Thursday, March 22, 2012

The One About Time4Learning

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

I'm looking forward to trying this out :) I'm hoping it'll be a good tool to use, especially for the youngers!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

The One About Feelings

Sometimes I think 3 year olds have it right by wearing their hearts on their sleeve. Oh sure, their tantrums are frustrating, but you always know how they are feeling. They let you know one way or another that they are sad, frustrated, angry, happy, scared & so on. At some point in our lives, we all loose the ability to show what we're feeling & internalize things too much. We often aren't taught how to properly manage our feelings so we push them aside until one day, unable to to hide any longer, they blow up in our faces & often affect the ones we love the most.

Why are we taught that happy is the only acceptable emotion? Especially as Christians... we're taught that we are to be joyful in everything. That doesn't mean to put a smile and push the hurt and sad feelings aside tho. That means to seek the Lord to bring healing for the hurt & sadness & then allow His joy to come into your life. Think about it... Jesus cried, Jesus threw a tantrum, Jesus hurt, Jesus FELT. Jesus... the *only* perfect human being felt sad & angry. Guess what that means?!? IT IS OK TO BE SAD AND ANGRY!!!

It's what we do with those feelings that is the important thing.

I'm totally speaking for myself here. I could put a spin on it on how to teach our children to accept their feelings & the proper way to deal with them, but I'm not doing that. Right now, I am hurting and sad and frustrated and angry. I don't know how to deal with it. I've always pushed it aside, hidden it beneath the facade of happy life. When I was younger I'd write songs, poetry or even draw pictures portraying what I felt, but never really dealing with it. I've ignored it & avoided it, but now it's time to heal.

I'm finding the healing process to be A LOT harder than I ever imagined it would be. It's amazing that things that happen to you at 5, 18, 30 can have such a strong affect on how you view life, God & relationships.

We live in such a broken world... we're allowed to feel that. We just need to learn how to let God take the brokenness to make us whole.