Homeschool?

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

So we have been considering homeschooling Matthew. It has been a massive topic of discussion in our household, and between our house and his daddy's house. And let's be honest, everyone else too. Everyone seems to have an opinion on whether we should or should not be homeschooling.

I know that homeschooling is a controversial topic, as many things are these days. It tends to be one of those topics that you are either a YES HOMESCHOOL or ABSOLUTELY NOT kind of person. There doesn't really seem to be anyone that is in between.

In our household we have several reasons why we want to homeschool and think that it is the best idea for our son. Just to list a few:

• I can incorporate Bible study, without paying the price of having him in a private Christian school, because let's face it I simply can't afford that.
• I can teach him, the way that I want him taught (and let's face it, I am well equipped to do so, even though I don't have a teaching degree.)
• He is very well advanced for his age (he is reading on a second grade level and doing math on a second-third grade level, he is in kindergarten.) so this will give him the opportunity to move ahead rather quickly.

These are just a small selection of the reasons. In all honesty, we have discussed and discussed and discussed until we are all blue in the face. And I have done research and research and research. We are probably 99% on board with homeschooling now, but it is all about getting everything together, figuring out which curriculum to go with, which way to go about it, getting a plan in order, etc.

It is going to be a lot more work on me, but it is something that I am so excited for. And the joy is, we will also be able to get him involved in more extracurricular activities now, which is something I have been wanting to do for a while. I am super excited about it.

Forgiveness

"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" Matthew 6:14-15

There are not very many people in my life who know of the things that I went through when I was 14 and 16. They are things that I have kept extremely private. There are still huge parts of my story that I just can't seem to share yet, it is so personal and so difficult for me. But what I can share, I have gotten a lot more open about since I have gotten older.

Let me start by telling you the basics. When I was 14 and 16 I was raped. Both times by the same guy. Both times I was petrified of him because he was older, bigger, and stronger than me. When I was 14 I told a couple of friends of mine who made sure I was safe whenever they could. I credit them with protecting me a lot. They managed to make this guy leave me alone for a couple of years. But when I was 16 he managed to squirm his way back in my life. And my friends from before weren't around to protect me anymore. It was just me. All on my own. And I couldn't protect myself from him.

See I had been discouraged from telling anyone because when I told my best friend what had happened, she said it wasn't rape because we were dating and he didn't hold a gun to my head. The guy who did it told me I had wanted it, that it was all my fault, etc.

It's been over half my life since the first attack happened and so much has changed for me. See before I cared so much what other people thought. Would they believe me? Would he convince them that I was a slut asking for it? Would people think that I had done it and was covering it up? You still see that so much nowadays. No wonder women who are raped wait so many years before saying anything. They are petrified. Not only are they scared of the person that attacked them, but they also have to be scared of what the people around them, their friends, their family, the public, will have to say about it. Nobody takes anyone serious these days. I'm here to say that rape is a serious thing. It's a big deal, it leaves a huge scar and makes a huge impact on a person.

My attacks destroyed relationships. I couldn't trust men. At all. It changed me so much. I did things after my attack that I swore I would never do. I became somebody that I didn't want to be, but I felt dirty. I felt like someone had made the choice for me about who I was going to sleep with, and I decided I was going to make that decision myself and that since he had started the choice I could do it with whomever and whenever I wanted to. It was a bad life, it was wrong.

I let him control me for so long. I wondered if he was going to hear that I had told people. Was he going to come after me like he said he would? Would he search for me and attack me again? I was scared of him, and it didn't matter that he wasn't in my life because I knew it was easy for him to just magically appear in my life and take what he wanted. I let him destroy me. I let him destroy relationship after relationship. I let him change who I had planned on being in my life. I woke up one day and realized there was only one thing I could do to change the path that he had helped put me on. I had to forgive him.

Forgiving him was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my entire life. He didn't ask me to forgive him. In fact as far as I know he still doesn't admit that he even did anything wrong. But I wasn't forgiving him for him, I was doing it for me. God tells me that I need to forgive him, that I need to forgive his sins. And so about 13 years after the first attack I woke up one morning, I got on my knees and I prayed to God for strength and comfort to do something that I had needed to do for 13 years. Then I sat there and cried. And I cried out "I forgive you." then in that moment, I let it all go.

I'm not going to say it was that simple, trust me it wasn't. I still find moments where something scares me. Where a memory comes up and I start to panic a little bit. And when it does, I pray for the strength and once again I say "I forgive you." and I let it go. It isn't a one time process, because it wasn't a one time thing. It was a thing that wrecked my life for 13 years and controlled me and changed me. But it is so much easier. I don't look over my shoulder anymore, I don't worry about running into him, I don't think about what I would do if I saw him, I don't get scared. I just live my life. And it is an amazing feeling.

You may or may not have been through a rape, but maybe you have been through something that you need to forgive someone for. Please, don't wait until they say they did something wrong, don't wait until they ask for forgiveness. You don't need them to acknowledge their wrongdoing, you just need to forgive them. It will heal your heart and it will help you move on. I pray that you have the strength to let it all go and to move on.

Friends

"A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need" Proverbs 17:17

I don't understand people sometimes. You know those people that call themselves your "friends". But they aren't really your friends. They are the people who want to hear your story. They want you to tell them your inner most secrets so they can spread them to other people. That is their only intention. To be deceitful and hurtful. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Why be that way? Why not be honest with your intentions? Why not only be "friends" with people that you genuinely care about? Why pretend to care about someone?

There are also those "friends" who you get so close to and then they just disappear. You know the ones I am talking about. The friends who stop returning your calls. The ones who don't answer your texts. The ones who blow you off all the time or always tell you "I'm just too busy". Those friends. They aren't your friends either. I don't understand them. Again, why get close to someone only to hurt them? And if you call them out on it? Tell them they hurt you or that you know they are being deceitful? They apologize. They try to make it better for a while. And then they once again disappear.

I have some of both of these "friends" in this season of my life. And it has been difficult to navigate such a trying time in my life without many true friends. It's been difficult to navigate while realizing who my real friends are and who my real friends aren't. Because the people who are like the people above, they simply aren't there for me.

They are the people who haven't checked in not once. The ones who I used to work with who were my "closest" and "best" friends that I haven't spoken to a single time since I walked out that building door. They are my "best" friend that swore she would change and be there, but I haven't heard from her in months.

And as much as it hurts to have them all turn their backs on me in a time of such need, I have also found my real friends. My dear friend, who is there daily when I message her on facebook to talk to her about anything from makeup, to sick kids, to frustrations with my health, to what color to dye my hair and every. single. thing. in between. My husband, who has been a rock and a shelter in this storm, who has held my hand and let me cry on his shoulder so many nights. My mom, who has listened to me for hours every single morning and who understands my struggles with my health. My family, who has been so supportive, understanding and caring. My church family, who has reached out, offered help and most of all offered prayers. And mostly God, who has been my biggest shelter through all of this, my strength, my comfort.

See it has taken this sickness and this trial for me to realize who my real friends are and who they aren't. And it has taken this trial for me to realize that I don't need them. I will be okay without them in my life. I am okay without them in my life.

My Husband

"My lover is mine, and I am his" Song of Solomon 2:16

My husband is the kindest man I have ever known. I knew the night that I met him that he was the man I was going to marry. It took him seven months to tell me that he loved me. Six months after that I had moved into his house. Two months later we were engaged and two months after that we secretly got married.

I kissed a lot of frogs to find my prince. I found him online on a dating site that my mom put me on. It's the same site she met my step-dad on. This site had so many messed up guys on it. And it took me a few months to find Jason. But when I did it didn't take me long to realize he was perfect. The first thing I noticed was the Jeep wrangler in his pictures. I have wanted a Jeep Wrangler for as long as I can remember. I don't know what it was about them, but it was just something that I wanted. So when I saw that he had one, it was like it was meant to be. It started out with a simple "Hey you." And my life was changed.

We legally got married on April 4th, 2014 we then had a ceremony in front of our closest friends and family on September 20, 2015. I felt like I was the luckiest girl in the world. I had this dream of having two more kids with him and then adopting a child or two. We were going to buy a nice house in the middle of know where and remodel it together. But the day of our ceremony was just the first sign of trouble. As soon as everyone left, I got sick. And not a little sick, super sick. I came down with something similar to the flu. Our entire honeymoon my poor husband had to sit up and rub my back while I screamed in pain all night and tossed and turned. He drove me home that Monday and straight to the doctor. By Wednesday I was in the hospital hooked up to an IV super dehydrated. This was seriously just the beginning. It was like a test, to see if we could handle this in the first few days of our marriage. We had no idea what kind of trials were going to lay ahead for us.

About a year later I got a massive headache and it just wouldn't go away. I had it for two weeks straight. Then one day while I was driving to work, I passed out in my car. Things quickly progressed from there. I will save the rest of my symptoms and such for another post. This post is about my husband. My husband that rushed to my side to take care of me. My husband that is never afraid to drop what he is doing to help me.

The nights that I pass out, he is there to catch me. The nights that every muscle in my legs tense up to the point where I am screaming in pain, he is there to rub them and put heat on them. The nights where I can't speak, he is there to try to figure out what I am saying. The nights when I can't fall asleep because I am in pain, he is there to rub my back. The nights that I feel totally defeated, he is there to tell me I can make it through this. The nights when I feel like I am absolutely falling apart, he is there to hold me together. The nights when I feel like there is no hope, he is there to give it to me. The nights when I feel like I am a burden, he is there to remind me that I am not.

My sweet husband has watched me struggle through this. He has watched me become a shell of the person I used to be. I used to be this girl that went to work 35 hours a week then came home, cooked dinner, cleaned the house, hung out with her family, wrote a blog, kept up with a youtube channel, etc. And now he comes home to a wife who can barely get off the couch. He has had to go from just working to taking care of everything. All of this burden is on his shoulders and he just carries it. I am so proud to call him my husband. I am so proud to have him by my side. God has blessed me so much with this sweet man. I cannot begin to thank God or Jason enough.

Things You Should Know

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."Genisis 1:27

There are so many things you should know when you start reading this blog. I want to give you an overview of who I am. A few bullet points so that you can kind of get a picture of this person that you are reading about. There is so much to me though. And these bullet points will only give you a glimpse of the surface of who I am. Over the time that I am writing this blog you will learn so much more about me. You will learn the depths of who I am. You will learn the struggles that I have faced. You will learn my happiest and saddest moments. You will learn my deepest and darkest secrets. You will learn my biggest fears. You will learn who I really am. But for today, I just want you to get to know a bit about this person that you will start to know. So here we go.

• The number one thing you need to know about me is that I am a Christian. That is the most important thing to me. It is what gives me strength to get through the hard that is currently my life. It is what gives me the ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel. God is my strength when I am weak, like I am now. 
• I am a wife. Being a wife is one of my greatest gifts. I got blessed with the most amazing husband. He is so caring and loving. He has been by my side through so much. I have no doubt that he will be by my side no matter what kind of cards we are dealt in our life. He is so understanding and comforting. He is such a blessing from God and I am so grateful for him every single day. 
• My second greatest blessing in my life is my son. Matthew is the most amazing son I could ever ask for. He makes me so proud to get to be his mother. He brings so much joy, love and laughter into my life. I couldn't imagine where I would be without my sweet, sweet boy.
• I am a mama to three fur boys. They are the greatest dogs I could ever ask for. They are just like children to me. I get so lost when I am not around them. It breaks my heart. They are an absolute joy and blessing.
• My husband and my mama are my two best friends. 
• I am a Premier Jewelry Independent Distributor and I absolutely love my job! I also have my own youtube channel that I work very hard on.
• I am obsessed with being organized and with cleaning. I have recently been changing all of our cleaning products over to all homemade cleaners (I will talk about this in a post/video sometime soon).
• I am from the south and I am extremely proud of that. We are very southern people with very southern traditions. 
• I am a diabetic and I have been for over 10 years. Again, this is something we will talk about a lot more in another post. 
• I am obsessed with hockey. It is the only sport that I understand at all. I just absolutely love it. (GO PREDS!!)
• I am currently dealing with another disease that we aren't sure what it is. It is something I have been dealing with since the middle of September. It caused me to quit a job that I absolutely loved, and has made me a shell of the person I was before. This again is something you will read a lot more about.
• I suffer from borderline personality disorder and depression. It is a complicated battle to stay in a positive place in my life, but I do the best that I can not to let things get me down. 

So there is the very basic overview of who I am. Have any questions? Anything that you really want me to go into more detail about? Don't worry I will go into a lot more about a lot of these things.