Well, I’m gathering the paperwork and scheduling the doctor’s appointments…

We’re in the middle of registering the kids for school in the fall. You may remember that our school closed in May and we’ve been wrestling with this question of what to do next year for several months now.

We found a small Christian school across the river that teaches with a biblical worldview that is compatible with what we believe and want our children to learn and we’ve determined that it’s the best choice for our family for the 2013-14 school year. As good of a school as we’re blessed to have found, this was not my first choice.

My heart is hurting because I told God what I wanted, I prayed unceasingly, directly, and I thought unselfishly, and He didn’t give me my request. He didn’t grant my petition.

I told Him what I thought would be best–what made the most sense to me–and it’s not working out that way. It’s not working out my way.

And it’s been hard to swallow. Hard to submit to. Hard to understand, to accept.

Hard to write about. {smile}

And all the while…all the time down on my knees {or driving to work…pretending to read on the back porch…folding laundry….} God has been telling me that this is not just about choosing a path, choosing an action–it’s about choosing an attitude.

Do I choose an attitude of faith? Of joyful submission?

Or do I choose to rebel in my heart? To feel defeated rather than blessed? To walk my own path rather than let Him be my lamp and my guide?

Will I trust in Him and wait patiently upon the Lord, leaning not on my own understanding?

I wish I could say that I’ve got it all figured out, all settled, and I chose JOY, and we’re happily out buying glue sticks and notebook paper as you read this.

But that wouldn’t be true.

What is true is that I’m accepting it. I’m trying to see the possibilities rather than the challenges. I’m trying to not be all or nothing about this, just let it be what it is this year and see where it leads us. Give it all time and see what opportunities come–what other doors open as we head down this path.

What else is true is that I prayed about this. I prayed and prayed, and God was not silent. He told me plainly that submitting to this path is what He wanted from me. He told me that I was to submit and obey like Sarah, in faith, and not with fear and amazement (1 Peter 3:6). The question is not “What do I do?” The question is “Am I going to do what I’m called to do?”

{Sigh} It’s a hard row to hoe. And sometimes it’s a lonely, quiet, place to be.

But I’m working on it.

“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.Do all things without murmurings and disputings:That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.” (Phillippians 2:12-16)