Sometimes when God pulls you back, it's because He's getting ready to push you forward.
Right now, I'm in a new season of life. One that looks vaguely familiar, but feels totally different.
When we moved to Tennessee, we were so isolated (geographically- up on a mountain; we did not have one friend-not an exaggeration; we could not afford any activities for our kids whatsoever). I thought I might go insane at times. I felt so alone, yet I knew God had called us to live here so that helped (but sometimes not much). It was during that 18 months, we had one miscarriage and were told Michael had a 50/50 chance of making it. We were living paycheck to paycheck on a good week. Life was just hard.
Fast forward a few years...
We're pretty established. My husband has a better paying job. It feels like we're finally getting to know our neighbors and it's more of a community now. We have met friends and have a circle of people we get together with on a regular basis. We finally had someone start attending our church gathering. Life is pretty smooth.
I had our year of school pretty well planned out. We had outside activities planned on the first two days of the week, so I kept those days pretty light on purpose. Now, we've had situations come up basically cancelling one of those and putting the other one on hold for at least right now. This doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but those are our ONLY outside extra-curricular activities. Our circle of friends we see on a regular basis has gotten smaller due to various situations (friends moving, etc.) My husband's schedule is changing on a weekly sometimes daily basis, while he's training for his new job.
Okay...more change than I'm really comfortable with!!!!
After initial freaking out in my brain over these situations...
"What's going to happen? Are we going to end up like the stereotyped recluse, hermit home schoolers? Will my kids end up resenting these changes? etc. etc. etc."
I took a deep breath and have peace!
I read this article about a season of pulling back. I wish I could find it, but alas I can't. Anyway, the gist was it's healthy to have seasons in our lives, where we pull back from all the outside things that are vying for our constant attention. Pull back to focus on our family, new goals, to focus on God and our relationship with HIM! I read that article and said, "Hey, that sounds great, but I could never do that...I have too many commitments and obligations to all these people." Guess what? I didn't have to end up making that choice, God did it for me.
I could rack my brain and run myself ragged trying to fill up these time slots with lots of other outside activities, but I think I'll just "be still and wait" for a while. We started learning Latin as a family, our school days are going smooth, we have time to do impromptu library trips, and in the future field trips, archery. We have time to just be with each other.
I do not know what the future holds or how God will work in all these situations. I do know and am confident that He is working "all things out for the good". I know that His ways are not my ways, but His ways are always the best way. So I won't I'll try not to complain or frantically try to work things out to fit what I think is best. I'll just wait and enjoy this season! (To be honest, I already am!)