Confessions of an ESFP

Ok, most of my family and close friends know I hate (HATE) personality tests. The first time I took the Myers-Briggs (I refuse to link that...you can google it on your own:) test in 92ish, I was on staff with Youth With A Mission and we took it so we could learn how to work together. I thought it was so dumb. I have no idea why, but I remember our Director saying, your personality type hates to take these tests. That sent me over the edge!

My husband is now working toward getting ordained as a Deacon with Anglican Missions in America (AMiA) and we had to do a marriage assessment for that. Of course that entailed 5 personality tests, no joke. One was even a Spiritual Gifts test, all it really tested was my cynicism, which I am sure my Myers-Briggs fully explains:) Anyways, I have to say...I think I learned something...I don't know who Myers or Briggs are, or how they even came up with all those questions, but it helped me. Well, it helped part of me:)

My personality type was/is E (extrovert) S (sensory) F (feeling) P (perceiving). Henry is almost the same except for the end which his is J (judging). Mine is supposably *the performer*, which maybe explained me at 15, but not really now. What it did help with is...homeschooling.

What it explained to me is that I like things open ended, not structured (though my head likes to think I want to be structured), want to consider ALL possibilities, nothing set in stone because of unknown variables, flexible, likes adventure, takes risks, etc. This explains me to a T! Its actually what drives my poor hubby crazy. I even yell at him for writing in his calendar in ink, cause something might change! I NEVER write on ANY calendar in ink...its forbidden!

Link to homeschooling with four children, which really needs to be scheduled, organized (times 4), time slotted, written in ink, goal oriented, big picture minded===STRESS. And not just any ol' stress, MY stress! Something that our counselor that was in charge of giving and interpreting all of this said, was, you need to mesh your personality type with homeschooling four children. You need to lower your stress.

No duh! was what I was thinking! Thats the only thing I KNEW walking in there! It actually had been my heart's cry!

So, now I at least feel like I have a mission. I need to have a schedule that serves my children to the fullest, but doesn't stress me out and HELPS me to serve them. I am going to work on that over Advent as we take a break from the rigorous schedule that we usually are working on. I need to also trust God in this. I need to see it as a tool and not *who* I am specifically (my type wouldn't allow that anyway:).

Simplicity of the Gospel

This is the last week of Term One of this year! We are finishing off books, ending units, preparing for Thanksgiving and Advent…exciting and exhausting all at once. Yet, this was the hardest term for me. Which seems strange, since this is our seventh year of home schooling, so it should be getting easier, not harder right?

God is taking me to the END of me…all those *great* Christian clichés we often quote: ‘more of Him, less of us’, ‘Him increase while we decrease’, ‘in our weakness He is strong’ (ok, that one is really scripture)…you get my point. Well, if you have ever truly fleshed that out…you don’t really pray those when you are IN it…you mostly start saying, “OH GOD! HELP!” Which I suppose is His point! Nevertheless, the process is so very valuable, and yet excruciating all at the same time. And even more important: eternal.

Then tonight, I came across this quote in my BSF study notes on John 6: “In order to recognize and appreciate a supernatural work of God, it is first necessary to recognize its impossibility on a human level.” Which, quite honestly, makes me cuss every time…not kidding.

Home schooling, obviously has been easy for me to handle until this point. I have made it work, had fun, learned the Charlotte Mason method, learned about my children, enjoyed my children. Then this year (the most organized I have ever started), cannot make it work, yell more than I want to, cuss out Charlotte Mason and not enjoying my children like I want and I don’t even want to know what they thought of me the past couple weeks.

And, yet, its not even really all about ME…I can so make every hard time and/or Bible lesson about me, about how I am changing, about how I am becoming a moldable vessel to him, about my fruit, about how THIS scripture spoke to ME, etc, etc.

The real question remains:

What about my homeschooling reveals the Glory of God?

Am I focusing on the food that is perishable, instead of the food that is imperishable?

“Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to
eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father
has set his seal.” John 6:27

What does Jesus say that this imperishable food is?? Jesus answers some of the 5000 that just ate the miraculous ‘3 loaves, 2 fish’ meal (they just experienced a miracle, a sign of who He is, and MISSED the whole point) : verse 29: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

That’s it??? No steps? Just believe? Are you sure? It’s not harder? more complicated?

Lord forgive me of my UNbelief.

I am t.r.y.i.n.g. to make sure school is enjoyable, not scarring, creates a love of learning and knowledge, builds good habits, is structured, provides lessons of character building. On and on and on and on I could go. Efforts toward food that perishes;

He says…BELIEVE in the one who was sent.

The Stripped Down Easter

Easter really became only about the Resurrection to me yesterday.

Doesn't that sound weird? Kinda of a "DUH" statement, but the last 48 hours has shown me how much more I personally have added to the Easter "experience" in my head.

My brother and sister (in law) were in this past week and with my birthday being on Good Friday, we were very excited that they extended their stay for a day so we could have fun on Saturday and get ready for Easter. I put all my fun *emotional eggs* in one basket apparently.

Our youngest daughter got really sick, waking up on Friday night throwing up. It went downhill from there! All of a sudden, my weekend was unraveling completely!
My family was leaving early (in case this was contagious), all my *fun* plans for Saturday were gone, I couldn't buy new ties for the boys, I wouldn't end up getting something new for Easter, we weren't eating my birthday cake, I wasn't planning an Easter meal, we were going to be without any family, and here my sweet girl was puking up anything going in...and on and on it went in my mind! I was a wreck! I had a complete meltdown on Saturday evening (that kinda started in the afternoon, my sweet, patient hubby;)

Sunday morning...I was better...sort of! Helped Steve get the kids ready for church. Seth found a tie on the closet floor (new to him :), Alexandra wore a turtle neck under her new Easter dress (because we live in the tundra!), Nik was excited about taking my place in the Nursery and Steve was excited about serving as Acolyte that morning! I tried not to think of all I was missing...its very difficult to go ALL through the Lenten season and then end it with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and NOT get your Easter Sunday!!!

I decided to go to church online...I felt so PATHETIC! But I knew Mark Driscoll was streaming all his services live that day (he did FIVE services with baptisms at every one! the dude is AMAZING!) Anyway, I watched his 8am service and part of his 9:45 service...and it wasn't anything eye opening for me per se. But God starting dealing with my heart...of course...and all of a sudden things started coming to my mind...ties, hams, family, birthdays, shopping, dinners, new shoes, eggs, baskets, all of it...what does it EVEN have to do with MY GOD dying and MY GOD raising from the dead?? And not that you cannot USE all of those things to celebrate, I don't even mean that. But I wasn't going to be able to use ANY of those to help me celebrate...and in that moment it all became VERY VERY clear to me!

OUR Creator, YOUR Creator...appeased the wrath of God and died for us! Who the heck needs Easter grass for that! AND, every Sunday is Easter! So I really didn't miss anything!

Wisdom

Have you ever felt that parental compulsion to make the RIGHT decision?!? Probably if you are a parent, you feel it every day and so you know exactly what I am talking about. We are feeling the bumps in the road with our oldest and I refuse to chalk it up to prepubescent-ness or because he is in middle school now, or because *they just act that way* stage. I REFUSE!

Well, as I was trying to process this with my wonderful Henry...God so used him to speak to my heart. "We are called to lay a foundation right now...that is it!"

Can you hear my sigh? And NOT that, by any stretch of the imagination is that EASY, but...possible and RIGHT! He does NOT have to get every BSF lesson, he does NOT need to understand every memory verse, he does NOT need to *get* every sermon on Sunday, etc, etc, etc. BUT, it is adding up, it is building, it is going to give him his foundation.

Tedd Tripp (which I will expand on soon in a post) said at a conference, that we tend to believe that raising children is a sprint, when really it is a MARATHON. Which happens to be speaking my language, I am starting to get the difference.

Our children don't *get* everything we tell them every time. Imagine God expecting that from us! (God forgive me!) But it DOES build that foundation from them. Our children WILL have a place to draw from in the desert and dry times. They will know God when they leave here.

Foundation building...mother guilt cannot be found today in foundation building. Thank you Henry!

Things I am thinking about...

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

• Try some how to get outside the "I AM WHO I AM" part...I dare you...
• We are now the people of Israel, spiritually speaking...
• We are sent. (PERIOD)
• There are lost out there.
• Everywhere.

Humility, conviction, love, gratefulness, encouragement, hope, hope, hope, small, yet big, confident, then back to humility, conviction, love...it encompasses it all.

Thats MY church!!

I got forwarded this blog post about our church this week and immediately was so thankful (or MORE thankful) of where God has us! Thats MY church I wanted to tell whoever was near me (except most of those people around me at the time, go there too;).

Steve and I love our church! We love the vision our Pastor has, and we love to serve our church and be under his leadership. God has already used him in so many ways in my life personally, our family, and my extended family. Its nice to read others articulate what Steve and I have felt for MONTHS!! Just felt proud, and thankful, and blessed and wanted to share!

One of the times my father was here visiting, I remember him sharing with my Pastor's wife that it wouldn't surprise him if God used our church as a proto-type for the area! It wouldn't surprise me either!!