felt that my scrapbooks were not necessarily for me and mine. I have always looked at them with the idea of leaving my story for people who DON'T know us. I just don't want to leave behind alot of undone "scraps". So I am culling.
And here is the second half of this post. I did good today. I got rid of a FULL garbage bag today. But in the midst of this culling process, an argument about homeschooling broke out. I'm not sure if the two were related to begin with, but they became that way due to my state of mind from it all. It seems that husband and my second and third all disapprove of my homeschooling methods.
Okay, back up. Add to this what I am about to tell you, that I have yet to hear from the pastor about this after laying that at his feet a month ago. I have not heard from some other ministry people to whom I volunteered to help a month ago. One other ministry that had been asking me to do something has also stopped calling me, not sure if it's because they aren't ready to start the project we were discussing yet, or if they changed their minds about needing my help. And the last photo shoot I did was horrible! Guess where my self esteem is! Oh yeah, now add the following to it.
So hubby starts asking me if I want to send the kids back to school this year. He really wants me to go to work to help with finances but in my overloaded state of mind I hear, "you just can't get the job done". This morning I find out that Second and Third (who are in public high school don't like me homeschooling Fourth and Fifth because "I don't teach them anything and the house is trashed." They told my mother that. So in the middle of all of this stuff, Second wants to go driving and we have company comming tomorrow, I need to finish what I am doing and WE need to do a rush clean up on the house. It really wasn't alot to do, but it meant no driving. So he drops the little bomb of "I hate this house it's always trashed." (Hello, I don't see you bending over to pick up that piece of paper your standing on!) Hormones kick in and I really don't remember where it went from there. Something along the lines of throwing my box of "Keep" stuff out in the rain and raking EVERYTHING off the top of my dresser into a big black garbage bag to the tune of, "Just throw it ALL out, I'm not worth the stuff I have anyway!" Then proceeded to tick off all the little self esteem busters that have been nagging at me lately.
Yeah
Mother of the Year right? Fifth curls up next to me in bed crying cause she wants to stay home and homeschool. Fourth is running through the house going, "noooo, I don't wanna go to public school."
Well, needless to say, no one has said anything to make me feel better about this. My confidence is shaken to the core. Hubby patronizes, but he is a master of smoothing things over so I question his sincerity. Oh he sincerely wants peace in his house.
I just want to be taken seriously. I mean, I feel like the last few times I've tried to volunteer to do something, the people looked at me like they were thinking "this nutcase? In our organization??? I don't think so!" All the while nodding at me and taking contact info like they cared.
I'm wondering what I did to clue them off.
