Beginning Our Simple Journey

I love this quote~  It's so true but it's not the way we live.

This is something that we have been talking about for years now.  Why do we over complicate things?  Why is life, everything so hard when by now we should  be hitting our stride.  We our in mid-life now.  College is way in the past, career is established, kids are growing more toward independence every day, mortgage is established, money is being made and saved and everyday we get closer to the life that we were told was what it was all about..... home, 2 cars, vacations, savings, retirement, grand kids,etc....

But a key missing element was contentment, peace, enjoyment of this so called American dream.  How could we enjoy it when were so busy, so steeped in debt and barely had the time to sit and enjoy anything that we were so diligently working for.  Our boys were growing up so fast that I wanted to enjoy them.  Grand kids will be great but not if we don't even have a moment to cherish the children that we already had.

And spiritually, we were playing the games too.  Church was a constant reminder of all of the other obligations we had outside of our personal life. Sunday school, children's church, worship team. bible studies, women's retreats, men's BBQ's and the list goes on and on.  We were trying to meet the expectations of our fellow believers and truly wanted to use the gifts that God gave us but we were TIRED and to be honest a little resentful.  Resentful because our activities never ended.  We could never do enough, never be involved in enough.  We were spinning our wheels and didn't feel like we were doing any good!! Not to mention the time in took away from our actual family life.

We homeschool.  I love to homeschool for the mere fact that I have a real excuse to read children's books again.  So much deep wisdom comes from a Children's book.  Morals, character, love, family all speak to the inner child in us but for some reason the illusion fades as we get older and don't want to be immersed in these simple but wise words.  Our favorite, as I am sure is most people's, are the Little House series.  It was while I was reading Farmer Boy to my boys that I realized that my heart truly longed to live that way.  Now don't think I am naive bc I understand that life was almost impossible then.  That simple does not in any way mean easier.  But there was something in my heart that wanted my children to be raised knowing that families stay together, eat together, work together.  That dad didn't have to go away to work and mom's weren't always running off for their next mom's night out to get away from the family.  I wanted the deep connections that the families seemed to have.  The understanding between adults and children that we have to do this together or we won't make it.   There is so much about these relationships that truly made me want to throw our crazy, loud, bright and noisy lives away.

Our  wheels began turning and planning began for me and my husband.  Goals that we were once so set upon seemed to pale in comparison of what was stirring in our hearts.  We began talking, preparing and praying for how God was going to use this inspiration we were feeling.  We had so far to go from how we were living to how we wanted to live.

It's a journey that started about 5 years ago and has lead us to our debt free, homesteading, homeschooling, fostering and adopting dreams.