Resurfacing......

I have been in a funk of late, I know some of what has caused it and I have been trying to figure out some of the other sources of the funk, but since I still can't completely wrap my head around it, I decided to refocus my energy and maybe blog a bit!  Wallowing in self pity isn't a look I really want to sport!

Recently I have stumbled onto a couple of new blogs I really enjoy.

The Path Less Taken the journey of a Christian Unschooling Mom

Six Busy Bees the blog of a local unschooling mom

and Christian Unschooling I particularly like this article Jesus was an unschooler


I have also started reading a blog by a woman who I reintroduced to through her recent tragedy.  Years ago, here and there, I had read things she has written, but I hadn't been keeping up, kind of like so many things in my life, my blog reading had taken a back seat to survival, and I really hate being in that mode.  Anyhow, I have been reading Lauren Fisher's blog Sparkling Adventures and following her struggles as she faces the loss of her son and the imprisonment of her husband.  Despite the "train wreck" draw of the current drama, she has some amazing and inspiring articles (both new and old) that are definitely would a read.  I particularly love the "facilitating free learning" section!

So all the blog reading reinforced in me the therapeutic nature that blogging has had for me over the years and I decided I needed to just "do it".....

July marks an anniversary of sorts, 2 years ago I went into what I am now calling in retrospect, "survival mode".  A note here to anyone who might care-----I have made a conscious decision to depart from that mode and enter a "THRIVING" mode!  Two years ago we received the news that our pregnancy that seemed doomed from the start was no longer just a life and death struggle for our child, but a life and death struggle for me as well.  If that wasn't enough to send us twirling and swirling off course, it seemed to accelerate a world that was already starting to spin out of control.  In some ways it seemed like the beginning of the end, I had no idea what a ride I was in store for.

I know that I have been very self absorbed the past 2 years. In. retrospect, I realize this was a mode of self preservation, as I have been forced to wade through things that I never imagined, navigate paths I
would have never knowingly chosen, and knowingly clung to a rock (my husband, my marriage, my family) that I knew was sinking but couldn't allow myself let go of because I had  faith that in the end, that rock would land safely, not in the same place it started, but someplace different, weathered and shaped by the journey but still my rock.  We stared death in the face and we won.  God worked on my pride, my patience and my faith. We lost our home (or maybe better put our house).  We didn't have food to eat. We went to bed hungry. We traveled a new (sometimes terrifying and sometimes even exciting) path that I never would have chosen, but that has taught me so very much. We learned about compassion and the kindness of strangers.  We saw love poured out on us when we felt undeserving.

I used to lament to a now former friend (another loss over the past 2 years) who is an unschooler with older children, that I didn't know what I would do once her children were adults because we had shared so much of our homeschooling journey together, that I would be "stuck" on my journey alone.  I now realize that I was, even if only in a joking manner, looking at it all the wrong way.....I am not STUCK anywhere, I can make choices, even when in the lowest of places, that allow me, my family, to see the joy, the "sparkle" in every day things, big or small.

And to those of you who have stuck around, if I have done or said anything that has offended or hurt you during my time of self absorption (or even before that, wouldn't want to pretend that I was perfect prior to that!), please let me know.  If you can find it within yourself to tell me your hurt at my hands, I would like to try to make amends for myself.  I understand that friendships come and go, get stronger, crumble, that they are often given to us for a season to see us through and then fade into nothingness, but know that I value you!  Thanks for sticking around and helping me grow!

So onward and upward...."sparkling" as I go....or at least that is my plan!