Homestead Longings

At The Starting Gate

I was thinking that I would like to write something. It has been a little bit now, but to be honest, I don't have anything but bits and pieces to share. I've had quite a few things going on in my life lately but I'm not even really sure what they are yet. I feel like a horse at the starting gate. I know it's coming. I can feel it and sense it, but God just hasn't opened the gate yet.

I have spent time lately just slowing down and listening a little more. Listening to God that is. Or at least trying to.  There have been lots of small little themes going on that in the end seem to all be tied in together. The first seemed to deal mostly with slowing down and dropping the dead weight of busyness and excess. All those extra activities and things that I thought were important, but once they were gone have left me feeling so much freer and revitalized and leaving my spirit ready for a fresh, new....something...in my life. Purpose, maybe.

There are so many things changing right now. My perspective mostly, on a lot of things has changed. My marriage has just grown so colorful, vivid, and intimate that I know only God could have moved in such an awesome way to draw us this close before my husband has to deploy. The peace and security that we are BOTH feeling in our relationship is something I know will help carry us through.

There has been this shifting of purpose in our homeschool and what our goals and focuses are this year. I really started out with this urge to just find things to basically keep us busy while dh is gone. Then God just put it on my heart to stop seeking that busyness, that he had plans for us already and that those things are just not part of it. I haven't even been looking at my children the same. Not long ago something happened between my two children and I had to sit down with ds 6yr old again. I would like to say that what I told him was all my idea, but it couldn't have been. It was all NEWS TO ME the moment it left my mouth. God chose HIM to be the oldest child. He chose HIM to be the big brother and to be in this family.  God chose HIM to be the protector of baby sis, and to love her and be the one she looks up to. It isn't just my son. It has really been on my heart lately for ALL OF US to think more about what our individual responsibilities are. To ourselves, to God, and to each other both within our own family and outside of it.

Yesterday, I sat down and felt the need to make myself a list. I keep thinking about the book "Do Hard Things" that the younger members of church were studying recently. Oh, how I wish I could have been there for the final discussion. I have been thinking over the past several years in my quiet times with God, and how I moved from where I was to where I am now. How did I get here? There is one thing that I did that was by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. My one great fear in life. Opening up and being vulnerable to other people, risking the possibilities of criticism and rejection from people I'd come to love. I didn't do it merely because God wanted me to. I wish that was all it had taken. I was encouraged and prodded along by a few of those friends.

Remembering this got me to thinking. What else might God be wanting me to do that I haven't? I sat down with a piece of notebook paper and a pencil and prayed. "Lord, what is it that you are calling me to do that I have been avoiding? What have I not done because of fear or because it isn't in my comfort zone? What do you need me to just step out in faith and start working on?"

Immediately a few things came to mind. Things that I had felt inspired to do at some point. Some of them revolved around things I started or wanted to do in the past and they fell away forgotten because of my own inconsistency. Some of them deal with a different side of my fear of rejection. And some of them deal with simple heart issues and priorities. I have a list now of about 7 things.

I remember laying in bed a few weeks back just feeling like I was missing something. That knawning feeling that something just isn't right, but what is it? I was talking to my husband about my feeling and he was laying there ever so patiently with a sad look on his face that easily translated to "Honey, I have no idea what to tell you." Finally, I sighed and told him, " I just don't know what God wants from me right now." I hope my little list is my answer.