So last night I am laying in bed and my jaw starts hurting. Then my head starts hurting. Why all this pain? I just want to sleep! Then I realize I am starting to clench my jaw and grind my teeth and upon stopping the swirling in my mind, I realize that I am slowly starting to drown in thoughts about the kids school situation when we get to South Africa. Now folks, I have 4 months until we move, and I've already decided to give the kids a summer break til September AND we've decided to "home school" (aka-keep them from falling behind) until the new school year starts in January 2012, so WHY AM I ALREADY LOSING SLEEP OVER THIS???
It's fear. Plain and simple. Fear that I will not be able to teach my kids anything. Fear that they will not respect me as a "teacher", fear that we will all simply hate homeschooling and cry every day about it (ok, that might just be something I will end up doing). Then I have all these fears about the differences in the South African school system compared to the schools my kids are currently at. I know there will be differences, but I've already totally built them up in my head to be insurmountable and horrible and that I'll be damaging Tyson and Jori's childhoods beyond repair by taking them to an unknown country them dumping them into a school system that I have never experienced.
There are so many unknowns and so many different things that could happen between now and January 2012. We could all love homeschooling and decide to do it permanently. Darin could decide to home school and totally remove the burden from me : ) There are quite a few different schools in the area we'll be moving to and we could stop to visit one and fall in love with it. At this point, we don't know if our kids will go to the public school or one of the many private schools in the area.
This morning as I was driving the kids to school I realized that all these fears I started having last night were stealing my joy! I went to bed worrying about the kids schooling and woke up with fears that I am ruining their childhood by taking them from all that is familiar. One fear leads to another, and another and another and instead of feeling myself move in the direction of peace, my heart grows anxious. I have just recently started feeling more positive about our upcoming move, and Satan, the joy stealer, seems to be finding ways to take these happy feelings and crush them to the ground.
Well NO MORE. He's not stealing my joy. I threw my mouth guard away when we moved to this apartment, and I am NOT going to shell out the money for another one, so the teeth grinding has got to stop! No more fear induced jaw clenching for me. "The JOY of the LORD is my strength!" (Neh 8:10)
3 comments:
"So 'n bek moet botter kry" (to remind you these people living around here)Freely translating this idiom, 'such a mouth must get butter'
That's it sister, you have the right attitude.
What a great attitude to have! How many joy busters do we have in our lives. I am so proud of you for realizing this and praising God with you for His joy that he is revealing to you!
Jonna Michelle-I am one proud Mom and you are one great daughter.
Perfect love casts out fear and the perfect ONE has your back. As long as you are aware that it is the joy-stealer and he hates even the thought you might do a work for God so it is "Get behind me and by the way stay there." I am packing my bag-I am the perfect teacher :) :) :) I charge a reasonable price. Love those kids and they are survivors. Love ya to the moon Mom
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