A beautiful thing

Another blessing that came from my new job was a recent trip back to SC! The family I work for has written a history curriculum (Biblioplan), and they sell at homeschool conventions. Usually the boys help Julia, but this last time they couldn't go due to a last minute change in plans, and she asked if I'd like to come to help run the booth. Like to?! SC is home... even if I saw no one I knew, I knew I'd love to be back. I was hesitant at first just because it was coming up so fast - literally the next day, haha. Ironically, this wasn't the first convention I'd helped at - I used to help my Dad with them when he worked at the bookstore - and so I wasn't completely clueless (although at that point I'd only used Biblioplan at the school a couple of times... so my crash course really came in learning the curriculum), but still... out of town for 4 days that soon... have I mentioned I like to plan out and overthink things far in advance ;)?

Mama and I agreed overthinking wasn't worth missing the experience for, though, so I went. We crossed that SC border, and I promise you, it's an almost instant change. As Julia pointed out, that's because you immediately get into more road construction, and a lot less scenery - "it's so boring!" To which I answered, "I won't argue, I know. All my friends who grew up here are ready to leave, if they haven't already. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who likes it here. But all this boring feels like home to me, and I LOVE it."

Another thing we noticed as soon as we got to SC... no one was wearing masks. Say what you will, whatever side you are on, I don't argue. But it was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.

I truly had so much fun at the convention. It was nerve wracking, trying to learn one step ahead while teaching the moms who came up to look and buy. But I had good conversations with some of those moms too. Several younger moms asked my opinion, as a homeschool graduate, whether I thought this or that was a good place to put their focus on... one of the older moms, who had already graduated two of her kids, told me their experience, and that her third daughter didn't believe how the older two children started out their homeschool journey. We both got a good laugh as I looked at the daughter and said "no, really, that's exactly how I started out in school, too. About the time my mom had a third child start school and realized she didn't have room for another desk, THAT'S when I started being homeschooled the way YOU are homeschooled." Our family homeschool stories were almost identical... desks in the kitchen under the blackboards, letter charts, the flags you said the pledge under; dressed and chores done before you could think of sitting at your schoolwork, strict scheduled lessons... and then that third child comes along and mom is like, this can't be right, there is no room or time for this for all of them. Haha! Do math in your pjs, under the table if you want. Just learn, and learn well!

My "babies", Misty and Mango. Mango drowns his
food before he eats it, and if it wasn't so cute that he still
thinks he's a baby who needs his food softened,
it would be really annoying. Actually, it's annoying anyway...

But on top of that, I was given an afternoon off and got to see Aunt Tessa and Aunt Amber and the babies. Oh, it was wonderful! We stopped at Chick-fil-a for my first real grilled club and frosted coffee in months (I do miss my Chick-fil-a six times a week, lol So much so that I've made my own frosted coffees, and attempted a grilled club, complete with brioche buns... but that was a major fail, since our oven is temperamental). We took the kiddos to the park and had a picnic... it was too short, and yet such an unexpected blessing, not knowing we were even going to be in the same state three days before! And as if that wasn't enough, my best friend bought a stroller wagon and drove an hour and a half to the convention just to surprise me, and I seriously cried. Her little boy told me to stop being emotional, hahaha. But if that doesn't describe the sort of friendship we have, I don't know what does, and it was the final chocolate frosting on the cake!

Andrew used this pencil down to the metal.
Literally.

At the same time I was out of town, I was making phone calls and sending texts back and forth, to home and to a dear friend, about the logistics of making it to her wedding. I fly out on the 28th (have never flown before, so that's a little nerve racking, I admit), and I totally didn't see that working out... and yet it's worked out beautifully. And my check from the convention covered my plane ticket... I didn't need that to make the trip work, but it was yet another example of how God has been making the smallest details not only work out, but even be amazingly providential in the way they work together!

Those examples have been coming poignant and frequent the past months. One of my dear friends from SC mentioned to me that she could see a difference in my outlook after all of this started happening, and I replied, "It's so... clear that [God] hasn't forgotten me. So obvious that some of my biggest disappointments have been used to get me something better than I was working toward, they were not punishments. You are right, the Lord is growing me through these things. He's also growing me in my ability to not feel the need to be all things to all people, because I'm not God. ...(That's not to say I don't still have control issues, lol....) But it has gotten easier, because if God is giving this much attention to me [when I couldn't see it]... he's giving it to everyone else too. He doesn't need me to notice everything to accomplish his plans, he'll bring what I'm supposed to do and drop it in my lap. I can't get out of his plan for me by sitting down for a minute to breath! All the cracks that hurt so bad, so fiercely... they are there letting the light shine through so easily, so brightly now. It's so, so humbling, life giving, encouraging...." It's brought peace, even when I am struck with the discouragement and loneliness of being so far from so much I love. I told another friend just the other day, "I still would move back to SC in a HEARTBEAT, and be happy about it. But I'm also happy now to be content here for as long as it takes to get back, which definitely wasn't the case before." I see so many instances of God working, 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 9 years ago, to get me exactly where I am today, and all the intersections that plan had to hold tell me that I *am* where I am meant to be, no matter where I'll be in the future. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Rejoicing in hope,

Ambrielle