Wednesday, August 15, 2018
About two years ago I was scrolling through Pinterest and a quote by C.S. Lewis caught my eye. It was three little words that spoke volume to my life and it was a phrase that I would hear the Lord whisper to my heart many, many times over the last year, "Courage, dear heart". I knew this quote was from the Narnia series, but I needed to do a little more digging into the quote. To my surprise the context of the quote would only make the quote even more powerful. The quote is taken from Chapter 12 of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I will be adding that part of the book at the end of this post if you wanted to read the context of the quote.
When school ended in June the anxiety of the next school year seemed to increase. I kept it at bay by reminding myself that I had all summer before I had to think about the changes that were coming to our family. But here I sit, less than 24 hours away from starting this new journey and the nerves are pretty fierce. I mentioned in my last post that my anxiety has been high and pretty irrational. The other day I let out a crazy sigh that caught Jeremy's attention. I had just got another email about things that needed to be done in the first three days of inservice and I was pretty overwhelmed. I told Jeremy that I was worried about not knowing what to do or what if the other teacher's don't like me. A smile crossed his face and asked me, "When have you ever had someone not like you?" Of course I had to tell him that when I was a teenager I used to wear bright red lip stick and there was a family in our church that didn't like me because they thought I was going to seduce their son with my red lips 😚😆. That is actually a true story, but I guess if I leave my red lipstick at home I should not have any issues. Thankfully one of the teachers I will be working with reached out to me a few weeks ago so I was able to talk with her about the back to school information and it really helped ease my mind. It is just a lot of changes happening in our family and it is finally about to all go into action.
I knew that after our trip to the beach things were going to start getting real. I knew that when I returned I would be attending a four day course to learn a classroom strategy that my new school uses. That freaked me out because I had never heard of this classroom model and I knew that I wouldn't know anyone and would be forced to do activities and talk with many different people. I knew that after that I would be sending Samuel off to camp for the week and then everything else would be set into motion. I wanted to take the opportunity to refocus while we were on vacation. We drove for 14 hours and we finally arrived at the beach. We ate at the cool place called The Hangout. The place is covered from top to bottom with so many different items. There is a section of the ceiling covered entirely with rubber duckies, another wall completely covered with toy cars, and another entirely covered with lunch boxes, and I could go on. The fact is that it's really busy in there. It's hard to focus on really anything because there is just so much going on! We sat down and I looked up and there tucked into a corner that most people would not be able to see (in fact I was the only one at my table that had a view of it) was a set of three pictures. The top picture had three words on it, Courage, dear heart. I was overwhelmed and amazed at how the Lord spoke to me again by these three words and reminded me that I am severely lacking courage. I need courage to step out into the unknown knowing that God is already there making a way. I need courage to let go of the things I cannot control. I need courage to see myself the way God sees me, courage to see how others see me.
The best way I can combat this anxiety is to pray and have other pray for me. If you know me or know me through this blog you know my dislike for driving. So as silly as it seems, much of my anxiety is wrapped up in the fact that my commute each day is going to be insane. I will be going from a 6 minute commute to at least 2 hour commute each day. I am asking for at least 5 people that will commit to praying for us one day during the work week.
1. Pray that we have an easy commute, especially in the morning. I have to drive like 35 minutes to take Samuel to school and then drive about 20 minutes further to the girl's and I school. I cannot drop Sam off until a certain time and so I need my drive to my school to stay close to 20 minutes.
2. Ok, I don't want to worry anyone, but the drive to our schools requires that we drive through some pretty rough neighborhoods. Both of schools are close to downtown and so the neighborhoods are not good. I stay on main roads and know that I will not be stopping at any of places in those neighborhoods, but it sometimes gets sketchy. Please pray for angels to surround our vehicle as I drive back and forth each day.
If you would commit to praying for us one day a week please just send me a message on FB or text me if you have my number.
Thank you for loving me and my family. Thank you for not judging my tendency to be ridiculous.
Passage from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
When school ended in June the anxiety of the next school year seemed to increase. I kept it at bay by reminding myself that I had all summer before I had to think about the changes that were coming to our family. But here I sit, less than 24 hours away from starting this new journey and the nerves are pretty fierce. I mentioned in my last post that my anxiety has been high and pretty irrational. The other day I let out a crazy sigh that caught Jeremy's attention. I had just got another email about things that needed to be done in the first three days of inservice and I was pretty overwhelmed. I told Jeremy that I was worried about not knowing what to do or what if the other teacher's don't like me. A smile crossed his face and asked me, "When have you ever had someone not like you?" Of course I had to tell him that when I was a teenager I used to wear bright red lip stick and there was a family in our church that didn't like me because they thought I was going to seduce their son with my red lips 😚😆. That is actually a true story, but I guess if I leave my red lipstick at home I should not have any issues. Thankfully one of the teachers I will be working with reached out to me a few weeks ago so I was able to talk with her about the back to school information and it really helped ease my mind. It is just a lot of changes happening in our family and it is finally about to all go into action.
I knew that after our trip to the beach things were going to start getting real. I knew that when I returned I would be attending a four day course to learn a classroom strategy that my new school uses. That freaked me out because I had never heard of this classroom model and I knew that I wouldn't know anyone and would be forced to do activities and talk with many different people. I knew that after that I would be sending Samuel off to camp for the week and then everything else would be set into motion. I wanted to take the opportunity to refocus while we were on vacation. We drove for 14 hours and we finally arrived at the beach. We ate at the cool place called The Hangout. The place is covered from top to bottom with so many different items. There is a section of the ceiling covered entirely with rubber duckies, another wall completely covered with toy cars, and another entirely covered with lunch boxes, and I could go on. The fact is that it's really busy in there. It's hard to focus on really anything because there is just so much going on! We sat down and I looked up and there tucked into a corner that most people would not be able to see (in fact I was the only one at my table that had a view of it) was a set of three pictures. The top picture had three words on it, Courage, dear heart. I was overwhelmed and amazed at how the Lord spoke to me again by these three words and reminded me that I am severely lacking courage. I need courage to step out into the unknown knowing that God is already there making a way. I need courage to let go of the things I cannot control. I need courage to see myself the way God sees me, courage to see how others see me.
The best way I can combat this anxiety is to pray and have other pray for me. If you know me or know me through this blog you know my dislike for driving. So as silly as it seems, much of my anxiety is wrapped up in the fact that my commute each day is going to be insane. I will be going from a 6 minute commute to at least 2 hour commute each day. I am asking for at least 5 people that will commit to praying for us one day during the work week.
1. Pray that we have an easy commute, especially in the morning. I have to drive like 35 minutes to take Samuel to school and then drive about 20 minutes further to the girl's and I school. I cannot drop Sam off until a certain time and so I need my drive to my school to stay close to 20 minutes.
2. Ok, I don't want to worry anyone, but the drive to our schools requires that we drive through some pretty rough neighborhoods. Both of schools are close to downtown and so the neighborhoods are not good. I stay on main roads and know that I will not be stopping at any of places in those neighborhoods, but it sometimes gets sketchy. Please pray for angels to surround our vehicle as I drive back and forth each day.
If you would commit to praying for us one day a week please just send me a message on FB or text me if you have my number.
Thank you for loving me and my family. Thank you for not judging my tendency to be ridiculous.
 |
| Love these big kids! Praying they have the best school year! Also missing my boy like crazy. |
Passage from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
"Drinian’s hand shook on the tiller and a line of cold sweat ran down his face. The same idea was occurring to everyone on board. “We shall never get out, never get out,” moaned the rowers. “He’s steering us wrong. We’re going round and round in circles. We shall never get out.” The stranger, who had been lying in a huddled heap on the deck, sat up and burst out into a horrible screaming laugh.
“Never get out!” he yelled. “That’s it. Of course. We shall never get out. What a fool I was to have thought they would let me go as easily as that. No, no, we shall never get out.”
Lucy leant her head on the edge of the fighting top and whispered, “Aslan, Aslan, if ever you loved us at all, send us help now.” The darkness did not grow any less, but she began to feel a little—a very, very little—better. “After all, nothing has really happened to us yet,” she thought.
“Look!” cried Rynelf’s voice hoarsely from the bows. There was a tiny speck of light ahead, and while they watched a broad beam of light fell from it upon the ship. It did not alter the surrounding darkness, but the whole ship was lit up as if by searchlight. Caspian blinked, stared round, saw the faces of his companions all with wild, fixed expressions. Everyone was staring in the same direction: behind everyone lay his black, sharply-edged shadow.
Lucy looked along the beam and presently saw something in it. At first it looked like a cross, then it looked like an aeroplane, then it looked like a kite, and at last with a whirring of wings it was right overhead and was an albatross. It circled three times round the mast and then perched for an instant on the crest of the gilded dragon at the prow. It called out in a strong sweet voice what seemed to be words though no one understood them. After that it spread its wings, rose, and began to fly slowly ahead, bearing a little to starboard. Drinian steered after it not doubting that it offered good guidance. But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, “Courage, dear heart,” and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan’s, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face.
In a few moments the darkness turned into a greyness ahead, and then, almost before they dared to begin hoping, they had shot out into the sunlight and were in the warm, blue world again. And all at once everybody realized that there was nothing to be afraid of and never had been. They blinked their eyes and looked about them. The brightness of the ship herself astonished them: they had half expected to find that the darkness would cling to the white and the green and the gold in the form of some grime or scum. And then first one, and then another, began laughing."
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