Mmmm…Fall! There are so many wonderful smells in the fall. The smell of old leaves beginning to decompose and return nutrients to the earth at the base of the trees from which they’ve fallen. The crispness in the wind that nips our noses and reminds us that Old Man Winter will soon make his visit. The warm cloying scent of fresh pumpkin pie or pumpkin cookies or pumpkin lattes or, well, pumpkin anything! And apples! Don’t forget the apples!

When autumn arrives and the year begins to wind down, I often feel nostalgic. I remember back to the start of the year, begun in the icy throes of winter. I remember the long-awaited arrival of spring and the magic of the reawakening of Life all around us. I remember the violent thunderstorms and the blistering dog days of summer. I find fall restful; the warm fall colors flare up and then grow muted and dull. The temperatures become more moderate and mild. The kids and I discover we’d like to be outdoors more than we have been — no longer chained to the air conditioning for comfort, no longer molested by every biting insect on the planet.

“Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course” (Ecclesiastes 1:4-6).

Whether we take a break from our regular studies or carry them into the great outdoors with us, we make an effort to be outside as much as possible. Pitch a tent in the backyard for a zippered classroom that allows an autumn zephyr to whisper in our ears. Lay on our backs in the middle of the deserted soccer field and watch the clouds go by. Discover the secret haunts of squirrels, fat and lazy after a summer of bountiful feasting. Let the kids soak up as much sunshine as they can while it’s still warm enough to be unencumbered by coats and hats and scarves and mittens.

“While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

The growing season is winding down. Lawns that had to be mowed nearly twice a week at the height of summer now show only scant growth from one Saturday to the next. Most of the harvest is in and safely stored away. Huge numbers of birds have been migrating through, alighting in the early evening to rest their weary wings and rising together again the following morning to resume their incredible journey south to warmer climes. The cicada and katydid populations have quieted their noisy summertime keening leaving behind a stillness that seeps into your soul. With the quieting of nature and the urgency of God’s creatures preparing for cold weather, I find myself reflecting on the past year. Were there victories? Were there failures? What have I learned? How can I do better going forward? What has God done for my family this year?

I find great peace and contentment in the fact that no matter what great upheaval may be going on in our human lives, the changing of the seasons goes on as usual. God remains unchanged. His Word stands firm as do His promises. His earth continues on in obedience to His instructions and shall continue to do so long after all of today’s conflicts have been forgotten.

October in the North East can be breathtakingly beautiful. People come from all around for leisurely drives and hikes in our wooded areas. It is hard not to be impressed by the splendor of the foliage as nature puts on a great show of reds, oranges, and yellows.

It is time to pull out cozy sweaters and spend a day in the orchards. We can pick apples right off of the trees and pumpkins from their vines. The chill in the air is a refreshing respite from the humid summer.

Laughter rings out from hayrides and tailgate parties, cheers rise up from the stands at football games, and bonfires blaze. We sip hot cocoa and lick the sticky remains of s’mores off of our fingers. Apple pies bubble in ovens, and the crockpots come out for making soups, stews, and chili.

Then comes the surprise gift which makes everyone smile. One last week of gorgeous sunshine and warm temperatures. Windows fly open and everyone tries to get outside and enjoy it while it lasts. The first hard frost is not far away.

The thing is, if you look deeper, there is a lot more going on. Animals are scurrying to collect a store of food for the winter. The blaze of colors above our heads will soon be dead brown dried out piles on the ground. The sky is filled with the birds hurrying to get south to warmer climes. It can be a rather desperate time. Even the humans know that we will be shut in soon and we make preparations for the cold days ahead. This is mostly unspoken, as if not saying the words aloud will ward off the inevitable.

If you have made it this far, bear with me, this is not a nature lesson. What I’m thinking is, I want to be more like that first version of October. I want to be like the bright colors and happiness which draw people’s focus away from the sad sub-story.

To be fair, I will confess that I abhor whining and complaining in general. Some days it feels like I am surrounded by it. My sons will tell you that I frequently ask them to turn off television programs and songs because I cannot take all of the angst. Sadder still is that some of the most serious caterwauling is over crazy first world problems like slow internet, not having the latest basketball shoes, or a latte that wasn’t prepared properly.

These things, to me, are like the dead leaves. They should be crunched underfoot or raked up and made into mulch.

In contrast, standing out amongst the grumblers are the brave souls who are positively radiant. They are like bright sun shining through stunning fall leaves. These are the people who remain poised and grace-filled even when things are not going their way. Despite their difficulties, they exude joy and even take time to reach out to others.

Yes, this is how I want to be.

I have been reflecting upon this verse: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…” (James 1:2)

One of the easiest ways to get to that place is to live in contentment. It helps to know that there is no circumstance or material possession that will bring me true joy. Happiness is always a choice. Jobs can be lost, health fails, and all of the “stuff” we acquire is destined for a landfill eventually.
I have had the opportunity to make two major moves in my life. Part of the deal was leaving most of my things behind. It was not really hard at all, and it has helped me to keep my feelings about material possessions quite neutral.

I also have a keen perspective on how precious and fleeting life is. There is no possession I would not give for one more day, one more hour, or one last minute with loved ones who have died – but these things cannot be had for any amount of money.

The only thing that I have for certain is the moment. When I can be grateful for it despite any physical or spiritual suffering, when I can look past myself and think of others, and when I can use my own trials and tribulations to draw closer to God, then I am like the good parts of October – a reminder to look up at what is bright and beautiful.

It’s fall and you know what that means! Candy corn, caramel apples, crisp, cool air and (in our part of the country) the local county fair.

For the past few years, my kids have entered the various contests sponsored by the fair. This year we’ve entered art projects, canning products, photography, and culinary items. It’s fun to create projects to win ribbons and premiums (aka money prizes). Besides the fun and tangible rewards, my kids are learning all kinds of lessons from the fair.

1. Perseverance

My kids will start planning some of their projects as far as a year in advance, but following through with those projects is a different story. One year, my son had this grand idea that he was going to make a 3-D origami swan. It would need 200-400 individual origami pieces. He worked on those pieces for months. When it came time to put it together, he got so frustrated he almost gave up. That’s where I came into the picture. I knew he couldn’t give up, he needed to persevere. So, I gave him a deadline and we sat down one afternoon. He did the work, while I encouraged him on. He finished, entered, and won best of show with that swan. Sometimes the satisfaction of a job well done is sweeter when we have pushed through the tears and frustration. Perseverance!

2. Time Management

The first year we entered projects in the fair, we started small-4 projects for each child. Now, my older children enter somewhere over 20 projects a piece. With all the other responsibilities with school, family and hobbies, time management is important. At first, I had the kids work on a project a month. Now, I give an ultimate deadline to have all projects done. A friend suggested that since the entry date is a few weeks before the fair that whatever is complete is entered. If you didn’t finish it, you just don’t enter that category. Either way, giving children deadlines helps them learn to manage their time.

So, you don’t think we’re perfect. I will admit this is an area we are still working on. Some children are just more motivated to do projects earlier than others. Lessons worth learning take time!

3. Life Skills

Entering the fair has pushed my children (and myself) to learn new skills. We’ve experimented with canning for the first time. The fair was just the motivation we needed to try an unfamiliar task. Photography, different kinds of crafts, animal husbandry, gardening, culinary categories and more can be explored while participating in a county fair. In our experience, adding one or two new skills (categories) a year is plenty.

4. Life’s not fair!

Just because you worked hard on a project and it’s prize-worthy, doesn’t mean you WILL win. Sometimes we shake our heads in confusion over the judges’ decisions. We talked with a disgruntled parent picking up their projects wondering why their son’s hand sewn professional puppet lost to a scribbled-on paper sack puppet. Judges can be subjective. They judge things through their own filter. Judges are influenced by their own personal preferences, tastes and moods. They are human! This is such a huge lesson for our children to learn. You can do the best job and still not win! You may be the most qualified candidate for that scholarship or job interview and still not get it. Life is not always fair!
What started out as a fun experience has turned into so many life lessons. Participating in our county fair has taught my children so much more than I could have ever imagined.

Check out Countyfairgrounds, USA to find a fair near you!

So, we’ve pretty much all heard people say that there are so many “holidays” made up to benefit Hallmark, right? Well, there are just about as many “awareness” days/weeks/months every year, but in contrast to the various questionable holidays, these are to bring awareness to people of the many different health issues, mental health conditions, etc. that a great deal of people are challenged with. The more we know, the more we can be aware of signs and symptoms. The more we know, the better we are able to reach out to those affected.

October has been listed by some sources as Depression Awareness Month, and October 10th as not only World Mental Health Day, but also National Depression Screening Day. With the recent death of actor and comedian Robin Williams and focus on clinical depression, I’ve really felt my heart burdened to speak out.

The day Robin Williams died, just about everyone on Facebook was talking about it and posting photos. I read a lot of my friends’ posts and the comments underneath, and while many were very encouraging as far as how people viewed depression and the people who suffer from it, there were still people who obviously have misconceptions and stereotypical thinking about it. There is still a stigma surrounding mental health disorders, and it shouldn’t be that way.

There is no shame in having depression. No one hopes as a child to one day have it. No one wakes up in the morning thinking, “Oh boy, maybe I’ll be clinically depressed today!” No one would want to have it, or wish it on anyone else if they’ve been through it.

One friend of mine, Shen, posted a wonderful short piece on depression and her experience with it, and one thing that struck home with me is that she said another friend of hers said to her that she seemed so “normal.” My friend went on to expound so succinctly on how people with depression aren’t identifiable by some mark or whatever; they’re average people just like anyone else. There is no specific face of depression. You can’t tell by looking at someone. This is so very true.

“When I posted about Robin Williams suicide, I made mention, somewhat vaguely, of my own issues with depression. I received a message from someone who seemed surprised I had dealt with this issue, and in fact continue to deal with it daily. The quote that stood out in the message was that I seemed so “normal”. While I don’t claim to be “normal” in many ways, I wanted to make a point here. People struggling with depression/mental illness are normal. We are just like everyone else, just like you. We don’t walk around drooling, we don’t have a scarlet letter, we love, work, and do all the things “normal” people do. Some of those things are harder some days but we are like everyone else. I have kids I adore, parents I appreciate and friends I am grateful for. I shop at the same stores and walk the same streets. Whatever you imagine mental illness looks like, and perhaps you feel less vulnerable if you have a vision of what it looks like, the actual face of depression…well, it looks just like you, just like me, just like Robin Williams and so many others. It isn’t stamped on our faces, the battle scars don’t show because they are on our hearts and souls, in our minds and thoughts. So yes, I appear normal, I am normal, I just battle a different demon than you do.”

And this is why I want to share my story.

Growing up, from a very early age (about 6 years old) on, I experienced times of unease, my stomach feeling sick like when you know you‘re in trouble, the feeling that something is wrong but you don’t know what, and I didn’t learn until I was an adult that what I was experiencing were anxiety attacks. I never told anyone; I didn’t understand what was happening to me, I didn’t know until adulthood that these disorders ran in my family, and because they did eventually pass, I just went on with life.

When I was a teen, I started experiencing times of depression, but I suppose at the time, it seemed like it was a normal teenage thing; you know, they get so “moody” and they have all those hormones running through them. I can’t say for sure that it wasn’t that, but those are my earliest memories of having feelings of depression.

As I became an adult, the “down” days were still with me, and after I had children, it just increased, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I’m a Christian, and I heard some Christians saying that it’s due to not being as committed as one should be to God, or having some unconfessed sin in one’s life, or not having enough faith…how people come to these absurd conclusions, and it’s always people who have never experienced clinical depression, is beyond me.

Have they never read of Paul’s affliction in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10? Would they decide that the apostle Paul wasn’t committed enough to the Lord, or that he had some sin he hadn’t confessed, or that he didn’t have enough faith? Maybe we should let God work all that out anyway. It’s not really our job.

But all the accusations and judgments against people who were experiencing depression made me, already shy and somewhat lacking in confidence, fear speaking of what I was going through. I also had this very big fear that if I told my doctor about it, my children would be taken from me because I was “crazy.” That was a very real fear for me. I felt like people would equate clinical depression with someone not stable, or off in the head. And so my fears kept me silent.

But they also kept me a prisoner.

And so as the years went by, when my girls were little, I suffered in silence. I felt myself slipping further and further under a cloak of undefined blackness, and terrified to speak out, to reach out for help. I distinctly remember a woman I knew who was a little younger than me sending me a note and reaching out to me in love and friendship, but I couldn’t seem to accept it, and the opportunity slipped away. I regretted that for years and years.

Each day it became harder to ignore. I felt dead inside…it was like I couldn’t feel anything. I would try and try, but the only thing I could really feel was my love for my two girls. I remember morning after morning, for years, waking and lying in bed and feeling so dead and blank inside, praying to God, “Please God! Help me! Fix me! Make me FEEL!”

I cried so many tears, rivers and oceans of them, really. It felt so bad inside, and there wasn’t any reason why. I had a wonderful life; I had a husband who worked to provide for his family, I had two beautiful children who I loved more than life itself, I was home schooling, which I loved, we were involved in home school group, music, drama, bowling leagues, and active in our church.

So I would lay there thinking, why can’t I feel?? Why am I like this? There is nothing at all in my life to “make” me feel down, so why is this happening to me?? There was no trauma happening in my life, no crises going on, not many stresses at all….so where did this come from and why was I like this?

I did talk about it a little to my mother and one of my sisters, and both of them, who had been diagnosed with clinical depression and were on medications for it, told me over and over that it was clinical depression, and I should go see my doctor.

But I was so afraid; I somehow had this irrational fear that if I was diagnosed with it, my children would be taken from me. That was the only reason I didn’t go forward and talk to my doctor. Never mind that my girls were never neglected; the fact was that if I could only do so much each day due to the depression making me very unmotivated, what I did was take care of them. Everything else was what got undone or shoved to the sidelines. But my daughters were always taken care of.

By the time 2000 rolled around, my mother and sister had been telling me for two years that they were sure I had clinical depression and that I really needed to go to my doctor. I never told them of my fears about having my children removed from my home if I was diagnosed with it.

But by that time, the clinical depression was so bad and had such a stranglehold on my life, that instead of having a few “down” days, as I called them, I was having every day in a month “down” and only one day a month when I felt like myself, my old self. On that day I felt like me inside, and could “feel” things, and had no problem getting myself to do things that I needed to do or enjoyed doing.

See, that’s the thing: in the clutches of clinical depression, you lose all joy, you don’t have joy in things you like to do, you don’t even have any desire to do the things you always loved doing. I mean, besides having to fight to get myself to do the necessary things like cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc, I couldn’t get myself to do the things that had previously given me great pleasure and enjoyment.

And inside of me, very deep inside…every day that passed and I couldn’t do my crafts, copped out of bowling league, gave an excuse for not being able to show up for home school group, backed out of a church activity…I felt a little piece of me slip away. And that made me so sad. What if it went on and on? What if, after a few more years…there was nothing of me left? What then?

If you’ve never experienced this, then maybe you just can’t understand the fears, the utter sadness at not even understanding what is happening to you, the desperation you feel. It’s almost like you’re looking at yourself from the sidelines and seeing what’s going on, but you feel powerless to stop it, to make it go away or to make it better.

And the sheer terror of laying in bed thinking on all of this, thinking of what your life has become and who you’ve become…and not recognizing yourself. It’s like living with a stranger inside your own body. I knew this wasn’t the real me; it just wasn’t.

I’ve always been a joyful person, someone who wakes up in the morning fairly leaping out of bed, with a happy song going on in my head, and I always went right to the bathroom to use the toilet, brush teeth, comb hair, etc. and them literally just started right in on my day, no “warm up” time needed. I am not exaggerating when I say I usually woke up almost laughing, with a smile on my face and usually singing.

So as the years wore on and the depression went untreated and became worse and worse…it really was like having some stranger living inside of me, someone I didn’t recognize or know. And I used to think, “This isn’t me, that’s not how I am, I don’t know this person!”

When I finally went through so many months of having 29 days out of 30 feeling like this, I knew there was no way I could go on like that, as much for my daughters’ sakes as my own. I could not bear living any longer with such deep, black deadness inside me, unable to feel the joy of life that I had always felt. I didn’t want that stranger living inside me anymore.

As scared as I still was about having my children taken away if I was diagnosed with depression, I made my appointment and went to it. I was more afraid of waking up one day to find that there was no more of the real me inside, and that the stranger inside me had become…me.

And my fears dissipated as soon as my doctor talked to me and prescribed medication and told me to come back in a month, but to call after 3 weeks if I didn’t find anything different. No, he didn’t think I was “crazy,” and he wasn’t going to call anyone and have my kids removed from my home.

I went home with hope in my heart, and I took that medication faithfully. It happened to be Prozac, one of the most common medications recommended for clinical depression. In exactly 21 days, after not noticing anything different, I called my doctor and informed him of this. I had been on the lowest dose, so he called in to my pharmacy and increased it to twice that amount. Within 4 days…FOUR DAYS…I woke up and was me again!

I recognized it immediately! I’m telling you, this is something like nothing else, when you have gone through years of losing your joy of life, slowly losing yourself in the process, to wake up and feel familiar inside. It wasn’t that stranger I didn’t recognize, it was ME!

I felt it right away, and I knew it was me.

As I went through that day, I was almost afraid to hope it would last. It happened to be on a Wednesday, our usual home school group’s day for music or drama class. I remember getting my daughters settled in at it, and sitting down near a friend with my foster baby, and I felt so good, so good, and so ME, that I confided in her what I had been going through and that I thought the medication was working. I couldn’t stop smiling, that’s how happy I was.

Well, I didn’t have to be afraid it was just too good to be true, or it was just the one good day out of the month…it truly was a turning point for me. The medication had kicked in and conquered my clinical depression. As each day dawned from that day on, I woke up like I always had before clinical depression took over my life. I was me again, and so, SO happy to be that way!

My life changed from that day on. I’ll quickly give you a synopsis on the time since then: I was on Prozac for two years, when it “broke through” the depression, and then I went on Celexa, which, after a month and an increased dose, worked for me and once again I was myself inside. I was on meds for a total of 6 years, and then didn’t need them anymore. I’ve been off meds for 8 years.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of talking to someone, especially your health care provider, if you’ve been experiencing depression, especially if it’s been so bad that you’ve had suicidal thoughts. I never really had those; only a couple times in my life as reactions to circumstances.

I know how hard it is, even as badly as you’re feeling, to reach out for help. I’ve been there, and I’m actually there again today, and I have an appointment to talk to my doctor and get back on meds. I recognize the symptoms, and I’m not willing to let myself slip that far under as I had all those years ago.

I’m reaching out for help, and even if my former doctor of a year (he just retired) brushed me off when I brought this up to him, I still kept at it and reached out again to the new doctor I found, and I’m going to get the help I need, not only for my children, but for me. I understand now that I’m worth it. I deserve to be all I can be, and if that means I need depression meds in order to straighten things out, then so be it. I’ll do whatever it takes to not risk that slippery slope that leads to deadness inside, joylessness, and that stranger I do not know.

Never discount yourself. You’re worth it too.

And PS: I am the face of depression. Me.

Cup…it’s a simple word really, with many definitions, but the first thing that come to mind is an object you pour a beverage into. Webster’s defines a cup as, “a small vessel of capacity, used commonly to drink out of.” The phrase, “a small vessel of capacity” is a striking statement because, as we look at our own lives, that’s exactly what we are…small vessels of capacity. We are GOD’s cups.

JESUS told told the Pharisees in Matthew 23:25,26 (KJV) “Woe unto you…for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.”

David, the great king of Israel, who beautifully orchestrated so many of the Psalms, knew what it meant to be the LORD’s cup. Three times in the Psalms, he alludes to the portion of a cup. In Psalm 11:6 (KJV) “Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.”

Then in Psalm 16:5 (KJV) “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup:”

And finally the most famous Psalm of all…Psalm 23:5 (KJV) “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies: thou anointest my head with oil: my cup runneth over.”

Each and every one of us is a small vessel, or cup, into which GOD wants to pour HIS SPIRIT, but that can only happen when we allow HIM to do so. All too often, we choose to fill our own cups, never realizing what GOD is wanting to fill us with.

Why not take some times today and examine what your cup is brimming with? Then think about what GOD desires to fill you with. Perhaps you’ll find yourself in one of these categories.

You worry, while GOD wants to supply you with peace.

You choose resentment, but GOD wants to teach you how to love.

You allow yourself to be overcome with greed as you try to keep up with “The Jones” but easily forget that GOD has supplied all of your needs.

Sometimes you allow anger to reign when GOD is asking you to forgive…because HE first forgave you.

Frustration boils over and you damage important relationships, but GOD wants to instill patience in you to endure those hardships.

You busy yourself with work to avoid anymore heartaches, when GOD says rest and be still. It is then that you can know HE is GOD.

Areas of your life are continually being affected by bitterness, which is quickly spreading like a cancer within you, when if you just stopped focusing on your pain, you could see GOD’s blessings as you walk with HIM.

There are days your cup is overrun with hopelessness, but GOD says HE will give you hope and an expected end.

Trials of life can bring so much sadness, but GOD is there asking you to let HIM to restore the joy of HIS salvation.

None of us can ever be a completely empty vessel. We must be filled with something. It’s our nature. It’s how we function. Just like a car needs gas, oil and so many other parts to run…we need something to occupy our hearts, minds and souls with. Think about it. Have you ever really been able to stop feeling or thinking or just being? Of course not!! GOD did not create us that way. HE created us to be bursting with HIS greatness.

So, how do we keep from filling our cups ourselves? How do we allow GOD to pour HIS majesty into us? It’s simple really. Where we allow our cups to be filled depends on where we go when life overwhelms us. Are we turning to the world? Finding our answers in magazines or horoscopes. Perhaps you look to Oprah or Dr. Phil, when the first place you should turn to is the WORD. GOD breathed HIS Word into the pens of men so that you might find a way to fill your cup with something better than the world has to offer. HE’s there waiting to mold you and shape you. HE is the potter and you are the clay…but what goes into your cup is up to you.

As you ponder this thought today, maybe it’s time to empty your cup of whatever you’ve allowed to be poured in and be filled with GOD desires for you. Maybe your cup is like David’s and overflowing. However, wherever you find yourself today, just take a moment…be still and know HE is GOD….if you do this, I know you’ll find a cup full of something more satisfying than you ever expected.

There’s the smell of cinnamon, nutmeg, apple and pumpkin everything. Beautiful, bountiful, colored leaves greet the eyes and crisp cool air lends itself to building leaf piles, and leaf pile jumping!
I have some wonderful Fall memories that I do my best to share with my children. It’s not exactly easy to explain these concepts that they have never experienced themselves, living most of their lives in the tropics. Autumn down here is best described as…well, weird!
For starters, it’s still blazing hot as it has been everyday for the last 7 months. The leaves don’t change. EVER. And instead of apple orchards, we have citrus groves. In fact, if you didn’t have a calendar, you wouldn’t know it was fall.
Except for the arrival of Love Bugs. Yes, bugs. The return of these pesty nuisances for a brief, yet annoying stint, signals cooler weather is on its way sometime soon.
So as I sit here searching for Fall Inspiration, all I come up with is bugs….

Thinking a visual will help stir the creative juices, I punch out some autumn colored leaves. Still, nothing.

Perhaps your situation is similar to ours in that you are stuck in a real life season that shows no sign of ending. You know this season can’t last forever, but you are weary with waiting.

The Bible says in Galatians 6:9
“Do not grow weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”.

As I continue to gaze at my hand full of leaves, I am reminded that it IS possible to look forward to the next season with hope and anticipation. Though there are few signals to indicate a coming change, my trust and hope remain in the Lord, the author of the harvest.

My favorite time of year is almost upon us here in Alabama. The time of year that includes the beauty of the fall colors coming alive in nature as the leaves reveal their beautiful, enriching colors that just scream the fall season. I just love everything about this season! I love to make my famous pumpkin muffins that my family devours every year. I have included the recipe for these great muffins (they are easily adaptable).

Here in Alabama, we love the first signs of fall because that means that college football season has arrived. Roll Tide!! But I love the brisk weather that it brings and the caramel apples with their yummy goodness! I also love roasting marshmallows over an open fire with my family as we enjoy this cooler weather.

We usually start making plans for the holidays that are also set to arrive. We usually have a harvest event celebrating fall’s arriva,l full of games, treats, and friends. And then we start looking at Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as the two birthdays we have the last two months of the year.

After a humid summer in the Alabama heat I find myself just begging for cooler temperatures. Any given fall day or evening, you will find our family sitting around the woodstove with some piping hot muffins and some delicious hot chocolate, enjoying each other’s company.

Pumpkin Muffins

@allrecipes.com – adapted from a recipe submitted by Wendy Stenman

This original recipe included by the author was for Cream Cheese Muffins, and while I have made them that way I have also baked several other variations from the basic part of the recipe. They are very easily adapted to different flavors, so please give them a try, my family loves them!

Basic Recipe:
• 2 1/4 C Self Rising Flour
• 3 t Pumpkin Pie Spice
• 2 C Sugar
• 2 Eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 C Canned Pumpkin
• 1/2 Canola Oil

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and wet ingredients in another bowl and then slowly incorporate them together. I usually have to mix with a spoon because the batter gets very thick. Bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Makes up to 24 muffins, maybe a few more.

Cream Cheese Variation:
This is an add-in between layers of the Basic Recipe in the muffin tin. Ex. 1 tablespoon of basic recipe, 1 tablespoon cream cheese mixture and then top with more basic recipe mixture.

• 1 8oz pkg Cream Cheese
• 1 Egg
• 1 T Sugar

Combine and beat ingredients with a mixer until smooth and then add as instructed as above.

Chocolate Chip Variation:
To the Basic Recipe add in 3/4 C of chocolate chips

Plain Variation:
These can also be made just plain. You can bake up the Basic part of the recipe without adding anything else and it is just as good!

Happy Fall Y’all!

The other day my wife was talking to…let’s just say “another homeschooler.” The conversation revolved around college and the plans she had for her soon-to-graduate child.

My wife summed up the woman’s attitude toward steering her child in the college direction as…well…OBSESSED. She was bound and determined to get this kid into a specific college one way or the other. She was relentlessly pushing her son towards a better SAT score, a sports scholarship, and any other way she could think of to make sure he got into the college of her…I mean “his” choice.

My kids noticed it too and thought she was a little NUTS.

I’m not against college. I’m not against higher learning and institutional universities. BUT I am against putting a round peg into a square hole. Not only does it hurt the peg but it’s also a losing proposition.

This particular kid has abilities, talents, and gifts, and wants to pursue a certain type of ministry, but all his mother can see is a specific COLLEGE and a specific degree (in something more versatile than what he wants to do)!!!!! She’s so bent on that destination that she’s pushing him into it, will most likely cause him to rack up debt (unless he gets that sport scholarship), and then doom him to a life of doing something he doesn’t even want to do.

If this mom sounds like you, can I urge you to…RELAX? It’s not your job to get your kid into college, trade school, or the work place. Your job is to fan the flames of passion, give them the tools to accomplish what they are made for, and allow them to grow up by failing or floundering.

The big LIE that has been perpetuated by politicians, leaders, and homeschoolers is that everyone needs to go to college and have a marketable degree. That, my fellow parent, is a bunch of malarky. Not every kid needs to go to college in the same way that not every kid needs to speak Russian.

What are we doing here…squeezing our children into boxes? Some kids are made to fit the box…but some are not. Moms, let your child be what God wants him/her to be. Quit thinking it will look bad on YOU and quit letting fear of their future drive you to the point of obsession. Think only of what God would have for your child and then stand back and cheer him on. Don’t tell him why he shouldn’t…but why he should.

I’m telling you, that is FREEDOM and the recipe for joy and success. But it starts with you relaxing and leaving the results up to God.

Only the truth!

Surgery! That isn’t a word any of us really want to hear. It is a little scary when you need surgery for any reason, even if it is minor. Thoughts of complications, not waking up, and more, may go through your mind and send chills through your body. No one wants surgery, even if you want the results that a particular surgery will bring. For me, the fears are always compounded with how they are going to treat me. Will I be able to communicate with the doctors and nurses? Will they even try? Will they care that I am afraid? Will they ignore me and pull and tug on me and act like I’m a medical practice mannequin because I can’t see and hear? So much goes through my mind that sleeping is difficult and fear rises long before the day arrives. Recently, I was told I needed surgery again. This time on my neck, which is scary in many ways all on its own. What would happen?

The surgery was scheduled for removal of an adenoma (tumor) of the parathyroid at The Norman Parathyroid Center located at the Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, FL. I had to leave my state of Georgia to get this surgery. All I could do was tell them that I was deaf and blind and needed a medically certified ASL interpreter who would do tactile ASL. I have been in hospitals before and denied interpreters despite the ADA law. I knew it could happen, and I knew the problems it could cause if I didn’t understand the directions that medical staff needed me to follow. All I could do was show up at 7:00 am that August morning and pray.

We arrived on time to the surgical center’s floor. I stepped off the elevator already feeling like a fish out of water because I chose to leave my guide dog at the hotel to keep from scaring him too much. Little Joe would have been allowed in compliance to ADA, but I didn’t want to cause him stress. To my great surprise, a hand gently touched my shoulder and then slid down my arm and under my hand. My hand was guided through the signs HELLO MY NAME and then letters formed in my hand and mind N I C H O L E, Nichole. I INTERPRET FOR YOU NOW DAY (Today). Ah, fear began to drain away. That was a good start, but I have had great interpreters before and still had nightmare stays at a hospital. I remained cautious.

We sailed through the initial check-in with the help of a nice lady who was patient and friendly. She didn’t give me the usual impatience or hint of frustrated energy. The questions were answered, but there was a light-hearted air to the conversation and even a few laughs from all involved, even at my occasional jokes.

Next, I was taken to a curtain-walled “room” among the line of similar “rooms”. As I was brought in, I noticed first that the usual discomfort I had was much diminished. Tampa General Hospital has an unusual layout where they literally let the outside come in. Located on a point of Davis Island in the bay, the hospital uses windows everywhere possible, letting in the natural light and using less artificial light. It gave a peaceful feeling which I’m sure helps with anxiety in addition to cutting electricity costs. The views for the sighted go a long way, too, because even in the pre-op and recovery rooms on my floor, the outside wall was entirely glass letting the view of the bay speed recovery. We took a picture to share. I wish all hospitals had views like this. It is more like a luxury hotel than a hospital, but that is a good thing, right?

The nurse greeted me with a cheerful and caring voice as I arrived. She told me that she would be with me every step of the way. She explained every aspect of the room to me as far as the medical equipment and what would be used and why. The interpreter added other details of the mundane arrangement of the room, as is her job. The nurse then said the doctor and anesthesiologist would be in shortly. I was given detailed instructions about getting undressed and in the hospital gown and booties, and then asked if I had any questions. Pretty routine, right? Sounds no different than what happens to other patients, right? Well, that is my point. I only need a way to understand what is happening, so you can treat me as you would anyone else.

Doctor and anesthesiologist came in and asked the routine questions and explained the surgical process and possible complications. I, of course, had to sign that I understood that “something could go wrong.” The conversations were lengthy and took longer than normal, and even though my husband was in the room and many staff usually will just talk to him instead of me despite my objections, the staff at Tampa General talked to me and after, only after, I showed my understanding would they turn to my husband and ask if he had any questions. This practice made me feel not only involved but important, which I should be in this case because it was me and not my husband who was having the surgery. Yes, the conversations were lengthy and somewhat slow, but both professionals took the inconveniences in stride and came in and out as they had to deal with the other surgeries of the day (8 total with one other taking longer than normal as did mine, which was much longer than normal it turned out because I had two tumors and one wrapped around the nerves to my larynx- voice box). I didn’t ever feel that they were annoyed, angry, or any of the things that I have felt with other doctors and staff in other hospitals. When I don’t have an interpreter the instructions they give aren’t followed. I have no idea what to do or what is happening. With an interpreter like this time, the difference was that I could communicate. They could tell me in a way that I could “hear” and I could know enough of what they said to consider it and ask questions as I needed.

Unfortunately, having good communication doesn’t always ensure good understanding. It helps, of course, but the attitudes of the medical staff in any negative way prevent the interpreter from being able to do their job properly. The medical staff and the interpreter worked together as a team this time caring down to the smallest detail if I understood and if I was feeling safe and secure. The interpreter was even allowed in the operating room (OR) wearing scrubs as she should have been. Some hospitals will get an interpreter, but they won’t allow the interpreter in the OR. The ADA does allow interpreters in the OR until the patient is asleep because there are still instructions being given and things happening that need to be explained to the patient to prevent anxiety. The practice, when allowed, works well. The difference was amazing. Yes, it was routine sounding for many of you, but for me it was a unique experience. I liked being treated the same and my procedure went well with no fear and less of the usual nervous tension.

Besides the use of an interpreter and the caring of medical staff, a few things happened that helped me that might seem trivial to some, but the allowances went a long way toward my comfort and ease. I was allowed to keep my sunglasses and hearing aids on until I was asleep in the OR. The medical staff also made sure that after the surgery before I woke up that my sunglasses were back on and my hearing aids back in. Bright lights give me migraines and actually cause instant pain in my eyes. Recovery would have been made worse if I had gotten a migraine, plus the pain would have added to my anxiousness throughout the tests and pre-op and especially the OR. The hearing aids may or may not help. I use them when around people and in new places. Any noises I pick up I use in processing what is going on around me. Having them on gives me confidence that I am in control and can figure out what is happening.

These added allowances were not a problem for this staff. During surgery, they kept my glasses and hearing aids in a little box with my name and data on it like the medical ID bracelet we all wear. The staff made sure they got the box when I went into recovery. In fact, they went further than expected. They not only heard me when I explained why I wore the glasses and hearing aids, but they took it to heart and made sure I didn’t wake up with bright lights in my face and heard whatever sounds I could by putting the glasses and aids back on. Very few staff would have thought about that. It mattered to them because it mattered to me.
One more thing that made this experience unique for me and might be the most important was that the doctor touched my hand (after getting permission) several times as he talked to help me know he was there and attentive and caring. The explanations were important and helpful to let me know where I was and what was around me. More important than the explanations, though, were the little touches to show they knew I was human and allowed me to feel human. I can’t see your smiles, but I can feel them through your hands.

This is what happens when doctors, nurses, and hospital policies come together and do it right. I can feel safe and secure during a scary situation which helps me heal. It really doesn’t take that much, but it begins with that all important skill of listening with the heart.

For most of us, fall means back to school, back to sports, back to dance classes . . . and girl scouts and boy scouts and AWANA . . . and Robotics and theater and co-op . . .and everything else that fills our insane, frenetic schedules. And if you are like me, in the course of your crazy life, there is the smallest chance that you’ve talked to other moms. You know. Those moms. Those perfect moms. Those moms who have it all together. Those moms whose kids came out of the womb trilingual and at the tender age of 7 have scholarships waiting for them at the university of their choice. The ones for whom everything seems to always be going right and nothing seems to ever go wrong. E-V-E-R. In the meantime, your 4 year old still isn’t potty trained and your high-schooler has a tenuous grasp of the English language (let alone any other language) and you feel like an utter failure.

But oh, dear mamma, you are not. You are not a failure. You are a child of God. And He has three reminders for you so you don’t fall for the lie of perfection.

First, you must know in your heart that God gave your children YOU as their mamma and He gave you them as your children. You aren’t parenting that other mom’s children, and she wasn’t given yours. God is sovereign. Really. He knows what He is doing! He knows the plans He has for you…but He also knows the plans He has for your children, and He gave them to YOU to lay the framework to accomplish those plans, not that other “perfect” mom. You are your children’s perfect mom. You. Seek Him first. Ask God for guidance, and spend time in His word. Being firmly rooted in His word will help you make the right decisions for your children about everything from potty training to extracurricular activities to academics and everything in between.

(insert Mimi self portrait)

Second, and I know I’ve said it before because it’s something I personally cling to, remember that the here and now is not the forever and always. (All credit for that goes to Carol Barnier, by the way.) The reality is we ALL fail. Some of us fail big. Some fail in little bits with great regularity. But all of us fail. And all of our kids have those moments. Or years. But the here and now is NOT the forever and always. The sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Okay, sometimes those nights last eons, but joy will come again because joy is a choice. Choose joy. Your child is a gift. Celebrate them. Someday, it will be your child doing something amazing, and someone else looking in from the sidelines thinking how fabulous YOUR life is.

And on that note, third, remember that when you are looking at that perfect mom and thinking how much you are failing compared to her, you are comparing her outsides to your insides. You are comparing only the little snapshot of what you see of her life at that moment with every ugly thought you have, every harsh word you’ve said, every appointment you’ve forgotten, every dinner you’ve burned. It’s not an honest assessment at all. Some of her reality is perfect, like the mirrored tiles above that reflect the true surroundings. But some of her reality is a little more like those wonky reflections, not “perfect” at all. For all you know, that mom’s older child is in jail, her husband has lost his job, they are in debt up to their eyeballs, and that child that speaks 3 languages also is on 6 different medications to control his mood swings. But that’s not the kind of thing you bring up in “polite conversation”, so what you see in your snapshot moment at soccer practice is her doing her best to keep him active and busy and out of the house in order to keep the peace for the rest of the family at home. If you could see her insides, you would suddenly find that you have much more in common than you think!

God wants you to know that He loves you mamma, just the way you are. He is the Potter. You are the clay. And usually, He works through cracked pots. Perfect vessels attract attention because of their perfection, but people praise the beauty of the vessel, and it gets all the credit. Cracked pots need help, someone holding them together to be useful. God will hold you and your children in the palm of His mighty hand if you just let Him. He will guide you and His purpose will be established and He will accomplish His good pleasure both for you and for your children, and it might not be today, or tomorrow, or even this year, but it will happen in His perfect timing. And while you are waiting on the Lord, just remember that so is everyone else. Their lives may look better from the outside, but inside we all struggle. There is no such thing as perfect this side of heaven, no matter what the conversation at the park makes it seem like. So don’t fall for the lie of perfection.

It’s officially fall here in Virginia. The days are cool and crisp, leaves are beautifully painted reds and golds and the produce stands are full or pumpkins and apples. Everywhere you look there are harvest parties and fall festivals. Farmers are storing up feed and hay to feed to their livestock during the winter. Homemakers are pickling and canning the last of the garden bounty. Pumpkin recipes are everywhere! Despite all the fun things, fall is still a season of preparation for the upcoming deadness of winter.

I’m also sensing that this is a time of spiritual preparation as well. God is calling people to spend more time studying the scriptures, praying, and fellowshipping with Him on a daily basis. These cool mornings are the perfect time for a cup of hot tea or coffee, a cozy blanket and some alone time with the Scriptures.

I don’t feel that this season of spiritual preparation is because there’s a spiritual “winter” on the way, but rather because there’s a time of advancement, growth, and ministry opportunities getting ready to open up like never before. The harvest truly is great, but the reapers and workers must be ready.

In order to spend time in the Word and in prayer, we will need to make time in our schedules. Quit being so busy with “life” that you forget to spend time with God and receive the Breath of Life that He gives. This might mean sacrificing some sleep and getting up early, before the pitter patter of little feet hit the floor. Perhaps you need to turn off the computer, smart phone or other electronic gadget and disconnect from technology on a regular basis, as you reconnect with the Creator.

You might say “But I don’t have time to do that…I have such a long list to get done today.” You’re right, you don’t have time, you have to MAKE time. Little elves don’t sneak in overnight and write all those deadlines and obligations on your calendar, you do it. Likewise, little elves won’t come in and block off time to spend in the things of God. You will have to do it, or it won’t get done. Our enemy is smart. If he can’t get you to stop, he’ll get you to accelerate to the point where you burn out and run yourself into the ground. You’re no good to yourself, your family, God or anyone else in that condition.

In the book of Luke chapter 10 we see the story of Mary & Martha. It’s a familiar verse to all of us. Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet and Martha was busy trying to make dinner for Jesus and the disciples. Finally in frustration, Martha looks at Jesus and says “don’t you care that I’m working and she’s just sitting there doing nothing?” Notice Jesus didn’t scold Mary for not having a to-do list, or for not being a “get it done” kind of gal. Rather, He looked at Martha with compassion, and probably shook His head a bit as He said “Martha, Martha…you’re BUSY and bothered with life. Mary chose the NEEDFUL thing, and it won’t be taken away from her.”

Interestingly enough, you never read again about Jesus having to tell Martha to focus on what was needful. Apparently, she got it the first time. Maybe she was quicker on the uptake than we are? Let’s endeavor to get it this time, and set aside the cares and schedules in exchange for some one on one time with the Creator of heaven and earth. He’s waiting for you.

It’s that time of year again. You know, that glorious time in November where we spend one day cooking scrumptious food, sitting down with the people we love, and expressing how thankful we are for the things we have. I think that the last part gets left out more often than not, unfortunately. The true meaning of Thanksgiving has been hidden behind juicy turkey, Mom’s amazing mashed potatoes, and not to mention, that to-die-for pumpkin pie! In recent years, this time has also been overrun by the Black Friday sales that have been slowly leaking their way into Thanksgiving Day. Is anything sacred anymore? How are we to raise our children to be thankful when all signs point to “instant gratification or bust”?

Thanksgiving, traditionally, has been characterized as a day to spend with family. This has been the deal for generations on either side of my family. When I was a young child I always looked forward to the day-long experience that was Thanksgiving. My parents always made an effort to attend a get-together for each side of the family, so we were gone from midday to late evening. I enjoyed getting together with my family and spending time with my cousins. At each gathering we spoke to the things we were thankful for before we ate: the roof over our heads, the abundance of food on the table, the presence of one another…. But after all of these years, the thing I remember the most about these times during the Holiday season is the warmth I felt in my soul. As a child I never really appreciated these times. Mostly because I was developmentally unable to, but also because they eventually stopped happening. My parents divorced, the cousins grew up and some moved away, or family members passed away. Our families have changed and grown apart, but these times resonate in my heart each year as the Holiday season approaches.

I have new traditions now, as an adult with my own family, and my hope is that they warm my children in their hearts too. While I think it is honorable to Give Thanks on Thanksgiving, I also think that it is imperative to do so every day, and more importantly to teach my children to be thankful for the things that they have, each day. That although things may not always be perfect, there are more than a dozen things we have to be thankful for at any moment.

During November in the United States, we tend to be more intentional about being thankful. We KNOW it is something we should all do more often, but in the busyness of life, what is urgent is what often gets our attention. I want to challenge you to look for ways to be grateful to God daily, rather than at one time of the year.

Here are four ways you can begin to implement gratitude into your routine.

Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

In Song:

Sing Praises to the Lord, thankful for His loving watch care over you. Matt Redmond’s song, “10,000 Reasons” is a great example of this as it encourages the listeners to name God’s faithfulness in praise each and every day of their lives and recall the many reasons to keep recounting His praises forever.

“You’re rich in love, and You’re slow to anger
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind

For all Your goodness I will keep on singing

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find…”

In Word:

There is a popular book out (actually it has been out for a while now) called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, that challenges us to “Live Life Fully Right Where You Are.” In this book, we discover that as we “express gratitude to God for what we have, we find that we already have the life that we have always wanted.” A couple of years ago, I took Ann’s Joy Dare and chronicled 3 gifts for each day for one year. Some of those things were VERY EASY to jot down. Some needed more thoughtful reflection, but some came with many tears as it was a season of hard things. Through that exercise though, I found peace, I found a deeper relationship with God as I recounted His faithfulness to me, I found great joy and a stronger faith as those became memorial stones for me.

In Deed:

Do something kind for someone or fill a need just because of what God has done for you.   Prepare a meal, send a card, make a phone call, buy a gift, or help with a chore. There are so many ways this could be done…think about what you do well or pay attention for what is needed and then bless another in Jesus’ name and for His sake. Sometimes, just knowing someone cares or is thinking about us helps us in ways we might never really understand. I try to keep stocked up on Freezer Meals, just so I have something prepared if a need arises. Taco Soup is one recipe that is easy to get into the freezer and most people have really enjoyed it

In Prayer:

My prayers can get dry, repetitive and all about me. A tool I use from time to time is the acronym ACTS to help me get my eyes off of myself and focused on worshipping God. You can use this method to pray using Scripture as your starting point or you can just use it as you step through your prayer time. Another method is to use your fingers to step you through your prayer. I have seen a few of these through the years, but I liked this one from Bob Young.

FIVE-FINGER PRAYER

• Thumb: pray for those closest to you
• Pointing finger: pray for those who guide us: teachers, doctors, counselors, mentors
• Middle finger (tallest one): pray for those who lead us: government, civic, and business leaders, police and firefighters
• Ring finger (weakest one): pray for those who are weak: the poor, sick, disabled, infants, homeless, the powerless, the persecuted
• Pinkie (the smallest, the least): Pray for myself

This year, let us be a people of God, filled with gratitude; and when people ask why we overflow with such joy, we have the opportunity to share with them the wonder of our Glorious God!

The subway train came to a jolting stop. A mass of travelers scooted out the doors, while others jostled each other to board the train. The doors closed and a few people plugged into their iPods. A group at one end of the car engaged in loud debate and frequent laughter. The rest remained quiet and somber. Steadily, the train gained speed. The air-conditioning whispered overhead. The tracks rumbled underneath.

The door between cars opened. A thin boy around eighteen years old trudged into the train car. His hands were leathery and dirty. His forearms bore two smudged tattoos, a spider web and a faded cross. His face was blank, his head tilted down. The locals continued reading their newspapers. Tourists peered at the curious sight. They whispered to each other.

The boy then spoke with a pitchy voice, “Hello, everyone. My name is John.” Taking off his hat, he continued. “I’m in a rough spot in life, and I could really use some help. I’m broke. I’m homeless. I don’t have anyone to go to for help.” Pausing in the aisle, his head turned from side to side aimlessly. “All I’m asking for is a little help.” His voice pitched at the end, making the plea sound like a question. “Anything will help.” He faced the train’s passengers with empty eyes. He swallowed hard, as his head gradually fell further.

As he walked through the car, he offered his hat right and left. One woman, sitting cross-legged, whirled her head away. Her hands tensed around her purse. The boy and his hat continued down the aisle. One anonymous dollar made its way into the hat. He stood before the travelers one last time. His eyes darted from one person to another. No eyes met his. His shoulders sunk. Turning, he put on his hat and drew in a breath. He gripped the door handle and hesitated for a moment. Then, raising his head, he opened the door.

The train slowed and came to a jolting stop. The train emptied and filled with more quiet and somber travelers, and the train moved on. The door between cars opened. A boy emerged from the previous car, his head angled down. “Hello, everyone. My name is John.”

As we enter the fall, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, stop to consider the second-greatest commandment and its all-important question: “Who is my neighbor?”

Walking by faith and enjoying the homeschooling adventure of a lifetime!

When I was a kid, Hook was one of my go-to movie choices to watch when I was up all night. (Jumanji was the other choice, but that has no merit to my thoughts today, besides letting you know I have awesome taste.) One of the scenes in it was of Captain Hook talking to Peter Banning’s kids, trying to get them to love him instead. As a child, it was just a scene. When I watched the movie as an adult with my own children, the scene hit me in a different way.

One of the kids mentions her mommy loves her because she reads to her. Hook’s response was a brilliant rant by Dustin Hoffman. “No, child, Your mother wants to read to you every night in order to stupefy to sleep, so that she and daddy could sit down for three measly minutes without you and your mindless, inexhaustible, unstoppable, repetitive, and nagging demands: He took my toy! She hit my bear! I want a potty! I want a cookie! I want to stay up! I want, I want, I want, me, me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, mine, now, now, now, now! Can’t you understand, child? They tell you stories to shut you up.”

I found it hilarious, and then I found it sad. I saw that in my children and in myself. The demands, the insistence, the impatience, and the draining nature of kids bothered me. There were two problems with this. How can we change the way kids think? How do we help our children to be thankful? Also, how do we change our thoughts from children being a nuisance to seeing them as the precious gift they are?

As parents, we need to instruct them in the way they are to live. They are a blank slate that we write upon. The first thing I did with my children is explain what a helpful heart is. A helpful heart thinks about others first. How can you help mommy or daddy? How can you help your brothers and sisters? How can you help yourself? I tried to show them the moments where they could have a helpful heart. It only took a few days for the kids to catch on and realize how they could have helpful heart. They looked for moments to help out because the extra attention I rained on them was positive reinforcement. They loved to ask, “Mommy, am I a helpful heart?” The interesting thing is that the needs and demands of my children diminished once they were on the lookout for helpful moments.

I focused on being thankful for my children. I made sure to thank them each time they had a helpful heart moment. I thanked them for loving me. I thanked them for eating their dinner. I thanked them for doing their school work and having a good attitude. I thanked them for going to bed. I thanked them for everything I could. You know what happened? They started being more thankful as well.

The best way to instill a thankful heart with my children was to sow it in my heart first. By showing them helpful moments and being genuinely thankful for their presence in my life, I learned a bigger lesson than they did. I learned to never take my children for granted and to be truly grateful for my time as their mother.

Having done research most of my life into learning, and especially learning when there are struggles of any kind present, I have discovered a few things. One is that no one is a learning or teaching expert. No one has all the answers. Two is that anyone can learn, no matter their problems, if they are given the proper access to information. Three, most parents, mother or father, usually know their child better than anyone else. Four, everything else is grey.

If “everything else is grey,” then just what does that mean? Are we who have struggles learning (those of us that learning just doesn’t come naturally) without hope? That takes me back to lesson number two. Anyone can learn, no matter their problem, if they are given the proper access to information. Nowadays, most can accept that anyone can learn. Our past didn’t always show that belief, though, as disabled people, mentally and physically, were often locked away in attics and institutions to wither and fade away by those ashamed that their genes held such incompetencies. Fortunately, civilized people have come to realize that those long held beliefs were just myths. That said, we still struggle as a whole to find the key to unlocking the mind and pouring knowledge and skills into the brain. We haven’t found how to bring proper access to everyone. Scholars fight over it. Students struggle and suffer with the experimental processes. Parents anguish over feeling helpless. How do we achieve “proper access”?

I don’t have the answers either. I have learned a lot through personal experience, but I don’t have answers. I don’t mind saying that. Of course, saying it comes easier to me probably because I am not, have never been, nor ever will be, one of the “experts”. I was born with genetic progressive hearing loss and vision loss. I was later diagnosed as an adult with learning disabilities including dyslexia and dyscalculia and other visual and auditory processing disorders, after struggling with reading, short-term memory problems, and math all my life. Everything combined made the single problems worse.

I was born when little was known about genetics or learning disabilities of any kind. The struggle to learn was my own. Caring parents did their best, and their best went a long way, but times were different in the 1960’s. Parents, by and large, sent their children to be taught at conventional schools by conventional teachers who were considered better qualified to do the job. That was a working solution for those who fit in the normally accepted sized and shaped box. I didn’t fit in that box. Teachers didn’t know what to do with me. All, no matter how good and compassionate, would eventually become frustrated with the struggle and blame me with some doing so verbally and one even physically. They just didn’t know how to teach me.

I am a survivor by nature, though. Genes I inherited from my parents who were quiet over-comers drove me to find my own way, and find my own way, I did. I became an avid learner, excelling in everything with A’s but math (muddling through those courses as high as I could go, with mostly B’s). I tried everything I could think of to remember vocabulary, understand and retain what I read, memorize multiplication tables, dates and important people of needed events, or how to find them quickly if not so needed, formulas, math rules, and whatever else I deemed important that “smart people” knew. It wasn’t easy, and many things weren’t even close to mastery until I was an adult doing what I do. Though I initially wanted to go into the medical field and help people, I eventually found that I had to admit it to myself and choose the field that only made sense for a person as obsessed with learning as I was, education. Seem ironic? It probably is ironic that a person who has trouble learning, but is determined to learn, is destined to become a teacher. That is me, though.

Some may say that is also a recipe for a bad teacher, but I have always worked hard to know what I need to teach. The few times I couldn’t answer a question, I refused to lie. I admitted I didn’t know and that we would find the answer together. I was willing to try many different ways to help a student understand and learn to love learning. The key was to get to know my student and see the world the way that he did. That isn’t easy, even if the student can think and speak, because they usually don’t understand what is wrong either. You just have to try different things and see what works and try to analyze why. Truth is, you learn more from your mistakes much of the time than you do from your successes. For me, I used my own experiences trying to learn to give me ideas to get started.

I also quickly learned that involved parents knew their children far better than I could know them because I only got to see the students in certain academic and fairly controlled environments where the student was often not comfortable. Parents saw their students in relaxed settings and doing activities that they loved to do and where they had developed some learning skills. Together as a team we could ensure more successes in the process.

As I’ve said, I have learned that no one is an expert, but an involved parent or a person who cares enough to be involved is enough to be access to learning for any child because every child is capable of learning. Most people may say that is a well-known fact, but too many educators tend to put too much stock in supposed learning theories and educational philosophies that give no benefit in the real world and refuse to look at other sources closer to home and think out of the box. Some tend to look down on those who do as being unqualified and wish to put them in their place. I am not an expert. I just help students learn to know themselves; those who live and learn the hard way.

As a homeschool mom I have been privileged to witness each stage of my children’s lives. I have seen the light bulb come on when they learn a new concept and see the growth as they work through a situation. I am in awe of the absolute responsibility that we have. I love it and I hate it. It is a huge responsibility to grow adults into functioning, contributing society members.

The weight of our choices is heavy until I hear feedback about one of our kids. Then we reap the benefits of our choices.

This new season of our parenting involves drivers, jobs, and independence. It is surreal.

I have long said that I love my teenagers. They are so much fun and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I see the friendship I will have someday starting to blossom, and I am waiting expectantly. What a blessing it will be.

But, for now, we are still in the phase of parenting that requires more hands-on type stuff. Like forcing the issue of putting in applications for a job. It is a scary prospect for a teen to walk into an establishment and ask for a job application. They are full of questions like, ‘Will they like me?’ or ‘Do I look like I would fit in at this business?’ Or maybe it is the question of, ‘Am I smart enough to do this job?’ As a parent, that is a tough question to hear.

We want our kids to be confident and to feel assured of their abilities but reality is something else. We all feel inadequate at times, especially when looking to start something new. How can we think it would be any different for our kids? If anything, it is worse for them because they haven’t had the life experiences that have taught them to be confident yet. (Or at least to fake it!) To sit and watch your children struggle to become adults is an awkward and painful process …for the parents!

Some parents struggle with letting go and letting their children have more control over their decisions. We get so accustomed to doing everything for them that when they are old enough to do it themselves we don’t even give them a chance. We just keep doing it for them. But that isn’t helping them. At all. They need to make choices and mistakes while they are at home and can have help with consequences. What better way to learn about money than at home where they have a safety net in place?

When our kids turn 16, we give them the money we would have spent for their expenses each month and they learn to manage it. It is a difficult process at first. They get this lump sum at the beginning of the month and go a little crazy. They buy clothes or other non-essential items and then run out of shampoo and have no money with which to buy it. They come running to us and expect us to do something for them. We do but it is called a loan. Sound harsh? Well, that is the real world. If, when they are adults, they run out of money they will have to borrow or do without so why not learn it now? The next month they will remember the lesson and learn to manage their money a little better. But it takes time and guidance.

That is our job.

To raise contributing members of society.

Add on top of learning to manage money getting a job and you have a recipe for young adulthood.

When our oldest was going for job interviews I was a nervous wreck. I worried that I hadn’t done my job as a parent well enough and they would find her lacking. I worried that she would lack the confidence needed to meet the challenge and impress the interviewers. It.was.awful.

Her first interview about killed me. I sat in the car waiting and watching, wringing my hands. When she went for her 2nd interview, I thought I was going to have a heart attack! We know that she is a hard worker, team player, and a joy to be around; but would others see that in an interview? Would they give her a chance to prove herself? Would she measure up?

Questions rolled through my head faster than I could refute them. I called my husband and whined to him about the process and he told me to just relax and let her do this. She needed to experience the joy of getting the job or the pain of rejection. It is part of life and she deserves to experience it. I so did not want to hear that! But I listened and relaxed. I still worried but knew that this was part of life and, to truly live, she had to experience it all.

Thankfully, she got the job AND we were validated as parents! I mean, come on, who doesn’t want their parenting applauded, right? When she came out and told me she got the job I cried. I really did. I am a little embarrassed by it now, but I was so happy for her and for me that I cried.

She started telling me about the interview and I couldn’t believe it. She was complemented on her eye contact! We have stressed over the years that our children look people in the eye when they are talking to them. (This looks a little different for our 4yo because eye contact is not something she can do very well.) We make our children order their own food and look the server in the eye. It is a respect thing. Again, our 4yo is only required to make a passing glance at their eyes, not hold eye contact the whole time.

Anyway, our daughter was told that her eye contact was outstanding! Woohoo for us! It was so nice to hear that something we had been teaching paid off. AND they told her about it so she knew that what we had insisted on was the right choice. We were validated right alongside of her.

She started her job and is doing a great job. The work ethic we have instilled in her is paying off. She will no doubt be a contributing member of society and survive on her own. (That is a secret fear of mine that my kids will get into the real world and not survive!) She is also getting more lessons on money management, time management, and working with all types of people.

I don’t know that all of my girls will have jobs when they are 16 (they are all different and process differently), but I hope we can teach them the same lessons on life before they leave our home.

This past year has been very different for me, filled with great sorrow, but also great peace. I sometimes give names to certain years, like 2011 I had dubbed the Year of the Butterfly, because it was a year in which I transformed more fully into myself, the person I was meant to be. This year, 2014, has seemed to me to be the Year of Reconciliation. It’s been a year of having several fractured relationships restored to me, borne in large part out of the death of my brother.

When Steven died back in February of this year, I cannot tell you the pain and grief I experienced. I’ve written about our relationship on my blog, East Coast Day Shift. He and I were always very close growing up, and though we had some ups and downs in our relationship as adults, we were always close enough that I still felt like we could talk to each other about anything.

Steven’s death was sudden and unexpected. Our entire family was devastated. He was such a funny, loving, vibrant person, and loved deeply by us all. I don’t think he realized just how much each of us loved him, but I am so very glad that my last words to him, a week or so before he died, were that I love him.

I had been living in Virginia for two years by the time he died. In early 2012, soon after I moved, several very important family relationships had been broken and destroyed. A relationship with one friend had deteriorated a year later, in 2013. And there was another friendship that had disintegrated a couple of years before I ever moved. Those two were friendships that had meant a lot to me.

Almost a year after I moved, two of the family relationships, the two most important ones, had started to be rebuilt. These people reached out to me, apologizing, and a tentative and delicate healing process began. Through important communication, hurts started to lessen, and I was able to forgive and be forgiven.

There were times during this process that I felt it was two steps forward and one step back. I frequently dealt with my memories of what had been done, and I prayed for God to help me through this, to be able to truly and completely forgive.

I feared that bitterness would set in, and knowing what a trap that is, I’ve always prayed for God to help me keep it out of my heart. Letting wrongs fester without repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation is one of the surest roads that leads to bitterness.

While one of those relationships recovered fairly easily and quickly, the second was more difficult and took longer. But through earnest prayer, time, patience, and even more prayer…restoration was complete and I knew that I had truly forgiven.

The other family relationships remained inactive and broken. I spent two years feeling hurt, confused, and defeated. But if someone has wronged you and then cuts off all contact and communication with you, the most you can do is pray and leave it in God’s hands. So that is what I did, and went on with my life. There was nothing more that *I* could do.

But then while up in Massachusetts for my brother’s funeral this year, something amazing happened. I sat in the church beside my grieving mother, waiting for Steven’s service to begin, nervously wondering what would happen when the people involved with the other broken relationships arrived and saw me. I envisioned angry glares and nasty whisperings, if not outright snubs and rude remarks.

However, something entirely different, and as I said, amazing, occurred. Those people came up to me, smiling, and before I realized what was happening, were hugging me and asking me how I was. To say I was astounded is an understatement. I almost didn’t even know what to say, I was so surprised.

Others with whom I and the rest of my parents and siblings had lost contact years earlier, some family and some friends, came to the funeral, and any slights, disagreements, or differences were set aside as we gathered together in our common grief and love of my brother. I watched as everyone hugged, cried together, and talked.

It was as if all the time that had passed and everything negative in all of these relationships just dissolved, and all that was left was…people.

And love.

And what I realized then, and in the days and weeks that followed, was that we all had come to a place where we realized, through Steven’s death, that life is precious, so very precious, and it can change in devastating ways when we least expect it.

I never imagined that Steven would die at the age of 46. I never imagined that we wouldn’t grow old together. I never imagined that we’d never talk about recipes, or complain about jobs, or vent about some annoying situation, or share our children’s accomplishments, or laugh at the funny things in life.

I envisioned us being wrinkled and wizened with creaky joints, teasing each other, and with jokes volleying back and forth that cracked us up and made us almost pee ourselves in our silliness. And then say “I love you!” as we parted or hung up the phone.

But Steven died. And our world came crashing down around us, leaving us shaken, and our hearts broken into a million shards.

Without realizing it, we all had contemplated how quickly life can change, leaving us in the dust, shaking our heads and wondering who pulled the rug out from under us.

Without realizing it, Steven would teach us all about the fragility of life, and make us examine and confront the worst in ourselves, and decide that nothing in this life…nothing…is worth coming between two people. He made us understand the value of life, and the most important things in life: people.

Yes, our jobs are important; we need to have money to live on and provide for our family’s needs. Our children need education, however we choose to make that happen. And we need to take care of our homes, and cook meals, and do the shopping, and run errands, and take our pets to the vet, and any other of the myriad responsibilities we have in life.

But maybe we ought to deem those things “necessary.” When it comes down to it, in the moment between one breath, and the last exhale…the most important things in life are people. The relationships we have with the people in our lives.

The phone calls we share, the snuggle in bed watching a movie together, the Thanksgiving meal with the in-laws, the lunch out with a sister, the caress of the baby’s cheek during nursing, and the coming to every little league game he has or karate lesson she goes to. The birthday celebration, the church baptism, the cleaning of that sick friend’s house, the video-chat with the one across the country, the help with a math problem, the shared confidence, and the siblings meeting at mom’s house for a summer cookout.

There is no end to that list; people, and our relationships with them, are what matter.

And that was the driving force behind what happened in all of our lives when Steven died. So many relationships were healed, renewed, and restored, through the death of a man we loved.

I don’t think Steven could have ever realized the impact that his life, and his death, had on this world.

Testament to the fact that out of great sorrow can come an abundance of joy and peace.

PS: Those two friendships I had that had broken down? Restored, and I am so thankful and blessed to have those two friends in my life. I’m so blessed for this Year of Reconciliation.

But when He, the Spirit of Truth (the Truth-giving Spirit) comes, He will guide you into all the Truth (the whole, full Truth). ~John 16:13a

Dear Son,

My heart is full today.

It is full of Love, a love so deep that it can never be explained with words.

It is full of anticipation of what a wonderful future God holds for you.

It is full of trepidation, with all of the evil in this fallen world. It’s enough to cause a mother to shudder.

It is full of thankfulness that the Lord saw fit to entrust you to your dad and me.

It is full of guilt, at all of the ‘ideas’ I had as to how a parent and homeschool mom was supposed to be and how I failed to trust the Holy Spirit to truly   guide me into all truth.

It is full of hope, that no matter how much I loved you, no matter how many times I messed up, no matter how many times I hurt your feelings or bragged too much, you are becoming the man God created you to be.

First, I want to share with you how blessed I am to be your mother. As an adopted, only child I always dreamed of having children of my own. When you were born, our lives were flipped upside down. It was the best roller coaster ride we ever have had the privilege to ride.

Second, [and I know you know this already] I have not done many things right as your mother. I have, at times, been impatient, tired from sleepless nights. I have, on occasion, been insensitive when my expectations of you have been too high. As well, I have been too protective. I have allowed some of the tests, that were meant for your development to be my battles to fight and did not give you the chance to stand on your own two feet and show how smart and strong you really are. I have, at times, required much of you when you were not ready to handle that next level.

Just like all young men, you want to be the Super Hero. You want to be the Knight in Shining Amor that saves the day. You have been that and more!

I hope you know that I know that you needed your parents to always be the strong foundations of cool and calm under pressure. Unfortunately, we weren’t always quite the ‘confident authority’ you need us to be.

I also know you thought we said NO too much. And maybe we did sometimes. Sometimes, we let our own fears get the best of us and in a lot of ways held you back from the adventure you wanted to have.

Forgive me.

I freaked out to much.

But, in my defense, it was all out of love. I remember the day we brought you home from the hospital and our neighbor brought food. She was the mother of two little boys and I, in a constant state of hormones and panic as a new momma, asked her, “How do you not stay in a constant state of fear that you will hurt them or that they are so fragile that it seems like you need to put them in a bubble?” She smiled sweetly and gave me simple words of encouragement, “You just learn to not be afraid and let the Lord guide you.”

Unfortunately, those simple words of wisdom didn’t sink in right away.

You and I have grown up together. You were my first. As the first, you have been the one I had to learn the right and wrong way to be a good, loving parent. We fell for the books that told us the ‘formulas’ that were supposed to work. In the end we sometimes failed to let the Lord guide us and show us how to parent YOU. Just like your brother and sister, you are Unique. What a blessing that is!

I know that those personality ‘quirks’ I thought were quirks are nothing more than the traits God gave you to be the Man He wants you to be – making you a Responsible, Wildly Successful man who will rock this world with your Strength and Confidence.

Your gifts are beautiful. There is an independence, a fortitude that is unparalleled in you. You have a courage that I never had as a teen. I praise God that he has given you the ability to stand up for yourself and not back down when you are fighting for what is right. You are and always will be a great leader.

I hope and pray, that as I have grown with you, and learned to Lean on, Trust in and Rely on God more fervently, that your dad and I have given you the tools you need to continue on the path He has set before you with confidence and Trust in the One and Only who loves you more than you can even imagine.

I have not been a great mom. But, I am your mom. I am your mom because the God of this Universe decided you belonged with me while we navigate this Season together, before we return Home. For that, I am a great mom. I am a great mom because I love you more than anything else in this world.

I hope that, as people tried to put you in a box, I gave you the freedom to say, “No, that’s not where I belong.”

I hope that, even when I had to discipline you, you knew it was a statement that said, “I care so much about you, I am going to teach you how to be the person you really want to be. And I want to be the model of that behavior.

I GET to be there, everyday, and homeschool you, care for you, sacrifice for your health, your safety and your happiness. I GET to have middle of the night talks with you when you are having doubts or just need to talk. I GET to nurture you when the burdens of this world overwhelm you.

I am Fierce. I can be too much sometimes. But, I will do my best to respect your personality while being loyal and relentless in my job as Mom.

I will always be here for you, loving you, NO MATTER WHAT you do and where you go.

Son, I love you.

Mom

The first gift of Christmas was a simple gift given by a father to all his children–to us.

He gave us His son, the Christ.

We ALL have been given a gift…the gift of a Savior.

He is the Gift.

This Christmas season, how will you share the gift?