Now if only I could have the kind of energy and enthusiasm that Nemo exudes about returning to school! Don't get me wrong - I am excited for my kids to come. But nervous too... we shall see how tomorrow goes. I can't believe it is here. I think it will be a good one. My kids seem a little more busy than my ones last year, so I think I will be very busy and very tired. But they seem endearing each in their own way. I've met 3 of them and they all have very cute little personalities in their own right. Hopefully I will remember that when they are giving me a run for my money :0)
So it seems that I feel inspired to blog about once a month. Actually, I feel inspired far more often than that, but am easily distracted and only seem to put my inspiration into action about that once a month. Just think how much I could get accomplished if I put my inspiration into action every time I was inspired to do something, not just blogging. Goodness.
This past month has been...trying. And I can't really pin it to one event or moment, but I just feel like I'm struggling to stay afloat. Thank goodness the Lord is there to do the treading for me. I've just been kind of uncharacteristically blue and melancholy and am unsure why. But one thing it has done is that is has forced me to press into Him, constantly turning each thought and action over to Him. I think some refining and pruning is probably taking place. I think its been hard to because I feel like its over the same stuff I've always battle and have seen Him victorious over it in my life before. Frustrating! Right now, I'm in a week or two of pulling back from my normal activity level so I can rest, be filled and listen to His sweet voice guide, comfort, soothe and discipline me. Its hard because I am having to give up that control that I like to hold onto so often, but it is sweet...sweetly broken. Now you know where the name of my blog comes from. Because its in these seasons that I've been in before where I am just hurting and crying out but it is sweet like nothing else.
Anyways. This summer was good. I am sad and happy see it come to a close. I enjoyed the freedom, the abundant relationship-building opportunities, the ability to be spontaneous and the physical rest it brought. But I missed the structure and routine I so often crave, the ability to minister to my sweet special ones and just feeling like a real adult. Having summers off is definitely something that makes me regress into a much younger pattern. But its good. I haven't had a summer off since I was a senior in high school, so I liked it. And it will come again. After the next nine months of hard work.
Something I have been pondering lately is confidence and honesty. Several close friends have semi-confronted me with my inability to be honest about how I feel about things sometimes. Like I'm hiding. And that really bothers me. I hate that I revert to that hiding from others. And a lot of it stems from a lack of confidence in who He has created me to be and where He has placed me for this season. I hate that I am not confident of His creation and His purpose. I think part of it stems for that perfectionist drive that I can't seem to shake but know it is far from attainable for me. Ugh. I want to be confident. I want to be honest. I want His light to be able to shine through me in that, whether I'm doing right or wrong. But if I am hiding and not allowing others to see that, that is a far worse thing, I feel. But it keeps me humble - one thing I pray for daily.
Okay, so that was a long and rambly post. I'm just pensive. Thinking things over and over. Allowing Him to sift my thoughts. Today I was reading in Proverbs and came to the part where it said that it talks about all mans' ways being laid out before Him. I like that. Its scary, but good. He works in that.
Well, I am off to church tonight. Have a blessed week, especially to all my fellow teachers who are going to greet their sweet/sometimes not-so-sweet ones as they file out of cars, buses and off the crosswalks. Love!
