AWOL

AWOL=Absent WithOut Leave

Actually, God gave me Leave, and now I've been called back!

The LORD is always at work, and sometimes it is abundantly clear when He shows up in NEON colors!  For example, a bit over 2 weeks ago my Dear Husband and I watched a video on a Friday evening, as we are wont to do quite often as a transition from very busy days to a bit of paperwork before bed.

Jay looked very pensive, as he had been for a couple weeks.  It seemed as if he had checked out a bit and was distant, so I had left him alone with his thoughts.  He's a big thinker and doesn't enjoy being prodded about what's going on in his brilliant mind.  However, I felt led to ask what he was thinking about.  That was Friday, September 23, 2016.  The shock of what he told me sent me reeling, not that God spoke to him, but what God told him to do.  He said, "I think God wants us to move to Orcas Island."

Orcas Island is where his oldest daughter lives and she needs help with her two children...teaching them academic subjects as they near high school age...which IS my husband's forte.  He also loves mowing and landscaping, so he could work for his son-in-law at a resort where Steve is the head landscaper.

We discussed the move on Saturday...about selling his ranch and our house here.  We prayed.  On Sunday he called his daughter to tell her we'd made a decision, led by God, to begin the process of moving.  She and her husband went on line and began looking for places for us because the inventory is pretty slim and VERY expensive.  On Monday she called to tell him they discovered a place we could afford.  My Dear Husband sent me on a flight on Wednesday.  I looked at the house on Thursday.  I made an offer on Friday, and we signed via email on Monday evening before I flew back home to Grangeville on Tuesday (a week ago today!).

God gave me a Word, an impression as I got on the plane.  I love how God 'orchestrates' events and relationships.  Often I mention this as I tell people what's going on in my life.  He impressed upon me a straight line from me (on the plane) to this place we are buying.  So I was at complete peace when the realtor told us she was showing the same house to others who were making an offer.  But the straight-line visions kept me at peace.  He 'Orcas Straighted' the offer and purchase!

Anyway, when I came home we began going about the selling of our home.  Levi and Klarey have often told us that they would love to have our house if we ever sold.  They came to look at all the nooks and crannies of this old house.  They made an offer which we accepted on Sunday.

Isn't God magnificent?  Of course He is all the time, and I love it when He shows up in NEON colors like this for us!  My husband is NOT a mover.  He has lived in this house for 30 years and in this town for most of his 68 years.  Only God could say, "MOVE!" and expect Jay to obey.

Although I've had a longing to live closer to my children, I will be just as far away.  But, because Jay will be near his family, I can travel to mine more often and for longer periods.  The LORD has blessed me and I can still say, "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a goodly inheritance."

The Last Battle

I'm working with a great little crew of students this year: Naomi, Rose, Baeli, and Dayne.  It feels like a last battle in that I' fighting FOR these kids.  They really don't understand the value of what they're getting, what their parents pay me to do, or how to invest in themselves at this point in their lives.  How do you teach a young one to 'get it'? AND!!!! it is my last year of doing this kind of work.  I'll take up the task of creating and teaching workshops for parents how home-schooling their children and need ideas of how to create projects and make learning REALLY fun!


They are so very dear to me right now, especially as I am grieving the loss of a former student to cancer.  He has fought his last battle.  He was so dear to me, Tony Barajas was, as was his dear wife, Mariah. 


Long ago (in the 90's) I taught in Wasco, Oregon, in Sherman County...a K-8 school with a bit over 100 kids at the time.  I love the area which is almost all wheat growing from the north border of the Columbia River, the west border of the Deschutes River, and the east border of the John Day River.  I recall watching a small herd of antelope dance away from my car into the short green wheat fields which, when the wind blew, looked like they were dancing themselves.  I called them little Wheaties because they seemed alive.


Tony was one in a class of 5th graders I was given as a reward for serving well as the creator/teacher/counselor of a bunch of woolly-bully boys who needed an alternative education.  I chose to take the 5th graders home with me in small groups on Friday afternoons to do a project.  Tony chose the 'weaving group'.  I had a loom at the time, and the small group wove, played hide and seek, played 'slide' in my hand-knitted socks on my hardwood floors before I ordered pizza for them...a non-existent way to eat out in the hinterlands of Wasco.


Good-bye, Tony, may God welcome you with open arms into the halls of heaven.

Snow Day and a Conversation with God

This morning, after receiving news of a couple of sick kids not able to attend class today, I made an executive decision to cancel school.  I'd been in prayer about a day off for myself to settle the disquiet in my spirit, to get anchored to the One Who Provides.


In the quiet I became aware of the Lord speaking about the end of this career of teaching, and I realized that fear is the source of the unsettling, the disquiet.  What will I do with my time?  How will I remain focused and not end up puttering away at not much of anything, leading a life lacking purpose? When the gnawing begins with, "What shall I do today?  What shall I eat today?  Who will I spend time with today?"  I can trust that there ARE things to do; I don't have to eat my way through the day; and God will provide activities, events, and people.  He will continue to have a purpose for me.  And what's wrong with some down time anyway...in order to ponder these questions?


God has led me well this past year in focusing on exercise and weight loss, in teaching a crew of fine Christian kids, in giving me women who desire a Spiritual Life Coach so that we can all Live Like We Mean It! 


So, I got a Word (or Words) this morning.  "YES! I am calling you to retirement, not right away, but soon. And I want you to continue coaching, and I want you to consult with home-school mothers about teaching methods, and I want you to lead students from time to time in some projects...those things you love so much."  End of conversation!


God talks to me; does He talk to you?


The feeling of relief and genuine longing for retirement is free to grow now.  There is no fear or reluctance.  And I'm excited.


I get excited easily, so I'll make a small pot of tea right now, and I'll contemplate the future; I'll ponder these things in my heart while I am home on this frigid day by myself!