About Me

Writing again...seems like it's time for a reintroduction, a bit more than what's to the right in the About Me box.

This is my writing space. Welcome. I write mostly for me. I write to untangle the mess of thoughts. I write because I love words. I write because I have a hard time not writing. I write because I am made in the image of God to create, to tell stories, to speak. It is my very first desire in life to honor my Maker in all things: to know Him and make Him known. Everything else that comes after that is just icing, the means in which I have been given to honor Him.

I've been married for just about 15 years...and that seems crazy to see in print. Since I still feel 12 there is no way I'm old enough to be married for a decade and a half.

 I'm a 30 something homeschooling mom. This takes up a lot of who I am. I teach my own because why wouldn't I?? I want to be the one with the privilege of filling their minds and learning right next to them. I want them to learn my values not a compilation of every teacher and peer they encounter for 12 plus years. I want my kids to be strong and secure in Truth before they have to face the world on their own.

 I have two awesome crazy boys, one who is only 2 1/2 inches shorter than I am, and another who is rapidly gaining on his big bro. I'm a step mama to a 20 year old man-child. I'm parenting in the second half. My tallest son is in double digits and my youngest will be there soon. There is some wisdom to be gained by doing this for over a decade (and having a head start practicing on my stepson). There are things I wished I knew way back when, things I'd do different. Maybe I can share some of them with you and save you a tiny sliver of regret. But there are also things I (by only God's grace) have done well. I'll share those things from time to time, too.

 More about me...I apparently name my years. This year is Tefillah (Hebrew for prayer). I'm a nurse at a big Children's Hospital. I work night shift on the weekends. It's a crazy schedule, but it's good. I like to find small people who need some love and take care of them. Mostly so far it's just baby sitting gigs, but if my Abba wills it, I'm open to a longer term commitment. I love kids. I loooove them. I want to go on rescue missions and break kids out of orphanages around the world and day care centers down the street and bring them home and watch them play in the sunshine. I get a little weepy when I drive down the road and see all the kids behind chain link fences on the black top at the school. It's like someone stole all the small ones and locked them up. Having said all that, I do NOT judge another soul for the educational choices they make for their child. No. Never. I love homeschooling and I think it's great . But I don't think your choice is wrong. It's just yours. I don't just love kids, I love people too. Right where they are. I know we all have our struggles and our stuff and God made us all so gloriously different.

Now for the deeper stuff...I love God. I really, truly, with all I am, LOVE my God. Also, I'm a mess. I'll say with some confidence that I'm less of a mess than I used to be but more of a mess than I will be in the future. God is doing a good work in me. The messy stuff has been real and ugly. My marriage was a struggle for a long time. My emotions made me feel like I was losing my mind and myself and the hearts of my kids. I felt like I was failing at everything I set out to do. I can speak of these things in past tense , not because I'm now perfect (not at all even close), but because of lessons learned. The biggest and most central lesson being in how I follow my God. It's a story I touched here and here. It's my family's journey into understanding God's word from a new perspective: the perspective of His people. We began to follow His word, not just what we heard in church on Sunday mornings but ALL of it, to the best of our ability (and of course we're still learning). After a bit of study, we believe that God's whole Word is true and still applies to His people today. So we jumped in. We began celebrating His feasts Days and keeping His seventh day Sabbath. We learned how all these things point to His saving Grace in Jesus (Y'shua). We began to learn Hebrew. It's a slooow process but it's been so very amazing. It's all been amazing. I used to wonder why it was all so hard, why it seems like I lived on slivers and trickles of God's grace, why all my efforts were never good enough. And then it all changed when we began doing more bible things in bible ways. We didn't quite know exactly how but we made the decision that we'd do what He showed us. That has been the difference. By His grace, our hearts desire is to follow Him and our actions are following that desire. And our lives are different, better. But more importantly, our lives are less about us and more about Him.

I think that about covers it. My goal is to write more but that sometimes takes a backseat to living life. But words will always be a love of mine, so I always return. Thanks for reading. Feel free to say hello in the comments. (Getting comments is always fun).