When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes

I pushed my spade six inches down. I tilted and lifted. The soil broke and erupted and left behind a small crater with loose bits of dirt that had fallen back in.

I took one of my tulip bulbs and set it in the hole. I took care to place it so that roots were down and the stalk up. And then I pushed the dirt I had temporarily displaced back into the hole.

I did this some forty times. Digging. Sowing. Covering. Repeat.

Always six inches under.

And there in my brick planter leading up to our front door are the potential of daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths buried in the dirt, in the dark. When frost sends its death-kiss through the soil, the bulbs will slip into a deep slumber. If we didn’t already know the bulbs’ spring secret, we might say they were dead.

There they will wait through the bleak cold of winter, the dark days and nights, the rain, the snow, the icy winds and the thick fog.

And then spring comes.

Spring always comes. She carries her soft glow over wintered earth. She puts her warm breath to the ground, and it begins to thaw. The dormant bulbs awaken, at first a little lazily, yawning, stretching. Then they push out roots and send up stalks. Stalk, then bud, and, at long last, flower.

The final result is nothing short of glorious.   



Maybe you know that Jesus came to give beauty for ashes, but when you are sitting in the ash heap, it’s hard to see it.

I’ve taken my ashes, these last four miscarriages, and I’ve placed them in My Father’s hands. I’ve uttered words like “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” But the thing is, I’ve kept my hands there. I keep rearranging the pieces. I keep trying to work out some kind of purpose for it all. I want it to make sense.

I’ve thought maybe adoption, maybe 2 kids is all we’re meant to have, maybe it’s a nudge to pick up some of the dreams I’d laid aside.

And the thing is, I cannot make beauty out these last 4 miscarriages.

And the thing is, I know there is a dream in my heart for babies I haven’t yet met.

I’ve grappled those deep theological questions: did God cause this?  or does He allow it? Maybe I have some ideas based on Scripture, but it’s like I am attempting to hug a sumo wrestler: this hard theology, I just can’t get my arms around it.

Here’s what I do know: God can use it. God will use this for His Glory. I’ve seen it time and time again when I’ve faced the winter, the bleak, the impossible. And I’ve beheld the miraculous.

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28.


I believe there is a season for mourning, a cycle of grief, a time to stop and lament what never got to be.

But after that, comes something even harder… entrusting it to God. Placing that loss in His hands, removing your own hands, watching His hands close over it where you can’t see it, and waiting.

And maybe it feels a bit like winter, like barren. You wonder if you can trust Him, if He really loves you. And deep down you struggle with the part where you know you aren’t really worthy.

But spring always comes.

Death precedes resurrection.


I was reading of Jesus’ final hours before His death. He suffered, He bled, He felt the whip and the nails and the thorns. And then from the cross, Jesus cries out, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” And have I not felt that? Abandoned, cast off, like my worst fears could all come true. Really, I just struggle with believing that God actually loves me.

His final words before He died were surrender. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And this is the thing I’ve struggled hard against. That final surrender. It means no longer holding on. And it feels a bit like dying. And you can’t hold on forever because death has a stench, and it will foul your life.

And then they lay Jesus’s body in a tomb. They rolled a stone over the opening—one big enough, heavy enough so as to ensure no one could ever sneak in and fake raising Him from the dead.  Jesus’s body sat in the still dark, in the damp earth… dead.

But we know that isn’t the end of the story. Jesus resurrected. And there was no amount of guards or heavy stones or darkness or death-stink that could hold Him down.

You can’t work out your miracle. You can’t tell God what His glory looks like.

All you can do is hand over your loss, your broken dreams… and release it.

Dear sister, I don’t know what God will make of your broken dreams, the life you lost, the life you’ve been unable to carry. But I do know, perhaps in a way wholly unexpected, perhaps in a way that has always been quietly whispering in your soul… New life will spring up from the ground.

Spring always comes.



How have you seen God do a resurrection-glory kind of miracle in your life?


By Grace,


Amanda Conquers


If you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it HERE.

If you would like to continue reading, here are the rest of the posts in the series:
Season of Mourning

Project Still Hope
What Hope Really Looks Like
What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You
Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her 

Season of Mourning


“Amanda! Come here real quick! There’s someone I want you to meet!”

I heard the familiar voice of a long-time friend. I tried to use the impending start of kid’s church as a reason to not be able to meet someone new. But she insisted again. You just have to meet them. They are your age.

It was a Sunday. I ran children’s ministries. I probably should have just stayed home. But staying home meant admitting that this was really happening.

For two weeks, I had been so full of wonder and excitement. We had laughed at the timing of Grandparent’s Day and bought cards for our parents. It would have been the first grandchild on both sides. But on that Sunday, I knew the worst was happening. That pregnancy was ending.

I sighed deep, put on my bravest face—my most genuine fake smile—and walked to the church foyer.

As I held out my hand, I saw her swollen belly. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I forced the words, “Hi. I’m Amanda,” past the lump forming in my throat. And when I realized that the most natural thing to small talk over would involve a due date, or gender, or months along… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even get out the obligatory “nice to meet you” or “please, excuse me.” I bolted because I knew I was breaking.

When I got home from church, I laid on the couch. I stayed there for a week. Every time I used the bathroom and was confronted with the reality that the pregnancy was over, I wept. When the bleeding stopped, I decided my grief should stop as well. Surely one week of doing nothing but crying should suffice.

Afterwards, I put all my energy on getting pregnant again. I thought I would find comfort in a new pregnancy.

When I got pregnant again and the changing hormones crashed into the grieving I had not yet completed… I can tell you, another pregnancy is not where you find comfort. Friends, I was so sick. And yes, it was definitely morning sickness, but there wasn’t much excitement to pull me through the sickness. I lost fifteen pounds and threw up till my esophagus was bleeding raw. I closed myself up at home and watched Judge Judy and ate crackers and cried over dish piles for the smell of dish soap. It was more than nausea-sick though. I was depressed-sick, and I couldn’t understand why.

Someone told me that they got through morning sickness by remembering that each time they got sick it was just a reminder of a healthy baby growing. This is how I coped with morning sickness with Jed. I looked at my Addy-miracle and rejoiced for the joy I knew would come. This was not how I got through the sickness with Addy. Because I still ached for the baby I lost, and I hadn’t understood that you can’t replace the life involved in the failed pregnancy for the life involved in a healthy pregnancy.  

Miscarriage is more than a failed pregnancy. It’s the loss of life—a life.

That particular genetic combination of you and your husband that at conception fused together will never see the world... your olive skin tone, your husband’s dimpled chin and wide smile, your husband’s easy going nature combined with your fiery passion for life.  Whether you cringed at the bad timing or just rejoiced at the thought of a baby, that due date will not see the birth of a child. The ways you imagined making your announcement, the names you dreamed up, the decision you rolled around of when to find out the gender, the thought of where in your house this baby would fit…. All of that potential never got to be. It’s life. And its loss is worth mourning.

Here’s the words of Jesus: “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”

When you fail to mourn, you fail to receive the comfort found in the arms of our Father.

Maybe it’s just me, but each time I have lost, I have searched for comfort everywhere else. I’ve thought that if I could just get pregnant again, I would be comforted. I’ve thought that if I could just understand why, I would be comforted. I’ve thought that if I could just have some kind of proof of my loss, some kind of validation, be far enough along so that I could bury something, I would be comforted.

It wasn’t until I crumbled on the floor, cried crocodile tears, wailed from the deepest part of me… it wasn’t until I got angry, and slammed my fists on the table, punched my pillow, and spewed boiling hot words at God My Father of how much I wanted that life and how stupid this was and why?!?!!!… it wasn’t until I let myself leak tears and linger reflective on what might have been… when I let my guard down and pressed into Jesus and asked Him to meet me here…

When I chose to walk out on deep water, across faith gaps, places unexplainable… When I chose to eat the mystery rather than understand it, when I spoke the bravest words I know: “It is well with my soul.”  

Somewhere in the passing of time, in the permission to be sad, in allowing mourning to be a season determined by the God who knows the seasons and causes them to change without an ounce of help from anyone, somewhere in opening my hands and handing over these broken pieces that I can’t make sense of... I found comfort.


Sister, coming from someone who had a miscarriage in which I found out I was pregnant in the morning and started cramping that afternoon… yes, even that needed to be mourned. It didn’t look anything like grieving after knowing for almost six weeks. But that doesn’t matter. You don't need to compare your grief to another, you just need to give yourself permission to walk through it. 

Friends, this was a hard post to write, and I have a feeling if you have ever walked this road, it was hard to read too. I want you to know, I am praying for you. I have been praying for you. You are heavy on my heart because you are heavy on His. I think the best way to end is in His Word.

“Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” Matthew 5:4. 
“God is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in Spirit” Psalm 34:18. 
“From the end of the earth will I cry unto you, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I” Psalm 61:2.
"He that goes forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him" Psalm 126:6.



How have you been at walking through the grieving process?


By Grace,
Amanda Conquers



If you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it HERE.

If you would like to continue reading, here are the rest of the posts in the series:
When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes
Project Still Hope
What Hope Really Looks Like
What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You
Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her

Still Hope: An Introduction to a Series on Miscarriage

I had another miscarriage.

Yes. Another.

I took the test a few Fridays back. Spotted that Sunday. Got myself into the doctor on Monday. And miscarried on Tuesday. Four days. That’s it. I was barely pregnant.

This is my fifth miscarriage. It overwhelms me to be putting that ordinal number (fifth!) in front of a word that speaks of defining loss. I can’t coherently string together words that would explain what it feels like to lose five times, but here’s some words come to mind: numb, angry, pained, discouraged, disappointed, and maybe even the word apathetic.

I admitted to a friend that I feel like a freak. Sometimes I even wonder if I just imagined those extra lines on the pee stick. I wonder if it’s possible to give false positives, and every time I’ve lost so early I want to kick myself for not waiting a full week past my missed period to take the test. I’m embarrassed to be sharing that I miscarried again… because it feels like I failed, and I keep failing.

I have a feeling anytime our bodies betray us, we feel a bit like a freak. When a uterus gives way or a cervix dilates too early or a fertilized egg implants in the wrong place, when our bodies fail to properly house the little life we so desperately want to bring into our home. When DNA hardwiring malfunctions, and life stops in its tracks before heart ever pumped. When an ultrasound reveals the life you’ve been carrying no longer lives. Oh friends. This is hard.

The most difficult part of this process for me, has been this need in me to define my loss—something besides zygote or failed pregnancy, something that validates that I indeed have lost something. Even when I miscarried at 10 weeks, the little life I carried grew no larger than the period at the end of this sentence. Doctors refused to say the word baby, and they corrected me if I did.

The Lord answered my broken cries for some kind of name to give my losses by giving me a picture. Do you know what there was in my womb?

A seed.

The tiniest of things with all the potential and hope and dreams the size of an oak tree. It might not have sprouted for reasons I cannot fathom, but I lost something. I’ve lost five seeds.

I can mourn the little lives with unformed hearts who never felt life-blood course through their veins. I can mourn because really it only takes a mother but a couple minutes to fall in love and see a future (even if she's still reeling from the shock of it.)

Though not all seeds get to send up a stalk into the warm sunshine, even the tiniest seed leaves an impression on the soil.

Can I tell you that this is not my favorite topic? I’d rather not write about miscarriage, about grief, about these things so hard and unexplainable. I feel vulnerable opening up about my grieving process, because it is so personal. I have this hope that one day I will look back and be grateful for this road I’m walking… but today, I would much rather be walking a different road. And that’s honest.

Sometimes I’ve felt like moving forward through the grieving process has been a bit like hacking through the jungle. It’s like blazing a trail, walking paths unwalked. I know that’s not true, but grief can be isolating. And miscarriage doesn’t get talked about much, especially a miscarriage belonging to an unannounced pregnancy.

I’m writing what I wish I could have read.  I’m writing because I have longed to know that I wasn’t alone. 

I’m writing what God has been speaking to me along the way.

My hope is that if you are walking this hard road (oh dear heart. I am so sorry) maybe we can hack through the jungle together, maybe we can blaze a wider trail, maybe we can offer the wisdom of experience and the encouragement of camaraderie that makes a trail easier to walk.

We will be talking about losing, about grieving, and about hoping again. I even have a project God laid on my heart that I want to share with you. I think it will give you a tangible way to both grieve and hope--no matter the stage in pregnancy in which you miscarried.

Even if miscarriage isn’t your story of loss or suffering, you are so very welcome here. So is your story. This hard substance of miscarriage touches on topics that are deeply woven into the fabric of Christian life. I believe there is something here for you this week.

Friends, I hinge my life and this blog on Romans 8:35,37:

that in all these things… yes, even

this

thing… they cannot separate us from God’s love, and we shall press forward and overwhelmingly conquer this darkness.

God’s love is here. It is. I know it. And by His strength, I shall keep pressing forward. I shall overcome. You too, friend. And that’s what this series is really about.

I know this is hard, this subject, this kind of sharing, but it's an important subject, and your story is important. Here is your invitation. Will you join me? 

Here's the part where I ask you to be brave and share your story. 

If a comment on a public domain terrifies you= amandaconquers AT gmail DOT com

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

To Continue Reading the Rest of the Series:

Season of Mourning

When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes

Project Still Hope

What Hope Really Looks Like

What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You

Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her

About Me and This Blog

Hi!


I’m Amanda.

I am an imperfect girl, a huge fan of Grace, and a follower of Jesus. I believe in absolute Truth.

I am the wife to one smoking hot cop. We’ve been married 9 years.

I am a momma to 2 littles: Addy (6) and Jed (3). They are my heart.



Coffee and deep conversations are my love language. I am a California girl (like totally) to my very core. I love road trips, bird watching, literature, and playing in the dirt (aka gardening).

 I battle depression and anxiety. I have walked the hard road of repeated miscarriages. I struggle to embrace that God could really love me. I make a lot of mistakes; really, I'm just a bit of a mess. But I hinge my life on these verses: 
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? But IN ALL these things we OVERWHELMINGLY CONQUER through Him who loved us.” (Romans 8:35, 37)

This blog pretty much hinges on those verses too. God made me to conquer, you to conquer. 

{Pssst... did you notice that Romans says overwhelmingly conquer?} 

Yes, in all those ordinary everyday ways you might fail: frazzled momma yells, dirty dish piles, forgotten birthday cakes, toddler messes that should cue the creepy Psycho theme music... 
And yes, God made us to conquer even in those hard things. I believe that there is no place His Grace can't reach.

I talk a lot about being a Jacob girl. Jacob who wrestled God. Jacob who was given a limp. Jacob who with a limp became, Israel, God prevails. Because the only way for God to prevail in our lives, the only real way to overcome, isn't to try harder; it's to walk leaning on Him. 

I am not a girl who has it all together. I am a girl who walks with a limp. I am a girl who leans on her Savior-become-Friend. I am a girl who, by the Grace of God, shall be called an overcomer.

I am inviting you to join me here on this Grace journey.

First Time Here?

If I could pick the posts visitors were to read, these are what I would pick. (They are my favorite and the most telling about me):  

Want to Keep Up with Amanda Conquers?


If you'd like to make sure you never miss a post, you can subscribe to this blog by entering your email address in the box on the top, right-hand side of this page OR by clicking ---> HERE .

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I firmly believe that even though this is a blog called Amanda Conquers, it's about you too. I want to know the places where our stories intersect. I need your encouragement, your story. This is about community. And you are so welcome here. 


Okay. So... Tag. You're it! 
Tell me about you? Where do you hail from? What do we have in common? I'd love to get to know the AMAZING YOU. 
(If you are a blogger, don't be shy about leaving your URL in the comments. I would love to visit you back!)



Thank you so much for being here, new friend! I am honored to have you over at my place ;)

xo
Amanda Conquers

Favorite Things GIVEAWAY

I was asked to participate in a giveaway of favorite everyday items.

I really wanted to be apart. The women and the blogs participating are awesome. (Like seriously, click on a few of the links I have listed at the end of this post, you will not regret it. Warm, kindred spirits. Straight up.) And I just love the chance to give good stuff away.

Only problem. I could not figure out what my favorite thing could possibly be (other than coffee. It's always coffee.)

I searched my kitchen drawers looking for some handy tool I couldn't live without, I looked through my bookselves, my desk, my vanity... for something that would bless one of you.

I couldn't find anything. But as I looked, I kept seeing words. Words printed out and taped to my desk, post it note reminders, encouragement printed on cards, lip-liner scriptures on my mirror, hand painted Jesus words on wooden boards, words trapped in chalk-painted frames... Encouragement. Reminders. All words, pointing to my Savior and the kind of woman/mom/wife He's shaping me into.

Yes. Encouraging words really are my favorite thing.

So that's what I am giving away. A printable and a hand-painted frame... a visual reminder of who you are in Him. Because sometimes, we need reminding. And we need it where we can see it.

{and even if you don't win the giveaway, I'll be giving away the printable to you all next week}

Also... I am giving away a Starbucks card, because coffee really is my love language.

To enter, just follow the instructions on the rafflecopter at the end of this post. (Psst... it's easy)

Giveaway ends this Friday (Oct. 31).

The winner will get each and every favorite item contributed to this giveaway.


What's in the Giveaway (Plus Links to Some Quality Blogs):



  • Kayse is giving away a collection of Martha Stewart Office items!
  • Britta is giving away a ConAir Power Facial Cleanser!
  • Jennifer is giving away a "Be Still" print!
  • Monica is giving away a Let It Go (by Karen Ehman) Study Pack!
  • Erika is giving away a super cute coffee cozy of your choice!
  • Carey is giving away Cravings, a daily devotional for moms!
  • Kristin is giving away 2 books by Angie Smith - For Such A Time As This & Audrey Bunny!
  • Anna is giving away a candle, tea, and chocolate!
  • Bethany is giving away a Ginger & Lime Sugar Scrub & a 5ml bottle of Wild Orange Essential Oil!
  • Jamie is giving away a Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook!
  • Amanda is giving away a framed print and a $10 gift card to Starbucks!
  • Leeann is giving away a set of linen notecards!



    • a Rafflecopter giveaway

    Okay, so now I really want to know... What is your favorite everyday item? 



    By Grace,
    Amanda Conquers

    On the Ugly Business of Comparison: A Letter to Us Moms

    Can I say something to all us mommas, something God has been speaking to my heart?

    I have been reading in Galatians 5 for a study I am doing. I read it, and it’s like I can hear it written just for us moms on this very real struggle of comparison and the weight of expectation we live under.

    Would it be okay if I take my liberties with this passage that was written to the church of Galatia in the first century and write it to us, in our time and just for us moms?

    For in Christ Jesus neither is homeschooling nor public schooling nor private Christian schooling anything…

    Neither is Walmart nor Target nor Whole Foods. Neither are cloth diapers nor disposables. Neither gluten free, paleo, whole food, nor McDonald’s drive thru.  Neither breastfeeding nor bottle-feeding. Neither all-natural home birth, planned c-section, nor begging for the epidural the very second you enter the hospital.

    Neither is minivan, jalopy sedan, nor hybrid SUV.  Neither is a streamlined chore system nor a pile of laundry sitting on the couch for 3 days. Neither is birthing a child every eighteen months nor stopping after one.

    But the only thing that is anything is faith working through love.

    Sisters, you were called to FREEDOM. Freedom to prepare bento boxes for school lunches or not. Freedom to adhere to baby-wise or to just wing it. But, sisters, do not turn your freedom into an opportunity to think yourself better than anyone else. THROUGH LOVE SERVE ONE ANOTHER. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you compare, judge, gossip, and try to find yourself a morally superior high ground that is better than one of your sisters, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

    But I say, walk in the Spirit…

     

    Motherhood is this vulnerable place. No matter whether you chose to ride into motherhood on the premise that it couldn’t be too hard or whether you read no less than twenty-three books on parenting before you pushed that first baby into the world at some point you will feel clueless.

    Even if book-learning and the sage advice of experienced moms could give us a leg-up on this parenting gig, there are things like colic, illnesses in a babe who can’t tell us where it hurts, terrific two’s, even more terrific three’s, mean kids at school, and preteen hormone surges that all level the playing field. And if none of the aforementioned scenarios leave you stumped, there are always those awkward moments, like when your daughter calmly and matter-of-factly announces to company that mom and dad shower together. (?!)

    Friends, we all find ourselves feeling clueless, our shortcomings laid bare, and so very vulnerable in this thing called motherhood.

    {And don’t we hate that?}

    I think in all the beyond-our-control variables of parenting, in all the mistakes we just know we are making, in all the guilt we feel for all things we never get around to…

    Our lives shout at us:  “You aren’t enough! You need to do better! You need to try harder!” We miss the grace we have been freely given and the invitation to walk arm in arm with the Savior.

    Our finite minds seriously miss the eternal view God has of our lives, our kids’ lives, and the way He is beyond able to use it ALL and work it ALL out for His Glory.

    We struggle to accept God’s love for us.

    We try to do motherhood by law, instead of grace.

    We compare ourselves. We play judge. We treat the intelligence and talents of our kids as a competition and as a measure of our worth as parents. We think we have some kind of place to look at another mom’s life and determine whether she’s right or wrong, better or worse. Sometimes in our zeal for whatever passion we have stumbled into, we assume it must be best for everyone.

    We look at a mom glowing in her talents, walking in her call, and read her personal excitement as a personal attack on the way we are living life.

    We feel like we are somehow less of a mother for bottle feeding when we get up in the middle of the night AND make a bottle. We feel like we are somehow missing our badge of honor because narrow hips required a c-section AND a month of recovery with a newborn. We look at our mess of a home and feel like a failure AFTER a day of errands, wiping bottoms, picking up toys, and feeding… and feeding… and feeding again.

    {Could we stop that?}  

    I have a feeling the heart of all this originates in the same reason Paul penned Galatians and addressed the Jewish Christians who were preaching circumcision and the Gentiles who were choking on the hard demand.

    It’s fear. And it’s pride.

    It’s Grace-negating. And it’s freedom-squelching.

    Momma, outside of love, there is no law to motherhood. There are only callings and talents and tools.

    Follow God’s call for you and your family wherever He leads. Shine in the God-given talents you were given (cooking, organizing, music, teaching, exploring, crafting...) And use the tools that are best for the making of your home and the raising of the precious kids God placed in your care--whether that’s baby-wise, homeopathic remedies, or chore charts.

    The only thing that is anything is faith working through love.

    So, rather than compare and judge and think we know a sister’s life from the fleeting glimpses of her Instagram account, let’s hold each other up. Let’s pray for each other. Let's serve one another.

    Even in our differences.

    ESPECIALLY in our differences.

    We are all moms. We all love so big. We are all tilling the fallow ground of a child’s heart: both soft and rocky and full of strong-willed defiance. We are carrying the gospel to an unreached people group—our kids. It’s important work. And, oh sisters, how we need each other’s encouragement. And truly we need a little less zeal for methods and fads and a whole lot more room for grace. 

    THROUGH LOVE SERVE ONE ANOTHER. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

    From one momma to another, I am standing here encouraging you, sister, to let His Grace wash over all your failings, to follow Christ where He leads, to shine in your talents, and to be a YOU kind of momma.

    Maybe we could talk about this here? What is the one thing that is hardest to you about motherhood? What is one of the most hurtful comments you have ever heard from another mom? What is one of the most life-giving statements you have ever heard from a fellow mom?

    By Grace,

    Amanda Conquers

    What I Want You to Know About Homeschooling


    I ran into an old friend a few weeks past. I hadn’t seen her since Addy was first born. She had asked about Addy: how old? what grade? what school?… In the conversation, I mentioned that I was homeschooling Addy.

    “Oh! I could have never done that. I just don’t have the patience.”

    This is the response I most often hear when I say we are homeschoolers. I think I have heard it at least 3 times since.

    It seems like 75% of the population views homeschoolers as good and holy saints, full of patience, meekness, and humility and always soft spoken. Maybe even as women who don floral aprons and whose homes smell of fresh-baked apple bread. Women with burlap-covered chore charts and aspirations of no less than 7 kids.

    I feel like I need to set the record straight. I can't speak for everyone, but I am not patient. I am not humble or meek… and I am definitely not soft-spoken when Jed decides he simply cannot wait five minutes for a snack and boycotts my lesson. I struggle with organization, and I might just be the world’s worst procrastinator.  I only wish I owned an apron, my clothes would thank me (anyone else a super messy cook?).

    I have had it pointed out before that I used to be a teacher so homeschooling must come so naturally to me. I may have been a teacher before I had kids, but did I ever tell you about how when I was a substitute in a local school district I declined all assignments kindergarten thru third grade because I do not like teaching young kids? I may have been a teacher and teaching might be one of those talents God placed inside me, but I am great at teaching things like literary analysis, historical context, and algebraic functions. I assure you teaching phonics, handwriting, and basic arithmetic baffles me. Can I also just say that it hardly comes natural to deny my selfish desires and dreams to sit at home and educate my kids from whom, truth be told, I would like a break from every now and again.

    I have this sinking suspicion that while I might not be a patient, meek, or humble person yet, homeschooling requires that I learn how to be. And let me tell you, homeschooling grates against every single one of my shortcomings. I am being refined.

    I want you to know that the reason I homeschool has almost nothing to do with my abilities or my strengths. I do it, simply because when I weighed public school, private school and homeschool, and I laid it all before the Lord, this was the very thing God put on my heart.

    Can I tell you sometimes it terrifies me?

    Can I also tell you that {most} mornings I wake up with this distinct feeling that I am doing exactly what God made me to do? Each morning I wake up and surrender, press my rough-edged self into the potter’s molding hands. I know I am in His hands. This is where I belong. I know my kids are in His hands in spite of my failings. I know this is where they belong. That is a good feeling. I could ramble on about what I see in my family and Addy and Jed and just how much it means to watch us cross milestones together.

    What I want you to know is that if you want to homeschool, you can. No, really, you can. We serve a God who gives strength to weak things. You don’t have to be patient to homeschool. Though I quite guarantee, a few years in and you might find yourself a good deal more patient.

    What I want you to know is that if you don’t want to homeschool, that’s okay. Follow Jesus wherever He leads your family, please. Homeschooling isn’t holier or better. Wherever God places you and your family is full of benefits and, yes, shortcomings too that require you, momma to lean on God. The only thing that could ever make a person holier is weakness leaning on the strength of the Lord. Homeschooling can be a tool, but it’s only a tool. It is not holiness itself.

    Correct me if I am wrong, but I bet it is with the same amount of terrifying surrender that I open my lesson books and take my kids’ educations upon myself that a momma releases the hand of her child to walk onto a school campus and entrusts education for six hours a day to someone else. It all requires bravery, camaraderie, and trust in the Lord.

    I think it’s easy to compare. We stand and watch from a limited outside perspective and torment ourselves with our skewed imaginings of other’s lives. We do things like brush over pastor’s wives or homeschoolers or teachers with whatever idealistic notion we might have attached to that role. We play judge, and we play it horribly. But truth is, we are all just moms. Flawed, struggling, and finding ourselves holding our breath when we look at the child that was once a tiny baby fresh and new… and aching and proud over how much that child has grown and changed and wondering where the time went. We see the talents and the struggles, the gem under the rough surface. We love big and hard, and we love so much it hurts to our very core. And we fear how we might fail. We are moms, walking with fear and trembling. We struggle with releasing our kids to the Lord, with trusting. And we struggle with holding on to our kids who in so many ways never stop wriggling from our grasp. We are moms who need to know we all walk with a limp and the only way to walk whole is to lean on Jesus.

    I am standing here humbly, telling you, sister, that I am cheering you on… and in however you are deciding to educate your kids. I am encouraging you to press into the One who molds and shapes, yes, every one of those imperfections. And, this girl? Well, I have certainly not arrived and will not cease to need encouragement until the day my heart is truly Home.



    By Grace,


    Amanda Conquers



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