I have been unable to blog for awhile. The following should explain why.
About my heart.....Sometimes I question the ability of a heart to handle all that is put on it! These past two weeks my heart has been pulled, tugged, burdened, aching, full of love, and broken into a million pieces, but yet it still stands. Amazing. God knew what he was doing when he created a mother's heart.
Last Friday I received a phone call from my Kyle 1st grade teacher. Concerned for him, she called me first thing in the morning. I of course, was not here. By the time I received the message, it was closer to noon. The message went something like this..."Mrs. Engel, I am very concerned about Kyle, he is cry hysterical and I cannot get him to stop. He says that he wants to come home. Could you please call me as soon as you get this message." By the time I got the message, I knew that he more than likely had stopped crying. So, I called and she explained to me again, that yes he had stopped crying, but that he seemed very upset. I explained to her that Fridays are always a challenge for Kyle, just expect that he needs a little extra grace on Fridays. He is exhausted from dealing with all the stimuli all week long, plus having to get up before the sun does not help. She put Kyle on the phone and this is what I heard, in the sweetest little voice you can imagine..."Mommy, I cried very hard this morning. I cried real tears. Mommy, can you come pick me up? I just want to come home. 1st grade is too hard Mommy, I just want to homeschool with my brothers? Is Brendan working? "Yes Kyle Brendan is doing school right now." How about Shane? Is Shane doing school too? "Yes honey, Shane is schooling too." Well, Mommy please can I just come home and do school with my brothers too? 1st grade is very hard and I just want to come home!"
Can you just imagine my heart? Being pulled and stretched to its maximum capacity, it literally hurt inside my chest cavity! My baby is needing me and I knew I needed to say this, (which is what I said) "Kyle, I love you so much! You are such a strong brave boy! You are a great 1st grader!! Mommy is going to come and get you in 2 hours only and so I really need you to put your smile face on for Mrs. Garrett and show her what a brave little man I have OK?" "Ok Mommy I will see you in parent-pickup!" I hung up that phone and cried every tear I had left! As a Mommy I wanted to go running to that school and pick up my baby! He totally knows that his brothers are homeschooled and he is not. He gets that this year. He never used to really understand that! It used to be fine that Brendan had his "special school", Shane had his and Kyle had his own special school. With all of Kyle's changes this year, he is having a challenging beginning, one of which absolutely needs to be soaked with prayers (and evidently a few Mommy tears as well).
I really have sought God on this and know that for now I am trying to do what is best for each of my children individually. Right now, Kyle needs the structure of every day being the same - knowing what to expect. This helps him function a little better. Shane and Brendan have their reasons for being homeschooled as well. Believe me when I tell you, I am not homeschooling because I'm being selfish with my kids. No way, it is just the opposite. For me the easier thing would be to send them to school, but that wouldn't necessarily be the right thing for my children at this point in our lives. As far as Kyle goes, I want to bring him home too. The day will come when he is home, I believe, but for now, until he is able to mature some of those coping skills, homeschooling might not be the best option for him.
About those crystal balls and rubber balls....As well as being a God's girl, and a mother, I am a wife, a granddaughter, a friend, a sister, a small group leader (of two groups), an AWANAs leader, a sign language teacher (for a homeschool enrichment program), a homeschooler, in charge of primary events in our homeschool group, a women's ministry vision team member, a meal team coordinator and a connextion team leader, and finally I have the role of making phone calls/house visitation to women who are interested in becoming a Christian. Whew, I'm exhausted. I love all of those things, I really do! However, I know myself, when my I am feeling a lack of grace in any of these areas, I am not operating in the will of God, no matter what those things are that I'm doing. My husband's new job keeps him away from home for a good portion of the day and night. We live with his 90-year old grandfather who is really needing more and more of my attention. (Falling down, forgetting medications, drives to Dr. appointments) - I love being able to serve him and all of my other "acts of service" too, but I'm quickly feeling the weight on my heart.
We all juggle balls, all day long! Some are delicate crystal balls, you know the kind that if they are dropped, they will shatter! Then there are the rubber balls, those are the ones that if they are dropped, they just keep bouncing and bouncing, until you (or someone else) can pick them up again. I've been trying to determine which of my "duties or services or roles" are crystal balls and which are rubber. This needs so much reflection for me. I love all of my "balls" and want to juggle all of them, but alas we were not called to be "Marthas" we are called to be "Marys". More and more I am being reminded that I need to stay here at the feet of Jesus and allow him to hand me each "ball", for He is the one who taught me to juggle in the first place. So, I may be needing to rework my life a little. Would you pray for me today? I know I am not the only one in the world who takes on too much with the best of intentions.
Inspired by the ever so slight change in our weather - (Nothing like NJ by the way)
Don't they look YUM?!
Ok, let me explain the above picture...That would be Shane "Sweatin' To The Oldies" with Richard Simmons. OH my goodness, this boy found these tapes (I'm almost embarrassed to say I own) way way down in the depths of our video collection. Can you say "the 80s!"?
This is the best part of homeschooling. Now they are fully dressed - I require at least shorts in the morning, but there is nothing like doing devotions to start us off!
Below you will see what we do on Fridays. We belong to a Homeschool Co-op and on Fridays this month the children are being taught all about the election process. They have so much fun being with all of their friends and learning about our Presidents, congress and how the election process works....
Below is Brendan and Shane with their good buddy Valor waiting for class to start!
As you can see there are a lot of friends in our humble homeschool group. Some of the signs read..."Proud to be a Republican", "Think Elephant", my children's signs read......"Vote Shane"....and "Vote American" - Brendan did tell me later that he meant to write America, but he is so used to writing the "a" and "n" together (because of his name of course) that it was just a mistake. I saw nothing wrong with that....the way our country seems to be going we never know....we may have to make signs that say that at some time.
