Path to Restoration

I have begun a journey this Lent. Before embarking, I was unsure what the journey held. I still do not have the whole picture. I only knew, that I was stepping out in faith, and that I was going to take it on with both hands.
In the first two days of reflections and materials, as well as the resources to which I am pointed, namely here, I feel the Lord is sprouting a seed of hope. Something, I am not sure just what yet, is blooming. I feel it. I see it when I close my eyes. I feel a sweet breath being blown into my heart. It has to do with freedom. With homeschooling, yes, but not entirely. It makes me want to sing an old song that brings me back to my Franciscan Summer Conference days with jim Cowan leading worship:

There's a wind a-blowing, 

All across the land.

Mercy winds from Heaven,

Blowing once again.

Don't know where it comes from,

Don't know where it goes,

but let it blow over me.

O Sweet Wind, Come and blow over me!

I can't say I "feel" prayer often. In fact, dryness has been a companion for much of my life...admittedly, however, I probably fueled that so-called dryness with complacency. Upon further reflection, the times in which I am fervently seeking God, especially through a thorough commitment to waking up early to carve out quiet time with the Lord, I have known Him to be speaking to me. More importantly, I have KNOWN him. His presence. 

I am a reader. I am a writer. I guess the written word in all forms speaks to me, is a part of me. Not in the sense that I will ever publish books. When i commit to it--the reading, the writing, the journaling-- i feel a connection with God. That sounds weird, and I only mean that in a strange sense. I think it helps me to break down barriers I often stand behind. 

I'll end with a quote or two that have been integral to me in the past few days:

"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own' or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life- the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls ones' 'real life' is a phantom of one's own imagination." 

-C.S. Lewis

 "This is the first lesson for the Christian wife and mother today: to let go of what may once have been- and under other circumstances might now be- a recollected self, and take on, with both hands, the plan of God. The whole business of serving God becomes simply a matter of adjusting yourself to the pressures of existing conditions."

-Hubert Van Zeller

I'd love to point anyone interested to a series on homeschooling(although every bit as apropos for mothering as well) from the state of rest. It is a poignant look at how we approach our daily life. I needed this right now. It is so distinctly what I am dealing with. It is written about on Sarah's blog: Amongst Lovely Things.