Friday's Ramblings

It has been a good week. A very good week. David and I committed some time back to using Tapestry of Grace as our spine curriculum going forward. Lord willing, we will use it all the way through. To say that I am excited would be a gross understatement. And I know David is excited too, because he has been playing with the book lists, organizing, prioritizing, sorting by what our library system has, and highlighting in various ways within Excel. And we have been on a book buying binge the last couple of months.

But this week in particular has been good. Sunday, a dear friend informed me that not ONLY had they officially decided to homeschool their two boys next year, but she purchased Tapestry too! Yeah! Thursday morning, my other dear homeschooling mom friend told me that she and her husband, after a lot of prayer, talking, and reading ALSO have purchased Tapestry! The support will be wonderful and fun!

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This week has been refreshing in many ways. It's always nice to feel a renewed sense of community with people. Not only my fellow homeschoolers, though I need that too! But I also got a chance to get away last weekend with 3 other friends - friends that from the exteriors, you would say, "really? You four?" Our interests, hobbies, life walks, etc have all been so different. And yet, we had deep fellowship because we had the most important thing in common - our faith in the Lord and our desire to see His Bride, the church, truly beautiful. It is such a blessing when God opens your eyes to see, again, the gift of fellow saints.

And yet, with true community comes greater pain. One of our dearest friends here lost his father yesterday. It was sudden and unexpected. And because we love our friends, we hurt for them. When a fellow saint is struggling with how to help their teen, you feel it more personally. True community hurts more, doesn't it? And perhaps that is why we are seeing less and less of true community. Especially in the church. It takes time, which we often have parceled out to too many places. And it hurts. Hurts to see others hurt. Hard to hold each other accountable. And yet, there is deep joy in knowing that you have THAT kind of community.