How To NOT Go Insane When Your Kids Move Out – 3 Things You Need To Help Bubble Up

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Get a life, friend! (Yes, I’m talking to me, too.)

Elderly woman with walker on house steps

“No! I’m not going insane. Why do you ask?:

Above was the response I gave all weekend, like hitting a ping-pong ball back to the person who launched it at me, again and again.

Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

I was at an in-person homeschool Year-End Celebration event this weekend with Logos Online School, and I gave the same response (above) to the same question that all the other homeschooling parents kept asking me.

And then even a stranger not at our event rolled down his car window and asked me a question. “What in the WORLD is going on here? I haven’t ever seen that many people in this park since the County Fair!” he exclaimed. We were elbow to elbow at the outdoor English Country dance at the Year-End event, where kids of every age (AND their parents!) danced together for several hours, everyone smiling unwittingly.

I attempted to explain, “Oh! There are simply people from nearly every state in the US and many provinces in Canada, plus some internationals here, dancing together with people of all ages for fun!” I waved him off with a smile. His eyebrows furrowed deeper.

Homeschooling is hard to explain sometimes.

Even God (!) is surprising us with our collective homeschooling adventure because homeschooling has been growing exponentially.

This growth in homeschooling is a good thing for our culture for many reasons, including those discussed HERE, HERE and even HERE.

Oh, and the part about many people asking me if I’m going insane? Oh, that’s because it’s my last year homeschooling my kids after 20 years at this job, teaching them from Kindergarten to Grade 12 (I know! I’m shocked I lasted that long, too!). It’s a new season for me.

So I may be feeling a bit disoriented.

And my last kid is moving out this year. (I’m advanced at keeping my kids nearby! And we missed a few milestones, such as the one for Kindergarten kids, “Watch at the school bus takes them away!”)

So I desperately asked for advice at this homeschooling event to every parent I knew who had just finished or was about to finish homeschooling their kids, like a drowning person asking (politely!) for a life preserver.

A quick summary of what I heard, through their tears and their joy, is that in this changing season, we need to let three things bubble up:

  1. Thankfulness: For example, massive cultural hope is a reason to be thankful, don’t you think? Well done, homeschooling parents. You loved these kids, and a well-loved kid is a gift.Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything.The Message
  2. True Feelings: I, for one, have generally preferred squashing feelings so I can be more productive. However, I’m trying to let my true feelings surface for even 10-15 minutes without judging them. This practice will (hopefully?) reduce the necessity for quite as many expensive counselling sessions if I go a little bit nutso later on from pushing down my feelings.
  3. The Next Thing: What’s the new thing, friend, that God has for you in this next season? Let’s let that bubble up a bit, too. What excites the heart, friend, in the quiet moments of the morning, when you and God are chatting? (Hint – Try to do more of the listening.)

For example, as the song below sings, “it’s gonna to take some time,” and “be patient with the process,” what do you sense God stirring in your soul, friend? God time for a listen? “If you want a resurrection,” what “dying has to happen” in your life, friend?

In my case, I wonder if maybe my kids can go ahead and save the world while I put my feet up for a few decades to celebrate a homeschooling job well done? (See Point #1 above). OK, maybe God has something new for me, too, in this next season, but that’s a discussion for another time. (I keep forgetting to do Point #2, above.)

Yes! I’m OK! I’m NOT going insane!

Why do you ask?

And I will try to forget about all those martinis I DIDN’T drink on the bad homeschooling days. I’m FINE! (I hope you are, too, friend.)

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Thanks for liking me! I like you too! – Proven HERE, HERE, and HERE! Let’s journey together!

Photo Credit – FINALLY Leaving Home, Are We? by Mobio Marketing on Unsplash

Surprise! A Little Extra Joy Is The Thing That Can Be Extracted After Porcupines Quill Us!

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Quilled in the face by another? How to extract joy from the pain.

a hedgehog on the ground

Today’s newsletter consists of two parts:

Part 1 – A story (about ME!!!) – Written by my daughter, Esther!

Part 2 – An explanation (also by ME!) of why I randomly thought of porcupines after reading this!

Additional profound extrapolations of the text (by ME! – Of course!) are in the footnotes!

Click HERE to continue reading.

Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

To Be A “Fantastic” Travel Blogger, Don’t Do This 1 Thing!

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Are you hoping to be an amazing travel blogger? Hey – Me too!

Do you ever look back on your life and think, “I must seem like a complete nutcase to someone else?”

I was driving from Canada to the United States on Stage One of this new identity as a “Successful Travel Blogger” this week when that EXACT same thing happened to me!

Click HERE to continue reading.

Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

Surprise! Look In Your Tears To Find Your Authentic, Best Mothering Gift

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Some gifts arrive in surprising packages. I hope you find yours, friend.

woman in black shirt with yellow hair

If you are downcast and wondering how ON EARTH to be a great mother, look no further because I am wearing my cape of excellent motherhood for you!

(I will also write about humility, but that’s not till next week, so we are safe for now!)

Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

How can I assert myself as a great mother so you will listen to my advice? Good question! As I have recently learned, we have to find a way to convince others that we are experts before we tell them what to do, with enough confidence that they MAY even listen to us!

Well, here is some proof:

My kids drew these pictures for me over ten years ago!

Note the following close-up details:

One child wrote, “I wanna [sic] to be like you when I grow up.” Should I remind you all that perhaps the 10th item on my list of nine reasons to homeschool is that if you keep them at home with the curtains drawn and doors locked all the time1, your children MAY actually find that if there are no other adults in your children’s lives to look up to, so the adult they look up to is surprisingly . . .YOU!

Also, in the details of these pictures my children drew, you can see that one child wrote “Power” on her drawing of me! This comment is proof of my gentle assertiveness, I can assume! I don’t think she is talking about being afraid of me, like she said here, as that would be unhealthy, and the point of these introductory paragraphs is for you to realize that I am an expert.

However, unlike my usual writing, today I DO ACTUALLY have ONE piece of advice that can help you, so before you slam your laptop shut, you may want to stick around for that tasty candy I’ll soon toss your way.

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Wait for it . . . (Building suspense)

Fifteen years ago, I was at the women’s retreat, and my tears surprised me.

Something a woman said at the conference echoed and clarified something God seemed to be whispering to my soul.

One wise woman figured there was probably a lesson for me in these surprising tears, so she patiently sat down to listen and to help me find the message after handing me the box of Kleenex.

And this message within my tears became one of the important anchors that helped to salvage my parenting from shipwreck.

Sometimes the message within our tears and prayers frees us.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to discuss this next time because this newsletter is getting too long – I think it’s your attention span is too short, by the way, not mine.2

However, you’re in luck because I have no idea what topics I’m even writing about,3 and so I accidentally posted two articles out of order! So this month, I ALREADY posted that amazing advice I found in my tears HERE!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Thanks for liking me! I like you too! – Proven HERE, HERE, and HERE! Let’s journey together!

Photo Credits – Woman Weeping Holding Hope by engin akyurt on Unsplash, Drawings And Notes by Two Incredible Children

1 That statement was a trick because homeschoolers are out doing stuff WAY more often than they should be if they were actually serious about meeting every Learning Objective the teachers tell us is essential (They are not essential). For definitive proof that we homeschoolers are home much less than we “should” be, watch this funny video on homeschooling myths.

2 Just sayin’. Wait – What were we talking about?

3 (Or why – But that’s another topic!)

Advice: Your Bridge To Hope After Your Kid Moves Out

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How To Avoid Sorting The Tears Into Happy / Sad

green trees near brown wooden bridge during daytime

I’m mad at you! At all of you with a child over seventeen years old who left home! I hate you all! Why didn’t you tell me it would be this hard to say goodbye when they left for college!?

Click HERE to continue reading.

Join people in fifty-eight countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

A Surprising Truth: The Most Remarkable Thing Happened – (People Liked Us!) Come And Listen!

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I know! I was very surprised too that so many people liked Ned Flanders and his friends!

selective focus photography of woman praying

At church this weekend, thirty people turned away from their old lives and chose to embrace a new life of following Jesus.

Yup. Thirty new people of all ages and socio-economic classes. And the normal size of that church is about 150 people.

That’s a shocking amount of growth in just one week.

What happened?

Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

Well, we (about twenty-four of us plus about 10 visitors from the United Kingdom) put down our iPads and buckets of ice cream, which is how we all normally spend our Saturdays, and instead struck up conversations with strangers. We spent about half an hour per day doing this over three days.

Instead of a pie in the face, we were shocked by the incredibly warm reception we received.

“A couple of Christians stopped to help us after my brother was hit by a car right here at this intersection,” one stranger named Mark told us in the first two minutes. He gratefully and lovingly recalled the care shown to him by the Christians. Mark continued, “Then the Christians got mad at the person who drove right by without stopping, yelling, ‘Hey! Slow down! Why don’t you stop? Can’t you see this person needs help?’ ”

Mark continued with his story, “Yah. Those Christians were loving and fierce at the same time. No matter how the movies portray Christians, they’re awesome!” I stood up a little straighter.

I’ve never met this guy, and he already likes me!

“Hey, why don’t we pray for you?” I offered Mark. I probably looked exactly like Ned Flanders right then, eager and sincere (in fact, I usually look just like that!), but I didn’t care just then!

“No thanks, I’m fine. Thanks for the offer!” He waved, and we parted, friends. “Wow! People like us!” I thought.

I didn’t even know that people liked me!

And with another stranger named Joel, his blue eyes pierced my soul as my husband gently assured him that Jesus loved him, after Joel unburdened his heart in the first five minutes of conversation. “No, thanks, not right now,” Joel continued. He didn’t want to commit to becoming a Jesus follower right then1, but our hearts shared some love and some joy on that street, rather than the glance before sweeping past each other, as is the normal custom among strangers.

Why not share our hearts, our joy, and our excitement about following Jesus on a journey with a few others?

Oh! And Jesus healed two people as we prayed for them in Jesus’ name, as well, which was also pretty cool. But that story is for another time. (It turns out that realizing that Jesus has given us authority to heal others in his name cracks open a bit more of the gift of healing he offers to all who love Him. That’s also sort of a bit awesome.)

And so after a few of us put our phones away for that half hour three times that week, and Oh – after we purged our own demons from our souls in prayer and lovingly listened to each other and prayed for each other just before hitting the streets (That’s another story) – a bunch of new people joined us at the church that Saturday night, to have a little taste of God.

Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see – how good God is.

The Message

It turns out that when we shave away the extra stuff we add to Jesus, people are actually super hungry for the food Jesus offers.

Who knew!

Hey! Got time for church? Top tip: Don’t look for a church BUILDING but a church COMMUNITY.

Find one that is learning together, to find and to eat the food of love He offers to satisfy the soul, and then ask them for a bite! Because when we do this, and try to love each other and those around us, well, Hey! Heaven breaks out sometimes!

Like it did that Saturday night, as many of us took to dancing during one of the praise songs to Jesus. Why not? We have been set free!

We might as well dance!

And that’s when about thirty more people2, most of them plucked off the streets and invited inside after half an hour or less of conversation, experienced the love of God.

And they will never be the same.

And neither will we.

As the song below sings, “We cry out for revival,” consider asking God if the cost of “pure hearts” (I.e., forgiving the IDIOTS in your church and family that you know, for example) is a price worth paying for spiritual revival in this season?

(It may just be.)

Oh!

AND having a cool place to go after you die is another awesome reason to pick up the phone when God calls you!3

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Thanks for liking me! I like you too! – Proven HERE, HERE, and HERE! Let’s journey together!

Photo Credit – Church is Cool! (Who Knew?) by Vince Fleming on Unsplash

1 We realized later that Joel DID want to become a follower of Jesus right then, but we misunderstood his French accent. Sorry about that, Joel! Better luck next time you pour out your heart to strangers, wherever you are in the world, friend Joel!

2 We have a picture of them, but I didn’t include it here because not everyone wants to be associated with my online writing for some reason! But please! I don’t ALWAYS say funny things about my friends and family online! “Have a bit of trust!” is what I told them!

3 (He is calling you, by the way.)

Focus! The One Thing You Need To Do To Become More Spiritual (Like Me!)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Why not be a little more awesome? Or let God be a bit more awesome through you! Whatever!

man standing on stage in front of people

Well, everyone, I am starting this article by telling you that I am a very spiritual person because I am EVEN going to a spiritual conference!

It’s not even a spiritual conference in my backyard (so I can get there and back and check off “Spiritual Thing – DONE!” while my cookies bake). I am ACTUALLY even TRAVELLING several HOURS to learn new, MORE spiritual things! (I guess that’s because I must have already learned all the spiritual things there are in the place where I live.)

Join people in fifty-eight countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

Just sayin. Did I mention that I provide spiritual encouragement and that you can trust me – of course! – implicitly? A reminder!

The guy we are going to listen to has stepped into the spiritual “MORE” than many of us1 realize. For example, Jesus has used this speaker, Jonathan Conrathe, and his team to witness more physical healings (cool!) than many of us (also VERY spiritual and important people!) witness. That’s pretty cool – not gonna lie.

Oh! And for the doubters or those who have watched Steve Martin’s excellent and funny movie Leap of Faith, about a snake-oil salesman posing as a preacher and staging fake spiritual healings, don’t fret too much!

Remember that only things of great (real) value, like paper money, are counterfeited – So OF COURSE we expect counterfeiting of valuable spiritual things, too.

THE POINT is that SOMETIMES healings actually happen at these conferences, and sometimes, the whole thing is a fake, which we expect, too! (Choose your conference wisely! People are sometimes idiots, remember?)

After all, finding counterfeit money doesn’t mean that all money is counterfeit, either, but instead, hints at the opposite.

Also, HERE is a podcast of a guy who accidentally got swept up in a spiritual miracle (his brain tumor went away – coincidentally some say! – when someone prayed for him). He is spending his life using science to verify “supposed healings.” Oh, and he’s a Ph.D. and Neuroscientist. THIS is his Medical Institute, which applies rigorous methods of evidence-based medicine to study Christian Spiritual Healing practices, and this is his book. But that discussion is for another day.

(His work is also very cool).

Essentially, to one still doubting these things occur (that’s fair!), we know that God’s tangible presence sometimes invades the earth, like a hole in a balloon pushing air into the atmosphere at certain places and times and in ways that many more of us sit up and take notice. For example, read more about these events:

  • HERE, and
  • HERE,
  • Plus so many more that I haven’t had time to write about yet. Stay tuned!

Anyway, I wonder if maybe I can be like him, the speaker at the conference we are going to (Wait – I mean, I wonder if I can be a bit more like Jesus – It’s hard to keep theology straight!) But it would be cool to have a life that appears meaningful when people judge me! Wait – I don’t care what people think of me – I forgot!

So, anyway, I’m excited to go to this conference to learn some tips and tricks so that hopefully Jesus can use my life for His glory a bit more, too!

The only problem is that the last time I went to a conference like this, I sat attentively, my extra-sharp pencil ready to jot down every nuance. “It’s about holiness,” the speaker said, softly, simply. My pencil dropped.

That stuff is so boring!

It’s hard to do the hard stuff like forgive people (who are SUCH idiots!) and stuff like that!

I like to learn a lot and not apply it (the application part is usually boring!), like when I read lots and lots of books without applying stuff!

But not anymore! Now I am ready to obey God fully! Wait!

(I don’t think I’m QUITE ready to give up and (EVEN) forgive people in my church for being idiots.)

It will cost you everything. If you really want to know the price, it will cost you everything.

Kathryn Kuhlman2

That’s why we’re lukewarm.

So this conference MAY not impact my life as much as I hope, which, annoyingly, happens surprisingly often at spiritual conferences (The speakers don’t explain stuff in a way the audience can easily “get,” I find!). So this conference MAY not impact my life, but I’m obviously very spiritual because I go to spiritual conferences, and that’s a comfort to me, at least!

As the song below sings3, “I know it’s so hard, but out of darkness I choose,” is there a choice that God is nudging you to make, friend? Will you make it? The world needs a bit more “God” moments if we’re honest.

(Maybe me looking important to others isn’t QUITE as high a priority as I believe it should be?)

Nah! Anyway, I’ll update you after the conference! Stay tuned!

And oh yeah – What is the ONE thing you need to do to become more spiritual (like me)? Go to a spiritual conference, of course, preferably one that is far away! (And for some reason you won’t be able to understand, the people in your church may like it if you go to one VERY far away, as well.) Don’t fret too much about that, either! They HAVE to like even you!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Thanks for liking me! I like you too! – Proven HERE, HERE, and HERE! Let’s journey together!

1 And that’s saying a LOT, because as you know, I already learned MORE spiritual things once too!

2 Excellent biography HERE

3 I also saw this singer recently in a concert in PERSON! (More proof that I am the kind of person who associates -at least! – with people in high places! Which doesn’t matter – of course! – but I say that humbly!)

Mother’s Day Hack! This Is What Happened When I Grew As A (Slightly) Better Spiritual Guide

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Have you opened the full gift of you for your children to be amazed at, yet? I hope you do.

a woman holding a baby in her arms

My last post definitely proved that I am a good mother!

If that weren’t enough proof, check out this mug my daughter purchased for me!1

And now that I have established my authority as an excellent mom, let me tell you what I learned about becoming a slightly better Mom!

Click HERE to continue reading.

Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

Advice: Stop Being Afraid Of The Wrong Thing! Become Fearless (By Fearing This)! Part 2

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Let’s ditch some fears, friend.

person jumping on big rock under gray and white sky during daytime

Previously, we talked about the fear that sometimes descends over us like an unwelcome blanket, smothering us. And yet, we cling to our fear as a self-soothing exercise. We are used to it.

How do we throw away the fear that always seems to linger on our hands, like unwanted gum we are trying to put in the trash?

Click HERE to continue reading.

Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)

Advice: Stop Being Afraid Of The Wrong Thing! Become Fearless (By Fearing This)! Part 1

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Feel like trading in some of your fear for more joy or peace? (Why not?)

man standing on hill digital wallpaper

When she was in the hospital, only a few days before her death, my fierce, feisty, incredible but aging grandmother fixed her intense blue eyes on me and said the one thing I never thought she would say.

Click HERE to continue reading.

Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)