Oh what a difference a year makes! (As if we didn't already know that.) I can't believe it's been just over that much time since my last post, and just under that time since one of the craziest changes of my life. A year ago this weekend, incredibly generous friends were helping us start packing the moving truck, even though they knew we were about to up and leave them. Then some of us drove around looking at Christmas lights together, trying to enjoy a very fun event while inside my heart was breaking. (Those of you in Seattle, go drive around our old neighborhood tonight...best. Christmas. light. display. ever.)
After that excruciatingly wonderful-yet-painful week, we loaded up our van, headed to southern CA for Christmas, and then on to our new life in West Virginia by way of KS...We pretty much drove from Canada to Mexico, and then from the west coast to the east coast. Praise God we have such good travelers! Through all of that, though, I remember feeling a sense of security I didn't feel when we moved to Seattle, which was ironically a direct result of Seattle. Namely, I knew that because we'd survived that major change and been blessed through it, we could do the same again.
I never could have guessed just how right that would be, though! The past year has had it's fair share of struggles, but also so much more goodness--and just plain DIFFERENT goodness--than I could have anticipated.
First, because it's the biggest highlight of my life this year: homeschooling. (PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS WHAT I'M DESCRIBING FOR
MY FAMILY, NOT WHAT I THINK WOULD BE BEST FOR ALL FAMILIES.) It would be impossible to put all my thoughts, emotions, joys, and struggles in print...there's just too much. The short of it, though, is that it's the realization of many yearnings God had put in my heart that I wasn't sure how to handle. Over my past couple years in KS, I grew increasingly confused by the dichotomy of my pleasure and ability for working with all various ages of children, and not sure who that meant I should be serving with my gifts. In Seattle, I kept inadvertently making friends with all these amazing homeschool families while struggling to connect with the families we met through the girls' school (not to discount the ones I really did love, though!). I had long wanted various behaviors to become a part of our family's routine, but constantly felt like school kept us too busy and too separate from each other, and yet I personally was getting pretty bored with spending much of my day doing "nothing" while waiting to be available if the girls needed me.
So now? Now we pray as a family every morning before we start school and before Shawn goes to work. We get to spend this time teaching our children how to speak from the heart to the very God who created those hearts, and let me tell you--they speak some pretty awe-inspiring words! Now my kids are getting an education tailored to exactly their level of readiness. Now I'm getting to work with kids of varying age within my own home, and certainly don't have very many moments to feel bored (hence the lack of blogging). My kids, although still typical siblings, have much deeper and kinder relationships with each other, like the homeschool families I met in Seattle. Watching the two oldest become each others' BFFs is just so very cool. Now I know my children like it as much as I do, even when some days we just want it done. How do I know? Because it's how they plan their own futures, and imitation is the greatest form of flattery, right? The oldest's current life goal: to be a part-time vet who lives on a farm with many animals while having time to be a mom who homeschools her many children. Lastly, if I do say so myself, we're really darn good at this. Trust me, that came as somewhat of a surprise, but I've totally come to see that the innate gifts God created in me lead me to be able to very successfully trust my instincts about what's best for our homeschool. Which, by the way, we named Sophia Catholic Homeschool... our motto is "instilling wisdom that bears faith, hope, and love." Sophia means wisdom, and there's a lesser known Saint Sophia, who was a holy mother that raised three holy daughters names Faith, Hope, and Charity. :-)
The next major highlight: living and working at a retreat center and summer camp again. This, too, has offered it's fair share of struggles, and there are many changes we are being called to make that has created its fair share of tension. Overall, though, we're getting to be a part of the unique opportunity to grow Catholic youth ministry in an area of the country that hasn't seen it flourish yet the way other places have. We get to offer our abilities towards forwarding programs already in place, and creating new ones from the ground up. We get to work directly with teens and young adults who are thirsty for Christ. We get to do this at the service of the poor. We get to do this in collaboration with holy, fun, cool bosses and co-workers. We get to do this as a WE. I won't go into
too much of a rant, but I won't shy away this time around from saying that I had no idea just how much my soul was hurting from the fact that in Seattle my children and I were not allowed to be a part of the great work that needed to happen simply because we were Shawn's family. I don't think I'm something uniquely amazing, but I do see (now more so than ever) the gifts and experience that I can offer to the youth ministry world and that God didn't plan for me to do nothing with that. He also didn't plan for us to be a family that allows one person being in ministry to cause separation, but rather for all of us to be committed together both in the labor and in the fruits of our labor. I no longer have to see the hurt in my children's eyes when they're not allowed to be involved in what we proclaim to be the centrality of our lives, but rather to see them falling in love with Christ, building friendships with kids whose parents are doing the same work we are, to see them looking up to holy teens as witnesses. Because they can experience all that, they understand WHY we work so hard for the job that we do, and they support us in the time we spend doing so. It's amazingly simple that when the church supports them, we are more free to be devoted to supporting the church. Last thought on this: between homeschooling age 3 through almost 10 and working with teens and young adults, oh, wait for it...I'm ministering to all ages!!!! Holy moly, God's divinity is amazing!
So, are we happy? As a family, yes. In our work, yes. Does it stop there? No! We are finding ourselves blessed with community, as well. We love the friendships we've made in our diocese with other families in ministry. We're so very grateful that in small-town America (a speed of life we mostly prefer and are happy to be back to), we've made friends through church and a MOPS group. Although not as often as I think any of us would like, we DO have friends we enjoy getting together with and letting our kids play together while we enjoy adult conversation. Most especially, though, we have felt immediate support for our every need throughout the whole year. When we weren't sure what sure of our bearings in our new parish yet, an awesome family stepped forward and has been a blessing ever since. When I felt like homeschool was going to be a fail simply for lack of community, God calmed my worries by simultaneously transplanting another homeschool family into our parish just 3 weeks after us, and through working together we've discovered just how many people around here ARE actually on this same journey and we're becoming a wonderful network. When we went through one of the scariest experiences of our life with our car accident in February, we saw with such clarity how many people were ready to care for us after having been here such a short time--and did! That could have been such a lonely time just one month into moving, and instead it was a time when blessing came through hardship.
Okay, now to mention a few other blessings I'd be remiss to keep quiet about: we have an amazing home, a really spectacular "back yard" (farm, swimming pool w/huge slide, zipline, two chapels, plenty of space to house guests, etc, etc) the combination of the roominess I love about KS and the mountain features I love about WA, four distinct seasons (the weather in Seattle is probably THE thing I will never miss), closer proximity to family and friends which has made for increased visits (albeit there will never be enough), getting to experience living history by being in the heart of Civil War territory, having the time and environment to develop new hobbies like tapping maple trees and boiling down our own maple syrup, and for having the time and means to put our kids in several extracurriculars that they've wanted to try for a long time but just didn't fit in the budget. These are very worldly things, but things I'm grateful for none-the-less.
And now, I want to present one more aspect of our current life before wrapping up
this behemoth. The pace of life here has allowed one of my quieter, most personal dreams to come true, which is something I NEVER saw coming--truly this is "living the never". Think for a minute, if you will, about some longing you have that is so strong and yet feels so silly, that is such a desire and yet something you often give very little thought to until the point that you don't give it due credit as a yearning written on the fabric of your soul by the only one who truly knows your whole soul. For me, one of those things has been to be healthy and to have a healthy family. When I lost my 52-yr-old father to poor health choices as just a 23-yr-old, I knew that was something I didn't ever want to go through again if I could in any way prevent it. I'm not questioning God's plan to take Him home then, nor do I think I have the power to completely prevent it from happening to someone else, but I have become keenly aware that, as in all things, God has given us as humans the unique ability to reason what is best for our bodies. He created them to be temples for our souls, and as such, we should treat them with great care. So, where does life in WV come in? Well after several years of thinking about this, having conversations about this, having heated debates with my husband about the hows and whys of what that means for him, and only doing a very mediocre job of this myself...my choices caught up with me. This summer, I gained some weight at what a surprisingly-faster rate for me. I knew two things right away. One, getting older does happen--to all of us, darn it. ;-) And two, that to be a person of virtue and integrity, I had no choice but to put my money where my mouth was. So, when the school year started, I started getting up early (and another dream--wanting to be a morning person--came true), and going for a walk with a hint of jogging, offering it as prayer time free from the distractions of children, computers, etc. I also went back to drinking pretty much just water (a habit I'd replaced with too much soda), cutting out processed foods and tuning into whole foods (a passion I developed more fully by exposure to such a healthy mindset in Seattle), and only cooking the foods for my family that are best for them instead of toning it down to make them happy. You see, as the primary shopper and cook, I was the one with the control.
Now the miracles, which I know they are because it's only by the grace of God that all this has transpired. First, I surprised myself by quickly being able to push myself into running instead of walk-jogging, and by going further and longer than I thought possible. I did a sort of couch-to-5k of my own devising and stuck to it. That's definitely something my 15-yr-old asthmatic, panting self never would NEVER have predicted! Two, I started to really like it, and to consider myself an athlete...who knew. Thirdly, and the part I'm most grateful for...of all the approaches I'd tried, how silly that I never thought to use my own example as incentive to finally get Shawn on board for real!!!!! After about a month on my own, Shawn stared running with me (by his own choosing with not even a hint of request/expectation from me), but also one-upped me and started a food diary. It's amazing what health can be accomplished when, as a team, you're tracking both exercise and food intake--when you have that accountability, that support, that mutual success...when you know that the person you're doing it with sees it as a path to virtue and holiness just as you do, and it happens to be THE very person you're most responsible for getting to Heaven. Lastly, it led to crossing off a bucket list item I didn't know I even had: in November, we ran a 5k together! My MOPS group hosted it, and it was a day I'll never forget. First, our children participated in the fun run and were happy to be aware of the good they were doing for their bodies. Then, we both ran for our best, and achieved our best. In our very first race ever, I ran 5k in under 29 minutes, and Shawn ran it in under 26 minutes. I NEVER thought to hope for anything that successful, and I praise God for what He can achieve in us when we open ourselves up to it. We've continued the healthy lifestyle since, muddling through how to be successful as the weather turns nastier and the food of the holidays turns yummier. I tell you, my friends...going for and achieving a deeply personal goal that you know is happening by the grace of God is one of the most sanctifying experiences possible. So whatever it is, GO FOR IT!!!!!
So, a year in review. Wow. Are there days I still wish we could live closer to family? Yep. Do I begrudge the time and struggles God called us to in Seattle? Absolutely not. For one thing, we had a lot of fun there, were exposed to some amazing culture there, renewed a love of the outdoors there, and most especially made some incredible friends there that I still long for often. Secondly, I see beyond any doubt how God knew exactly what He was doing when he called us to that time of preparation. The difficulties at work made Shawn a more well-rounded person to be able to handle the difficulties here that sometimes mirror them. The time there took me from a person who, to be honest, thought homeschool was a terrible idea and turned me into a person with a softened heart to be open to it. You see, dear people, West Virginia has been the realization of, well, pretty much Heaven on earth for our family, but is a step we NEVER would have been willing to take straight from KS. So, in this Advent season, this time of preparation to celebrate Christ's first coming and to anticipate His next coming, I see in a way I NEVER have before that there is so much joy in the waiting. For since I know that waiting for Heaven will be even a million times more fruitful than waiting for this Heaven on earth has been, I can't help but bow humbly before a God so divine, so wise, so mighty, so merciful, so comforting, and so loving.
Peace be with you,
Anne
