Summer... yum!

Summer is my favorite season! I love all things about summer. The relaxed pace. The time to just be outside with my kids. Even the heat. (Yes, the heat.)

But one of my very favorite things about summer is growing a garden. When I was a kid, my grandparents had a huge garden and they grew just about everything imaginable in it. I did a lot of "helping" in their garden, too; one time I took it upon myself to go weed the potatoes and instead starting throwing the potatoes out of the garden! Oops! I just helped my grandpa put them back once he saw what I was doing.

Our veggie garden

Now, we barely have a yard at our house, much less any space to have an in-ground garden. BUT, I discovered a few years ago that I can grow just about anything in pots if they are large enough and have sufficient drainage.

This year, my oldest son and youngest daughter helped plant the garden. We planted tomatoes, lettuce, a few types of peppers, carrots, cucumbers, squash and zucchini (in an effort to get the kids to eat them), and strawberries. So far, the plants are growing really well and the kids ask daily when they will be able to eat anything from the garden.

How about you? Do you grow a garden where you live? What kinds of things do you grow?

Trust

Trust.

A simple word, yet difficult to put into practice. But when we are talking about trusting God, it should be the easiest thing in the world. Yet, what do we do? We project our humanness--our flaws and inabilities--on our perfect Heavenly Father. We project our issues and experiences with others onto Him, forgetting that He is perfect, He is loving, He is the healer and the restorer.

And this is where trust comes into play. We have to trust Him to heal and restore, guide and protect. We have to trust Him to lead and to provide.

So, what do we do?

But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust God's unfailing love. (Psalm 52:8)

How? How do we "always trust"?

Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. (Proverbs 3:5, Amplified)

If you lean on something, you rely on it to support your weight. You trust that it can bear the load, that it is immovable. Verse 6 goes on to say:

In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. (Proverbs 3:6, Amplified)

We have to recognize God's presence around us, even in difficult times. See Him and His love today. He is always present, and He does direct our paths! We have to acknowledge Him.

Reality

I am a single mom.

I don't wear this title as a badge of honor, nor do I use it as a crutch for limping through the day-to-day craziness of life. It is merely a fact.

But, this fact doesn't define who I am, nor does it define Whose I am. First and foremost, I am a daughter of the Most High God, a child of the King, and He has a good plan for my life and for the lives of my children. I am honored to be called Mama by four amazing children, whose ages presently range from 2-10 years. I am a homechooling mom. I truly believe that we have been called to be a homeschooling family, and we will continue to homeschool until such a point as the Lord says to do something different. I am a tutor with my homeschool co-op. This school year was my first year to tutor with our co-op, and it was such a blessing to do so. The kids were great, and we had a blast learning together! (I had the youngest children enrolled in our co-op, a group of 4- and 5-year-old children.)

Our day-to-day may be similar to yours, or it may be completely different. But through this blog, my desire is to share with you the reality of life as a single homeschooling parent who has come to truly realize that she is Not Alone. I have grown in my dependence upon the Lord and have learned so much. There is still healing to take place in my heart and in the hearts of my children, and I know that the Lord will do it.

I hope that you will join me here at Not Alone Homeschoolers. Some days will be lighthearted, some days will be a little more, but I hope that you will find encouragement here.