Long fall days

Life is busy this fall.  We have an eighth grader (doing some high school work), a third grader, a second grader learning to overcome dyslexia, and an active three year old keeping our days busy. We have Tong Soo Do, baseball, basketball, ballet, piano, a co-op and activities at our Church. We have a big house, big manicured yard, and a commitment to making healthy meals (homemade foods, gluten free, real food.) All this is a major juggle for Mom, along with shopping, laundry, and keeping everything clean and organized under our roof. I often feel like we are running a small business, there's so much management going on here. With our faith comes our attempts at regular prayer, and acts of kindness like bringing friends meals, etc.  All of this together can be sometimes very long and tiring! Right now the long days seem to stretch on, into a sea without end.

Auntie Lora helps us, and we couldn't juggle this many things without her. Hooray for help!  But as a Mom, it's frustrated to realize : we will never be caught up with it all.  That is the bitter frustration of this stage in life for someone who likes having everything done at the end of the day.  There is always more to do... until the day when they aren't here, which I don't long for at all.  Mom can dream of  getting away, and  can understand why sane people do not choose to homeschool: because it does make life harder, and busier, and more exhausting. Whew, honest, painful truth. It also makes life interesting, and wonderful knowing your kids so well, and having so many opportunities to grow and learn along with them.

Truth be told, we have these friends, who are sick, some dying of brain tumors, and seeing this makes it feel like life is really hard. Not just one, but several are sick. So under all the busy days,  is really a heart of sorrow over the tough things.  Suffering and leaving young children just stinks. We're praying hard and wanting circumstances to change, and it can leave one aching deep.  We know God redeemed all things. We trust Him...but we don't understand.  That part of life, when things are sometimes so very tough, we just have to muttle through... only with grace and prayer. So We muttle here. Getting to go home to heaven is everything. Living with hope, despite all things is the goal.  Dying of cancer along the way, isn't the chapter I wanted to read. He who loves large brings peace and joy in the midst of this all. I keep reminding myself...over and over.

In world events, we pray and watch how ISIS plunders on, the Middle East is almost beyond hope, and close to home our culture in America is so far from whole and inspiring. Ugh. We want to raise children prepared to be whole, and virtuous, and ready to live Christian lives. Watching the newsfeed leaves us wondering what they will be facing along their way...more to bring to Him who has answers when others fail. We face this life with prayer and hope, or join the ranks of the bitter and banal, which we don't want to do.

Blogging about happy moments,  can seem more like passing vanity, or even superficiality when others are suffering with their situation. It hurts to try to live joyfully while others are hurting. At least for me it does. So we pray, and life with kids is all about hope. It is all about the future, and possibility. So we live on in the hope in the God who knows all, who will heal or restore in His time, in His way.

So for us, the household, the children, and the many educational pursuits have our attention, and are keeping us busy. We love feeling caught up after hard work. It's painful realizing we'll never be totally 'caught up'. The nature of family life is such.  Yet we have freedom to choose the good and even the difficult,  and to believe in love no matter what.

 We believe, and hope despite war and beheadings, and injustice. He came to give us everything, to know love beyond all this. So we give everything we have to our family, trying to show them life is more than mediocrity and poor choices, however many surround us in the darkness. We plunder along a difficult, narrow road, with love and goodness as the small light guiding us.  The final place without sorrow is calling to us all at the end of the tunnel with twists and turns. May we never lose sight of love, no matter how long the days.