The Quietness of Downtown Houston

Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because He has roused himself from his holy dwelling. Zechariah 2:13

Would you believe that the Lord brought me smack in the middle of the 4th largest largest city in the country so that I could get some peace and quiet?
True story.
The city is very busy, of course, but our family is not. I don't mean that we don't have things to do, we do, but we aren't bound by outside obligations. And, I have tried. I have tried to get us involved in some 'mission projects', but they haven't worked out. So, we have no meetings to prepare for, no dinners to prepare (other than our own), no guests to entertain, no being guests to be entertained...and I totally dig doing all these things.

Confession:  Sometimes I prefer to do these 'outside' things over schooling my girls. It's way more fun, and the guests are appreciative. My students at home, not so much. I mean, we get it done, but I don't always wake up with excitement to 'do school'. This is not my girls' problem, it's mine; I have long since known that this could change if I were not committed to so many projects outside the home.
For a while now I have prayed that God would change my 'want to'. It's a heart issue. I really want my desire to be fractions and prefixes and division.  So, I prayed to want to. Really. I asked God to make me want to tackle the writing curriculum. If I want to, they will want to.

And, now I'm in downtown Houston. Crazy. Only God.

While we have had lots of outside fun here, the focus is within--the activities are outside. Does that make sense? Still, I was struggling with some momma-teacher guilt over all the field-trips we were doing. I was sure we were not doing enough book work and my girls would fall behind. At the same time, I am enjoying being able to walk to the park with the girls and staying as long as we want because we don't have anywhere we have to be. We are getting to the gym regularly, reading, and, now that our major field-tripping is over, we are cranking out plenty of book work.

AND WE ARE ALL LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.

Dude. No joke. Yesterday was Maddy's birthday and even she wanted to do her school work. That is nothing other than the power of the Holy Spirit right there!
You know what it is? I'm not rushing them to get it done because we have to be somewhere. I'm doing more with them, rather than sending them to do their business while I do my business.

They are my business.

They are the mission project.