Family Growth and Reflections

The 2014/2015 school year has officially come to a close. I am overjoyed to have 2 months with my kids where we can just be together. I love our family time more than I can say and having them away for the past year was very difficult for all of us, yet I wouldn't change it for anything. You see, through the hardship of transitioning to school for them and balancing work, teaching, and family life for me, we all grew a lot.
Each of my children went through a very difficult trial in the last year, some trials were sorted within a month or two and some continued throughout the whole school year. One child did not remember how to show proper respect for a teacher, which really shocked me because that was not a problem during homeschooling. After much consistency and creative discipline, the child turned out to be more respectful than I thought they ever would be. The character development of this child BLEW me away, and to God be the glory! One child had to deal with another student, who they felt was bullying them, and they had to learn to deal with the other child and learn to control their temper. I wish I could say that this issue resolved itself, but it is still a work in progress. God is growing this child to know who they are as a child of the King, and it is beautiful. Another child felt left out and ignored by others due to differing interests and many tears were shed. Many conversations happened to encourage the child, but it was a long hard lesson taught. This child learned what it means to compromise and the opportunity for give and take in relationships. I see a new love for others and their opinions in this child, and I praise God for the growth.
I cried many tears of pain, frustration and brokenness for each child at different points in the year, but God was faithful to us all, and we are all stronger and better people. Sometimes watching a child walk through something hard makes you feel like you failed, or they would not have to walk through that, but I really feel like God was telling me over and over this year that He was refining my kids. Wow, turning them over to their Maker should be the easiest thing to do, but it was so painful to let go of the imagined control I thought I had in their lives. So many lessons were learned by all of us this past year, and God is so incredibly good. The 3 kids who walked out of school on Thursday are not even close to the kids who entered that school 9 months ago. It still brings tears to my eyes as I remember the really hard days, and then I see the amazing growth that God brought out in each heart. God is so good.
As for Bryan and I, it is hard to know where to begin. What a year! Bryan has been walking through some pretty hard spiritual battles for over a year now and God has brought him to a new and better place. Running BG takes so much of his time, energy and patience. Making sure there are funds here for staff to be able to do their jobs with excellence is huge, not to mention the countless "fires" needed to be handled daily with the government, staff and projects such as Beautiful Gardens. He is my hero because he handles it well and the last 2 months have shown an even better and stronger side of him, and I praise God for his growth. He loves the kids and staff here with all his heart and it is so amazing to see and hear him when he talks to the staff and plays with the kids. I wish the demands of the job were less so he could be with the BG kids more, but with the countless teams and volunteers here, the children are not lacking attention :)
Working at BG has been a real blessing for me these past 8 months. I feel more connected with the staff and their hearts for what they do at BG. I had the opportunity to get to know a lot more teams and volunteers because I was not stuck in my house teaching all day :) I also found that I was a ton busier than before as I have way more meetings than I am used to, but it is good because we are working together for the glory of God in this place! I continued teaching on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons (yep, I am the science teacher at the school) and then each day, needed to spend an hour or so with my kids helping make sure homework was done. I still have no idea how we made it through and I am thankful for a calendar, or I would have missed hundreds of things cause life was full. I need prayer that I will balance the next year better than this year, because I did feel like I could not give 100% to all the different things I was doing, and I want to be sure I do all things with excellence! All this to say that I am thankful to God for the growth He has given each of us this past year and I feel so blessed by all God has done for each of us.