Pondering Summer

This year is a year of milestones in our household.  Our eldest is officially done with homeschool as he prepares to enter a brick and mortar high school.  Our only daughter will celebrate her thirteenth birthday this week. Our youngest will be in first grade in the Fall. These events have me thinking back to the past eight years (and maybe back a little). I have questioned my sanity and my competence as mother, educator, household manager, human being. Adding to the nostalgia/freaking out, my husband pointed out that this is really the last Summer of what we have always known as normal life.  As the kids slowly work their way out of our homeschool, our family life is being re-shaped. We will no longer be the captain of our calendars, ruler of our universe of seven as we relinquish some of our freedom to another. It's intimidating and exciting all at once. The silver threads growing on my scalp is testimony to the roller coaster of emotions I've been under.

Faced with these new life events, I am doing what I know to do best...pray...a lot! I find that in prayer I am truly me, there is no hiding from the truth of my life and who I am - fears, hopes, laughter and tears. In prayer I am truly free, I am truly human - exposed, vulnerable.  I am known. I am seen, I am heard. I am loved. I truly do not know how I can exist meaningfully if I don't pray.  And the more I pray the more I'm called to pray, if that makes sense. 

My current favorite personal prayer (as it currently matches my state of mind) is the Suscipe by St. Ignatius of Loyola.  It is the perfect prayer for someone who has a lot of control issues, ahem. The beautiful words are as follows:

Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.

Amen. Sigh.    

I have a few more weeks to savor this normal life before we get catapulted into the strange world of brick and mortar schooling.  My goal is not to waste valuable time unless it's wasting it with my kids.

Here are some pictures to share for those of you who have chosen to waste your time on this blog :-)

roses are white...but I do have red roses too

a new addition this year to my flower bed

 

happy little flowers

a cardinal made a nest on the rose bushes

the oldest teaching the youngest how to ride a bike

I ran a race...blog post coming up