Quiet nights create deafening silence....

I am a night owl. I always have been really.  I just enjoy the quiet, peaceful evenings.  Growing up in the country with no other homes around, I would open my windows and as the cool breeze ruffled the curtains it would carry the sounds of frogs and crickets.  To me, those sounds are comforting.  Now that I live in a town, I don't hear those sounds too often.  Granted, we have crickets and other wildlife but hearing them blow in on a cool summer's breeze is rare.

Even though, I still enjoy the evenings.  I have the house to myself, everyone is asleep - even the animals drift off into a peaceful slumber.  This is the time that my brain kicks into overdrive which explains why I never sleep.  My brain never shuts down and add a sprinkling of OCD into the mix and insomnia joins the party.  I go in spurts where I never sleep then I go into a season where I want to sleep my life away.  There is no happy medium.  My body just adjusts.  The longest my body refused to sleep was a few months ago where I slept 7 hours in 6 days.  Yes...SEVEN hours in SIX days.  I was cranky, groggy, slap-happy and just miserable.  I wanted to cry I was so exhausted. 

Then there are nights where I merely sit here and think of my past and my future.  I do not look at my past as something negative.  It happened.  Period.  The past is nothing that can be changed; we don't get any "do overs".  However, we don't have to be a victim of it either.  Our past is not who we are it is just a fact of what we have been through. 

I enjoy sharing my testimony and I am planning on sharing it this May at our B4B Youth Rally.  To be honest, at first I was a little intimidated when God told me to share it.  I have shared it with several youth groups but to a large audience that has youth and adults?  *gasp*

However, now I am so excited to share I could puke.  I have been criticized before, being told that I am glorifying my past.  People say that the past should be left there and not revisited while others say I am going for the 'shock' value. 

First off, without my past experiences, I would not be the person I am today.  Each moment in my life - the good and the bad - all lead up to my relationship with Jesus.  If I had not experienced the drug abuse, the self-mutilation or the sexual assaults....I would not be the same individual sitting behind this laptop.  Yes, some of the events resulted in poor choices and circumstance but each one was a stepping stone to the person I am today.  I am not glorifying my mistakes or my failures.  Those are merely facts that occurred in my life.  I do not glorify the sinful nature I fell into but glorify the Savior that brought me out of it! 

Lastly, I do go for the shock value sometimes.  This is true.  We live in a culture where nothing truly shocks or surprises us.  We are so desensitized that nothing out there makes us gasp in horror....it only makes us sigh with pity.  So if I can shock my audience, then maybe that will help them feel something other than being numb.  That way they can feel the tugging on their spirit that Jesus is in fact alive.

I do not hide who I used to be or any aspect of my family life.  I do not hide behind a mask and pretend that the person I am resulted in years of therapy.  I am who I am because when God got a hold of me one Sunday morning, unexpectedly, I was shocked out of my own spiritual numbness and brought forward to feel something once again.  I was so far gone that my toes hung over the edge of the cliff and one whispering breath from the enemy would have sent me over the edge.  No, therapy did not do this.  Sobering up did not do this.  A doctor did not do this.  A new drug did not do this. 

GOD DID THIS.

He took someone so far gone, someone who felt like nothing was worth the effort, someone who resented everything the church stood for, someone who self medicated to escape the world she lived in......and completely turned her around.  That day that I realized God was real and alive and wanted communion with ME, I never looked back.  My eyes remained forward.  I never touched another drug, never drank another beer, never let another razor touch my flesh, never again recited an incantation....

All it takes is one encounter with the living God.  One moment when you realize that there is more to this life.  That you don't have to walk around feeling as if you are alone and that no one cares.  You don't have to cry out in the darkness only to have it fall on deaf ears.  You don't have to slide the razor over your wrists wishing you had the courage to press a little harder.

You. Don't. Have. To......

God is waiting for you to take the step.  He created you, not by accident, but by divine purpose.  Your life has meaning.  Your life has purpose.  God knew you before you were conceived......as he looked down at the world one day, he told the heavenly hosts that he needed to create a human.  He needed to create one that was so powerful, one that was so awesome in power, one that was courageous that the demons tremble.  He would speak of the beauty he would instill in this human, the knowledge, the love, the passion.  He then breathed life into that person and so he/she was created in the womb.  While that person begins to grow and develop, unaware of the amazing potential that he/she possesses, God whispers into his/her spirit one word.....

World-Changer.

And that....is YOU.  

Cast aside the weight of the world and step up to what you are called to do.  All it takes is one willing servant to step up and say "Here I am, Lord.  Send me."

Skool sux

Homeschooling is on the rise.

I used to be an avid advocate of public school.  I envisioned homeschooling as something Amish families did at 5 in the morning before going out and milking the cows.  It has evolved quite a bit from my delusioned ideas.

Statistics show that homeschooling is growing at a steady rate of 15% annually.  Families are turning more towards online education.  So why the steady incline?   According to NCES (Nationwide Middle for Training Statistics) 80% of parents chose to home school their children due to dissatisfaction of the public school environment.

That is no shocker there.  I remember going to school and teachers genuinely cared if I excelled or not.  I had one teacher that made a few snide comments occasionally but he still took the time to make sure I understood the lessons and if I didn't he took the time to help.  I had many teachers that had such a heart for teaching that they were emotionally connected to their students.  They would cry with them in their sorrows and share their laughter in their joys.  They wanted to see their students excel beyond their imagination.

"I could care less about your life outside of this school."


"You are a poor role model and you will never get a job."

"Are you retarded?"

These are the words spoken by various teachers throughout the years to my daughter.  This is not just one teacher, one school.  They were from three separate teachers, from two different schools.  Does this sound encouraging?  Does this sound like someone who wants my child to excel to her fullest potential?

We send our children to a building with various adults and many other children for 7 hours a day and a minimum of 12 years.  Those years are pivotal in a child's development - emotionally as well as academically.  Yet we send them with the best intentions, trusting that they are getting the education that they deserve.  My, have times changed!

I tried homeschooling when my daughter was in 6th grade.  There was an incident that was quite traumatic for her and I will spare the details as to not embarrass her.  It was enough that I pulled her immediately.  We were told the principal would like to speak to us to address the matter because of his concern.  When we got there we were told "he was gone".  When we told the secretary we were there to see about pulling our daughter from school they said "get her stuff and take her".  When we explained she wanted to finish out the day to say good-by to her friends, we were told, "she doesn't need to be here, grab her art of the wall and take her now."   They didn't even ask why or show any concern what so ever.

So I home schooled her the remainder of that year and then the first semester of her 7th grade year until we moved.  At that point, we decided to enroll her into the new school district, hoping location would make the difference.  At first, all was well....but then the bullying and the pressure started.  Work was given that she didn't understand and that wasn't explained to her.....teachers acted like it was a 'bother' when she would ask for any extra help.  She would sign up to volunteer or participate in things and be excluded, so on and so forth. This continued and I would sit her down and tell her to fight through it and do the best she could.  Her grades began to suffer.

Education is vital in my world.  Intelligence is something no one can take from you.  Therefore, when I saw her grades suffering, I knew something was up.  She would turn in assignments and the teacher would say she didn't.  Then when I would email and threaten to come in there, the assignment would show up in a matter of moments.  This happened numerous times.  My daughter would come home in sour moods and talk about how cruel some of the other students were - if not to her, to others.  She would show me the text messages and the emails of the girls that do those things just to be spiteful.  Words that made my daughter devalue herself.  Whether the words were intended to be that way or whether my daughter is being "overly dramatic" (another term teachers like to use), is not the issue.  The issue is no matter if the situations are as harsh as she makes them out to be, in her mind they are just that bad.  In her mind, they are creating a world that she begs to not be part of. 

This past incident wasn't a severely traumatic thing - just some more cyber bullying but nothing that most girls don't do - being catty, as my mom would say.  I suppose it was the straw that broke the camel's back.  So I thought long and hard about it.  I just want her to be happy.  Isn't that any parent's dream?  - their child to be happy and to succeed far greater than they had?

So why would I want to send her to a place that eats her alive then spits her out?  I was always worried about social skills with her because she enjoys having friends and hanging out with others and being home schooled would make that difficult.  Then I thought - why would I want to send her somewhere that creates an environment where she is an outsider looking in?  The beauty is - I. Don't. Have. To.

Homeschooling today is so much different than it used to be.  Everything can be done online and many are accredited.  A recent law states that colleges cannot discriminate on where a student receives their diploma which benefits homeschoolers.  

So, with that being said, my daughter will officially be pulled out of school tomorrow and begin her homeschooling journey.  My son, on the other hand, prefers to go to public school.  That is his choice.  He does well and doesn't seem to have any major issues and if he does, they don't effect him as much as they effect her. 

I guess I am a little sad.  Not sad that she is going to be home schooled but sad that the school system seems to be declining.  To most (not all), it is merely a job to sustain a living....the heart is no longer in it.  The love of children and education is no longer as much of a factor as the paycheck (which is ridiculous in itself).  Those endearing teachers that would hug you when you missed school, checked up on you if you were sick, would stop the bullying instead of turning the other way.....they are all dead and gone.

No.  I am not sad.  I am mournful.  Mournful of what once was but is now long dead.

The extinction of a dying breed.....

I am a bookworm. 

My dad instilled at a young age on the importance of books. He always said a reader never lacked knowledge.  He read - a lot.  My mom would take a mesh sports bag (like football players use to carry their equipment) to our rinky-dink library and look through the books and pick out enough to pack the bag (usually 15-20).  She would them take them home, he would choose the ones he would read and she would take the rest back.  She did this at least once a week.  So my dad would always have a book nearby and he was such a fast reader!  The 10 or so books he would keep from the stock pile my mom chose for him - he would have done in a matter of days.  The library soon knew us by name and would hold back or order books she thought Dad would enjoy.

I remember when my brother read the book "Pet Semetary" and told my dad that it was a good read.  The next morning, Dad said - "You're right, it was a good read."  He had read it in a couple of hours.  He was a speed-reader (then again, the more you do something the better you become at it).  He could look down the middle of a page and see the entire page.  I can read at a pretty good pace but him reading was unreal.

So, yes books have always been a thing in our home. So when I had kids, I wanted so desperately for them to be readers.  I bought them books and read to them and tried everything to get them to enjoy a good book.  My son won't read unless it is required of him.  This saddened me for some time.  He doesn't want to READ?!  The horror!

Then I came to the realization that he just isn't a reader and I am okay with that.  My daughter, on the other hand, is.  Thank you, Jesus.  I don't know if I could bear the thought of them both not wanting to read.  She has her own small library of books and it warms my heart when she asks for a Barnes and Nobles gift card for Christmas or her birthday.

However, I fear that books are on their way towards extinction.  I see everyone with their phones out, reading.  Or I see Ipads, Ipods, Nooks, Kindles, etc. in every one's hands as they download and read the latest top seller.  I want to snap them in half.  Okay, maybe not that extreme but come one!

I had someone ask me not that long ago if I would enjoy a Kindle or some type of electronic book.  "It would be easier, you can take it everywhere and it takes up less space."

NO!  I don't want one, thank you very much.  I ENJOY books and hello - I can take them anywhere just like your little gadget you got there. 

I enjoy the smell of books.  I enjoy holding them in my hands, feeling the cover as the spine crackles when I open it.  I enjoy the feel of the pages as I slowly turn to enjoy the anticipation of the next page.  I always wanted a house with the large libraries you see in the movies - walls and walls of books, large leather chairs, a cherry desk with books strewn about, rich carpets, fireplace and expensive art of people I don't know. 

That is probably never going to happen however, I have convinced Matt into letting me transform our current living room into a small library and I couldn't be more thrilled.  It took compromise - I let him make the downstairs into a theater room, therefore I am making the upstairs into a library.  It's coming along nicely and am excited as I continually add to my collection.

Books - ahhhh, my love for them supersedes many other loves.  I always wonder if it is in the genetic make-up or if it was just a learned behavior taken from my dad and seeing him with a book.  It was normal in our household where Iphones and Ipads are normal for this generation.

It's sad really.  Books are slowly becoming a dying breed.  When you can't find a book anywhere (like trying to find a cassette or a vinyl), come to my house.  You will always find one here.