High school........

Loss. Sadness. Grieving. I can feel loss in the depth of my soul today. I cried in the shower this morning as if my heart had been ripped out.  If you saw me with my swollen eyes, you'd think that I had just had death of a loved one. I guess it's a death in a different sense.My oldest son went to high school today. (Great, I'm crying again!)

Who would think that I'd be this emotional over this? Yes, I cry every year on the first day of school, and you could probably look back on the blog to last Sept and find something similar, but It seems every year the loss seems deeper in my heart.

The last month or so God has been doing some serious work in my heart when it comes to my children.

It started with tossing the thought around of not homeschooling my younger three. After all, I'm no good at being a teacher, and my kids don't listen, and they fight, etc, etc. But God quickly sent others to help me see the light again and the reason why I was homeschooling in the first place.

I came across a wonderful blog that convicted me of the time I "spend" with my kids, and how much of it is quality time and investing on building relationship with them, not just being in the same house as them,doing cleaning, cooking, computer time, and hanging out while we are all together. That isn't spending time w/them.

Not really anyway.   God has just really had me thinking lately about my kids and what I am investing in their little souls.

At the same time another issue started weighing heavily on me. Ben, my sweet son, has been having some anger issues.

This led me to asking for prayer from my girlfriends, to seeking out books and reading them to try and figure out how to "fix" this issue we have.

God is teaching me grace and how to give grace to my children. (and of course although the book is about your children I am also convicted about giving my husband grace too).

This entire whirlwind of emotions and now one of them leaves for high school.

High school.............

I remember when he was a baby, like yesterday, dropping him off at daycare and crying all the way to work.   The time went by too quickly. Now it's high school. If those 14 years went by this quickly, the next 4 will go by faster. High school today, college tomorrow, then I'll watch him walk down the isle and start his own life.   Letting go is hard.

I think to myself, did I get enough time in with him? My heart says no.  When he's at school all day and comes home and has to do homework   and spend a little time with friends, how much time do I get to pour love into him? To teach him about our Lord?  So many thoughts spinning through my mind this morning and I sat down at my computer and put something on facebook about how I checked in on Ben this morning and he was crying in his bed and I asked what the matter was and he responded, " Jakey". He too was missing his brother.

Then I looked up.

Looked up at my daily calender and it says,

 " BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD".

 Psalm 46:10.

Oh thank you Jesus. I so needed that reminder! Wheeww. That's right, YOUR GOD.  I just need to give this to him. 

I also noticed a quote on facebook from Joyce Meyers, it said this~

"The difficult things you are going through now can help you gain experience for the future. If you can’t get rid of them, get all the value you can from them."

Wise words.

I know that this pain of having one go off to school helps confirm my decision to keep the other ones schooling at home. But there's still a question in my mind, if Jake should be home too.

That's where I need to be still and let God take care of the details...........