My Love/ Hate Relationship with Spring

I have a "love/hate" relationship with Spring. I love Spring - the warmer weather, the flowers, the birds chirping, the less layers required, people coming out of hibernation. I feel like I am starting to come back to life again. Winter is rough for me and I never really realize that it was rough for me until it is over and all of a sudden Spring hits and I realize, "Oh no! I didn't get much done this winter! I hibernated too much!! We are way behind in school and our house is overwhelmed with clutter and there is so much to do inside but with the nicer weather I just want to be outside!!" It is a struggle. My kids pray for "a nice day tomorrow so we can go out and play" and I secretly pray for rain so that we won't want to go outside so we can get work done inside. Ugg. There is a month or two in the middle of every winter where all I want to do is go to bed and put my head under a pillow. I usually don't just go to bed and put my head under my pillow but during that time I don't feel that I have the energy to fight my kids to get them to get their work done or to fight myself to get lesson plans done and get things set up properly for school to happen and enforce rules and routines. I always start off the school year relatively well but after Christmas break things go downhill then when the energy level finally returns who wants to do school??

Well, we have a lot of schoolwork to still complete for this year so I'm sorry if it rains. It just means that God has answered some of my prayers. We will be testing during the first part of next week (and uncluttering) while Glenn gives his brain a couple of days rest between studying for his tests last week and this week and before he starts digging in to his studying for the Step 1 exam which he'll be taking on 6/18/11 then we have 3 weeks medical school free before he starts on his first rotation in medicine on 7/11. At that point it is looking like we'll take the 3 weeks off with Glenn then the kids and I will have to dive back into school for a bit at least.

As I was making tortillas today I was listening to the message from Northridge Church yesterday and one thing that he said was "being at peace with others often requires me to be at war with myself." As I have been thinking about that and wrestling with the knowledge that we have a lot to do I realized that the biggest deterrent to me being successful in homeschooling is me. I really need to go to war with myself. The only way to be at peace with homeschooling is to be at war with myself. Recently in reading through James I read 3:1 and stopped, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment." My first instinct was "I should send them to school!!" but quickly God reminded me that whether I am their full time teacher or not I am still responsible to teach them and I will be judged on how faithful I have been in that job.

Thanks God for Spring. Thanks for new life abounding everywhere. Thanks for the awakening and new life in me. Please help me to be faithful with the time and responsibilities that You have given to me. Thank You that You don't have "bad weeks" or "bad months." Thank You that You do not go into hibernation. Thank You for Your faithfulness. Please help me to become more like You!