Keeping Focused

Plans for 2012-2013 are underway and I'm still attempting to home educate three of my children with excellence and encouragement and maintain a relationship with my husband and eldest daughter.  It's exciting, but everyone needs to know that I'm looking forward to Spring Break so I can tame the laundry giant and make some major adjustments to the financial paper pile (mountain) I have in my bedroom.  I want to focus.

Our daughter, Abby, who struggled so much in school has made huge leaps in the past 3 years and I'm excited to say we moved her to the next grade level mid-year based on her SAT score.  Thank you, Lord Jesus. With her ballet schedule increasing, it's a real joy to see how much responsibility she has taken for her education with such a heavy load. She's focused.

David plays in his band E28, plays flag football, and still loves video games, but gave them up until Easter. We grew the cooperative mainly to challenge him and we have.  He complains the most, but is usually still the one who finishes his work earliest when he's focused.

Timothy can create incredible cardboard inventions and he is focused on making every detail exact.

Why do things that are easy or simply boring to us seem so hard?  I wonder this daily. Housework is my nemesis.  I hate it, but if I focus on it just a little while, it's amazing what my house begins to look like.

As home schoolers, we can get side tracked by many things - good things - great things. Sickness, family events, church commitments, coop planning, event planning, laundry, Facebook, email, but "one thing is needed." Like Mary, we must forget what seems important and focus on what really is important.  Keeping our eyes and hearts focused on Jesus Christ, loving Him, seeking Him, praying and reading His Word daily and "all these things will be added" to us. He can make our steps plain. If we endure and focus on Christ, He promises to lead us clearly. I'm praying that our family and every family in our cooperative, church and dance/drama ministry will be focused on what God has planned for them now and the coming year.