One Simple Lesson That Brought Joy Back to My Life

We look super happy in this photo, didn’t we? We were sort of happy, but we were stressed. Alan has enough school and family work to fill his plate, but he does well. I’ve already said a thousand times that the first year of home schooling has been a huge challenge for me.

I was surviving, really. There was more stress than joy in my days. I was living frustrated.

I ran into a mom that I sort of know at Daniel’s tee-ball game two weeks ago. We’ll call her Angel from Heaven. 😉 For short, we’ll just say Angel. Angel has invited me to different things, multiple times. She has made a concerted effort to be my friend. We have a lot in common. She has five kids. I have four. We both home school. We both have pre-teens as well as little ones. Her husband is a chaplain. Alan is not a chaplain, but we do love Jesus. 🙂

Despite all of Angel from Heaven’s best efforts, I stayed at home like a little hermit crab. There was one day that I really WAS going to go to the beach with her and all of our children, but that’s when I came down with bronchitis.

So when she ran into me at tee-ball, excitedly commenting about CC being over for the year, and I replied with, “Oh, we still have 3 weeks of it left, and I’m so ready to be done,” I think she knew I needed encouraging. She invited me to a marriage class that she and her husband are leading. I mentioned it on my post 13 Wonderful Things. 

It was a very successful first class for our whole family.

I can’t tell you how much we needed this! Two hours of just Alan and me–eating out!

Here’s what they taught us that I think made the biggest difference (combined with two good hours to just have dinner with Alan).:

Pray together.

Sure you’ve all heard that. But pray together for each other, everyday. Ask each other, “What’s on your mind right now? How can I pray for you?” Then don’t jump in with a solution. Just listen and then pray for only each other. You can pray about everything and everybody else any other time. 

We’ve prayed together, occasionally, throughout our whole marriage, but we’ve never made a purposeful effort to simply pray for each other, together, every single day.

Now, you know I’m a big believer in prayer. It’s the number one reason my faith in God is unshaken. He’s answered too many of my prayers, in BIG ways, for me to ever doubt him.

I can’t explain it, ya’ll, but this week has not looked like any other week of our school year.

I’m happy! Like actually happy!!! I am not fussing at the children, unless they are fully deserving of it. Ha! 😉 I am not dreading getting out of bed. For the first time in a long while, I’m actually enjoying my days. I let the kids jump a little longer on the trampoline today. I let them watch a movie in the morning. We still got through our planned lessons for the day. We even made cupcakes. 🙂

No, I know; every day won’t be perfect.

God never promised a life of no trouble at all. However, you don’t have to be very old to figure out that all of life goes better for you when you make good choices, put your faith in the right places, and pray.

So even in a week when my computer didn’t want to work, Daniel drew on the walls, the boys played in Poison Oak Woods (without permission), Alan had to dig an under shirt out of the laundry basket, and my face exploded in acne, I am happy as a lark.

Now, I promised you beautiful photos from Carmel Valley.

I love ya’ll. Thanks for reading my blog. 🙂

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”      James 5:16

Carmel Valley

cozy book time with Mommy

Snail!

Poor snail. JD never saw him, and he never saw JD coming. He saw only the blue bottoms of the size 7 Spiderman shoes. Sometimes life ends suddenly…. 🙁

best friends: Buzz and Darth

Daniel and his best friend. We’ll call him Darth. Darth and Dan are just alike, and they are inseparable. Darth is moving in a month, which just breaks my heart for little Dan.

Thankfully, Dan will still have this best friend. Brothers are forever.

Digging through the library book bag

spring in the valley

spring at the ranch–Run, dog, run!