Jun. 12, 2008 Zac Leaves for Bootcamp
My son Zac left for Army bootcamp on Tuesday. This whole week has been kind of a blur. You would think that this would have been easier for the family since our oldest son, Keil, left for the Marines in Feb, 2007 but it was just as hard. I am so proud of Zac and he really feels that God is calling him to be in the Army. I find that difficult to explain to my non-Christian friends. Going into the service isn't as respectable as it used to be in this country. Zac said that he hates when people ask him if he is for the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with his decision. He said that when he was in middle school during 9/11 he knew that he was going into the service to be a part of fighting terrorism.
Please pray for his safety during this hard time and don't forget to pray for all of our military personnel who volunteer to put themselves in harm's way for our freedom. Our freedom is still important to a lot of us.
Have a great day!!!
God Bless, Michelle |
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Jun. 6, 2008 Day After Graduation
Last night my son, Zac, graduated from high school. He leaves on Tues morning for Army boot camp. I thought that I was going to be a mess last night but praise God I was able to get through it. I felt surrounded by God's presence the whole night. My husband and I are having a real tough time letting go of Zac but we know that God is with him and we want to see him fulfill all of God's plans for him. He says that he knows that this is what God wants him to do.
I had to sit in between my husband and my ex last night at graduation. My ex has not been a good father to our children so it is very difficult to be around him. He always shows up at these special events and acts like it is his place to be there. I feel like we not only failed at marriage but we also have failed at being divorced. There is no good way to be divorced but I know that things could have been better. I feel like he was not the father he could have been because of me. He still has a lot of bitterness towards me and I think he doesn't deal well with the children because of it.
Please pray for our family this last weekend that we get to be with Zac. The younger children are having a hard time letting go (our oldest is in the Marine Corps) again.
Have a great day,
God Bless, Michelle |
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Jun. 2, 2008 Monday morning
Well, my mother came and went and the graduation party is over. I survived it all but just barely. I am actually having a really hard time right now because she just wants to fight about everything that happened while she was here. I have to control my urge to fight back with her to defend myself. I need to just let it drop for now. I feel like I am grieving my son leaving in a week and grieving the fact that I don't have a mother who can put aside her own feelings to comfort me during this time.
Ok, enough of that. I want to live in the moment of all the blessings that I do have right now. I have my wonderful friends who are there for me during this time. Zac graduates on Thursday and I want to celebrate that fact instead of thinking about him leaving. I had a really nice talk with him yesterday about how he is feeling right now and he seems to be handling it well. He has a girlfriend and I wish he didn't because I know how difficult this time is going to be for the both of them. I want him to focus on bootcamp and not thinking about what she is doing while he is away.
Has anyone else out there had to deal with the whole boyfriend/girlfriend issues with your teenagers? I would love to hear how you handle it because I know that I am not very good at it. I have a 17 year old daughter who is also itching to date. I try my best to explain how I feel about dating as a whole but in this society, I feel like I am swimming upstream all the time. I have given her all the books about dating, but she usually just rolls her eyes at me. She is a Christian but I think in her mind, it is so conflicting to the secular world and she is torn.
Have a great day everyone.
God Bless, Michelle |
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May. 19, 2008 My mother is coming
Tomorrow afternoon my mother arrives. I haven't seen her since last year. We basically get to see her once a year. She lives in FL and I live in PA. She works one day a week and thinks that my family should come to see her -- I have six children -- one is in the Marine Corps stationed in SC, one is graduating next week and leaving for the Army and the rest are homeschooled and involved in a lot of activities.
Don't get me wrong. I love my life. I wouldn't have it any other way. I just think that it is easier for her to visit us. She doesn't think so. I look at my friends who have less children and have mothers who help them so much and it is hard because I feel like I can never do enough for my mom. Did I mention that my mom is only 60 years old and in perfect health?
So my prayer for the day is that I find the patience and love to show my mother while she is here.
If anyone has any advice for me -- I would greatly appreciate it!!
God Bless, Michelle |
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| There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you. Maya Angelou
Last year I started writing my life story. If the only thing that ever happens with it is that my children will read it some day -- that will be the gift. I think everyone should write their life story. Everyone has a story to tell. Then they can pass on to generations their successes and failures. I wish my grandparents had done it and I beg my mom to do it. It's not easy because seeing your failures in print is really hard to take. It is like re-living them but how can we help anyone if we don't share it.
I was thinking about this a lot this week with Barbra Walters' autobiography coming out this week. She is receiving some criticism for it but I plan on reading it because I love to read other people's autobiographies. I want to learn from their mistakes and successes and it is history. Everyone's story is history.
Think about it today -- what is your story -- whatever it is -- it is important to somebody!!!
God Bless, Michelle |
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| Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
— Henry David Thoreau
I am really bad at spacing on this blog -- in case anyone can help me figure it out -- please help!!! I keep getting one big paragraph and I hate it!!!
I think that us homeschool moms have a lot to learn from this quote. We are just too busy to see what success we have in our children. I do see some success at the strangest times. Like last week at my son's baseball game. He is 8 years old and plays with kids who all go to school. These kids already use very foul language and it really bothers him. I wonder what it would be like for him if he was with them all day. Would it bother him then? Probably not because the more you hear and see bad language and bad behavior the less it bothers you. It almost seems normal.
So all I have to do is go to one of his baseball games and I leave there extremely happy that no matter how hard it is to homeschool or I should say how hard it is to always know that you are doing a good job, all you have to do is look around and you will see how soft your child's heart is for God. My heart breaks when I see an 8 year old who already has a hard heart.
God Bless, Michelle |
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May. 3, 2008 Saturday morning
| I can't believe I have some free time on a Sat morning. It is raining and dreary here in PA and my youngest son still has his t-ball game. Thankfully, my hubby took him so I could stay home with the rest of the kids. Kara is at her SATs this morning and is just miserable. She was so upset about taking them but she went anyway.
It is only a month until my son leaves for bootcamp for the Army. He leaves just 5 days after graduating. Today I have to go get the invitations for his grad party which I am having over Memorial Day weekend. I am trying to go through this knowing that God knows my pain and will help get through his party and his graduation.
Oh, and did I mention that my mom is coming in from FL on May 20th. It's funny how that would have me all worked up except that I am too upset about Zac leaving for the Army to really care about her coming. See how God puts things into perspective for us.
I am still working on getting all my CM curriculum for next year. I am so excited about this because K12 really wore me down. I want to get excited about homeschooling again. I feel like I have been in such a rut.
Have a great Sat ---
God Bless,
Michelle |
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| I'm sure everyone watches the news as much if not more than I do. I really try hard not to but when I open up my laptop, there is my yahoo page with all of the news on it. So if the news doesn't make yahoo than I don't know about it.
This last week I've been reading about the polygamist sect that has recently been invaded. The looks on those women's faces is just haunting. The thing that strikes me the most though is the way they dress. I read a whole article last night on the symbolism of their outfits. I know this sect is a cult but I was trying to understand why these people believe that covering up their entire bodies was pleasing to God. We know that uncovering our bodies is not pleasing to God so where do we draw the line? I struggle with that line with my daughters almost every day. Do we decide where that line is drawn or does society tell us where that line is? If we listen to society, that line moves all the time. When I go to church and see young girls dressed like every other young girl in a magazine, I think, "what is the difference between how a Christian dresses and a non-Christian?" I want my girls to look differently but not have to stand out like these cults.
Does anyone else struggle with this problem? I would love to hear some of your solutions.
God Bless, |
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Apr. 14, 2008 need help with blog
| I am asking anyone who can help me make my blog site more custom and beautiful like all of yours. I did a little research this weekend and really can't figure it out. I am so computer illiterate and I really wanted to have a blog but I don't know how to fix it. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Have a great day,
God bless, |
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| This morning we woke up and went to Annie's gym at 8:30 to meet Shawn Johnson. Annie is a full time gymnast and Shawn Johnson is a girl who is supposedly going to make the Olympic team in June to go to Beijing, China in August for the Olympics. She had a line of little girls waiting to get her signature so they can say that they saw her when they are watching her on tv this August. All the parents are standing there taking pictures of this girl with their daughter. My daughter, Annie, was in line with all of her friends waiting for her turn to get Shawn's autograph.
I stood behind the other parents just watching this scene unfold. It was kind of surreal. Shawn is a cute 16 year old girl just sitting there smiling as these little girls look at her like they just couldn't wait to see if they grow up to be just like her. I didn't bring my camera to take pictures and I thought it was kind of funny watching the parents get as excited about her as their daughters were. I was trying to figure out why I wasn't excited. Am I just to cynical because I know in the gymnastic world a lot can happen between now and June when the trials are. I know that she could get hurt and not make it there or fall on events and not even get picked to be on the Olympic team. It looks like right now she is going to be on that team but how sure should we be that that is what is going to happen.
I have nothing against this girl and I do hope she makes it -- my point is that I just don't know how much importance I should put on what seems to be a kind of "idol worship" that we do in our society. If she doesn't make it her autograph is worth nothing and everyone will forget who she is in a matter of months. Or she will end up being the one who was supposed to make it and couldn't do it. I think that is a horrible position to put on a 16 year old girl.
I am always confused about how much importance our family puts into sports. Annie isn't the only athlete in our family. I want it to be balanced and I want them to know that watching athletes on tv is fun but when it comes to worshiping them the line has been crossed.
I think that God makes idol worship very clear to even have it at the top of the Ten Commandments. I took my daughter today because I thought it would be fun to see a girl who has worked so hard at her sport and it seems to have really paid off for her. What I didn't expect to see was parents who were more excited than their daughters to get their pictures taken with this little girl.
God Bless,
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Apr. 10, 2008 My daughter Kara
| I promised to talk about my daughter Kara this time. Kara will be 17 in May. She was only 2 years old when I left her father and during those 2 years she rarely even saw him because of how much he traveled. Yet, she is the one with the most scars. She has known her stepfather since she was 2 but he can not love her enough to take away the pain of her abandonment by her real dad. Brian has tried over the years to keep in touch with her but he usually ends up lying to her and then she cuts him off. I try to explain to her that he is just not capable of anything more but over the years her heart has become very hard to him.
I started homeschooling Kara in 7th grade. I wish I would have taken her out of school sooner because she was in long enough to be exposed to things I wish she wouldn't have been but she has never regretted being at home. She hated school and everything it stood for.
This year has been hard because she met a boy at church who is 19 years old and wants to date her. We didn't allow her to and it has caused a lot of tension. Last year I wanted her to start going to youth group at our church and meet some other girls her age. Boy was that a mistake because the only person she really liked was this boy. My husband and I do not believe in teenagers dating and that has been a hard one for us because our society is so geared for teenagers to become involved with opposite sex. All of my friends thought we were nuts for not allowing her to date this boy. But we knew that God did not want us to and we had to stand by it.
The good news is that she is getting over him and realizing that it was not a good idea. She will be a senior next year and I want her to be emotionally ready before she starts dating. The argument I get from everyone is that no one is emotionally ready to start dating. Then I argue that a 16 year old dating is not as emotionally ready as someone 18 or 19 because they have had years to grow up.
Our oldest son dated a girl from 9th grade to 12th grade against our wishes. What could we do because he was in school. They ended up hurting each other so much during this time frame that even though they are no longer together they both carry the scars from those years. They will take those hurts into any relationships they have from here on out and how fair is that to the person who they will eventually marry.
Society says that everyone has scars and that is probably true because you carry the scars of your parents' mistakes but I think it is our job to minimize those scars and prepare our children for biblical dating and/or courting instead of "dating for fun." That is an oxymoron. Dating is not supposed to be fun and really who looks back on their dating years and think that was fun. It is supposed to be purposeful in finding a husband and/or wife.
God Bless, |
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| Yesterday I wrote about the difficulties of raising children through divorce. I said that all three of my children from my first marriage have their problems. My first son, Keil, joined the Marine Corps right out of high school (his bio dad was a Marine), even though we offered to help him with college. A lot of our struggles with him came from the fact that we had a lot of rules in our house that his friends didn't have and he went to public school. He had the same girlfriend all through high school and we tried so hard to keep an eye on that situation but it seemed like everything we did was wrong anyway for him. He is now stationed in South Carolina and he says that he knows it could have been different but he has grown up a lot in the Marine Corps.
Now my second son, Zac, is graduating from private school in June. We worked so hard to get him football and baseball scholarships. He got accepted into a great college for both sports and last month with no warning at all he joined the Army Reserves. He tried to join the Marines but he has plates in his shoulders from sports injuries and they wouldn't take him. He graduates on June 4th and leaves for bootcamp on June 10th. My husband and I are just heartbroken. We really wanted him to go to college and play sports and he just through it out the window with no real explanation. He could have gone to college and then joined the Army.
The only thing that keeps me from crying and feeling sorry for myself everyday is that God has a plan for the two of them. It is so hard to stand by and watch them struggle as young adults to find their way but the military thing has got to be related somehow to the fact that their bio father was in the military. Maybe it is their way of expressing their manhood? I don't know but I trust that whatever decisions they make that God will protect them and bring them closer to Him which is the ultimately goal. I feel like I always have to justify myself to family and friends regarding their decisions. It's almost like they blame me somehow and that is hard. Most of my non-Christian friends look at our situation and want to run the other way. That is when I get frustrated.
So here's to persevering and faith!!!
I'll write about my daughter's struggles tomorrow!!
God Bless |
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| Since this is only my second blog, I will tell you a little bit more about myself. My first three children, Keil, Zac and Kara are from my first husband, Brian. I left Brian back in 1993 and met my current husband, Scott, that same year. We were married in 1998. I have learned so much about marriage since then and it is so hard to watch my first three children struggle with our divorce even as they get older.
I hate that society makes it seem like "children are durable, they can get through their parents not being together." It's just not true. Brian hasn't even been a big part of their lives because of his job and yet the pain of not having their real dad around is so evident in all three of them. They have shown the signs of it in different ways but it still comes down to the fact that they were not raised by their natural parents. Scott has been an awesome stepfather to them but it doesn't matter.
I always try to understand why God didn't allow me to know better but ultimately I made the decision to leave. He allows us free will and I took that free will and left. I was only 28 years old then and I thought I was doing the right thing. I looked around and saw lots of divorces and just followed along.
Now I realize how many things I could have done different but I can't change that now. What I can do is try to help other women who are not happy in their marriages and feeling like I felt to understand that marriage is not just about us. When we leave the father of our children, we change their lives forever. And that is a big responsibility on our shoulders because for the rest of their lives they have to live with our mistakes.
God did not intend for us to be "happy" in our marriage. It's not even in the vows. That's why we take vows. It is a commitment that we made before God and when we break that commitment and/or vow we are breaking it with God not just the other person and our children.
More on this later,
God Bless |
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| This is my first post. Let me tell you a little something about me. I have 6 children. My oldest is Keil who is 20 and a Marine stationed in Beaufort, SC. Zac is 19 today and is a senior at a private school. He graduates soon and will be headed for boot camp for the Army in Kentucky for the summer. Kara is 16 soon to be 17 and has been homeschooled since 7th grade. Annie is 12 and has been homeschooled since 1st grade. Ian is 8 and has never been to public school. And, last but not least is Ethan who is 5 years old. My desire for this post is to be in contact with other homeschooled moms so I can share my struggles of juggling a big family and having time to be a person. I love reading other moms' blogs and they have been such a blessing to me. It makes me feel "normal" and sometimes that's all I want. Other times I know that my "normal" does not fit into anyone else's normal. I am a Christian and am trying a new homeschool program next year based on Charlotte Mason's way of teaching. I would love to connect with other moms who have been successful with this. God Bless, |
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