"Ronnie was no longer certain of anything.  She had been wrong about so many things: her dad, Blaze, her mother, even Will. Life was so much more complicated than she had ever imagined..."

Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

♥

Life is complicated.  We like to package things neatly in black and white, but that's just not the way it is.  We can craft little perfect worlds of seemingly spiritual platitudes and ideals, but when the rubber meets the road, it's never neat and tidy.

See, here's the thing:  pagans cared for my children when they were in desperate need.  Women who went to college.  Women who put their children in *gasp* public school and then go to work.  If we hold to these extra-Biblical models that women ought not have higher education and ought not have a job beyond the home, then what do we do when things are messy?  Complicated?  What do we do when we feel the utmost of gratitude for women who are there in the ER, in the ICU, on the pediatrics floor? Dear, Godly women like my sister-in-law who have Godly homes, loving marriages, children who follow God,  and a job?

I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water.  When we are given a husband and children, that's our calling.  But does that look exactly the same for each one of us?  Does the outworking of our faith look exactly the same as someone else's?

Some of my readers are wondering what in the world I'm talking about, unaware of some of these ideas circulating around homeschool circles and permeating choices.  Others of you are firmly in that camp and have just decided to stop reading Preschoolers and Peace.  That's ok.  We've been marginalized for our choices in the past two years, choices that reflect how God has transformed our family.  We're getting used to being black sheep ;)

I am confident that I will stand next to Baptists and Pentecostals and Fundamentalists and Methodists and Arminians and Calvinists and Mennonites and a whole slew of non-descript believers in heaven because they love Jesus more than their platitudes. Love Jesus more than your platitudes!  Evangelize the world for Jesus, not a lifestyle!

Be in the business of giving people hope.

This is Caroline, just minutes after she was admitted to the ER.  Yes, that's a penguin on her mask :)  Levity is always good in these harrowing situations, but what I didn't know at the time was that the next 21 days would prove to be the most difficult trial of my life.

Initially, Caroline's response to her circumstances was good.  "I feel fine.  I want to go home", she whispered through her breathing tube just hours after her first surgery.  Within 24 hours, however, she would respond much differently, often lashing out at nurses and us.  We eventually realized that her mood swings were directly related to the morphine boluses, and once we got her off of it, she mellowed out.

Still, when you're intimately caring for someone, putting seven other children on hold, moving heaven and earth to be in that hospital room as much as possible, it's painful and wearing to be yelled at.

Lessons were yet to be learned, refining is still happening, and I don't believe I've recovered yet.