Come, Follow Me

Here are Aaron and I, dressed as Mary and Joseph. We were asked to be “special visitors” in Sloane’s Sunbeam class, today.  The children were wiggly and adorable and captivated by our message about miracles and obedience to God’s will. 

The Willies are trying hard. 

That’s the best way I can describe our lives, right now. 

We are working our tails off to keep everyone stable. 

We have counselors and therapists working to keep  the few in emotional health crisis from a complete tailspin. We are plugging along with “life as usual” to maintain stability for others. 

I’m tired. 

No, I’m much more than tired. 

I am running on fumes. 

Digging through our life-in-ashes and organizing the mess for weeks in prep for demolition has been exhausting.  

Mothering and partnering a lot of humans dealing with Trauma and anxiety (with a dose for me too, thanks but no thanks) has me weary.  

Some days, I focus on finding things that make me laugh, because crying gives me a headache and the cathartic release of laughter is nearly as effective. 

Other days are heavy with grief and when I want to crawl back under covers, I find like 100 tiny people waiting for me under there, demanding breakfast and fresh diapers.  

We are pressing along. 

I love this picture of Aaron so much, I had to share. This is from last Sunday, on our first Home Based, Church Supported, hour of home-study Sunday Home School. We haven’t come up with a perfect name for this hour yet, but we will. 

We gathered the children on the big half-sofa (I ordered a replica of our exact same gigantic sectional. Only half has arrived, but even that feels wonderfully familiar.) and we told the children about our new church calling. 

Dad and I have been called to team teach a Sunday school class! 

It’s every week, for one hour.

We will use a New Testament Study manual cakes Come, Follow Me for Individuals and Families. 

The age range of our students are: 14, 12, 9, 6, 4, 3 and 3. 

The children didn’t catch on that THEY were our students. 🤣. We gave more clues, “we will hold class right here in the living room, at such and such time of day, Soren is in our class, Quincy is in our class, yes Reese is too, etc. 

The enthusiasm ended there and the a large portion  of the following hour involved  tears, opposition, sibling fighting, and complaints. But we are trying! 

This week, the change was that the entire DAY was described as tears, opposition,  “I can’t find any shoes (because #sunday, and remember #imsotired) fighting, complaints, hysterical screaming, traumatic meltdowns, EXCEPT for the one hour home Sunday school class. THAT hour was a lovely and wonderful gospel discussion. 

I want to be optimistic and say that’s improvement and I think I honestly can, because that hour offered us the only peace we felt in a long 24 hour marathon of  emotional breakdowns. Chaos resumed almost immediately when we finished our study today, but I enjoyed the hour of respite.

I have Elder Holland’s voice in my head every day, promising, “we get points for trying.” 

We are trying, indeed. 

And to me, trying is succeeding.

Thank goodness we get to do life one hour at a time! This was an hour I definitely don’t wish to crawl under a blanket and forget!