on the edge of summer

once my kids get out of school today (which is happening in less than an hour...WHY does this time go so fast?!?) they will have 6 days of school left until their summer break starts.

for me, summer is a time for me to step up my game. i get to have SO many more hours with them in the summer and i want to use it wisely, be intentional with it, speak TRUTH into their hearts.

there will be fun (lots of it!) and all that fun summer "stuff", but i have a couple specific truths i want to get through to them...by living it out, repeating it, and talking about it over and over.

i got this book a month or so ago, and i've been slowly making my way through it. it's that kind of book...where there is so MUCH good stuff that you have to read it little bits at a time and let it soak in.

here are a couple quotes:
"If you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've always got."

"If our kids are growing up selfish and self-centered, it's because they are merely the by-product of us - of you and me. They observe our priorities and adopt our values. They sense that we lack both the backbone to say no to them and the resolve to teach them to care about others. So they take advantage of our permissiveness, our indulgence. Their attitudes reflect the way they've been conditioned."

ouch, right?? those are both from the first chapter. i know...

i've been thinking about, praying about, planning for summer for weeks now. i'm going to be honest, i'm super anxious about it (losing sleep, digestion issues, on the verge of tears). last summer was hard. i KNEW the summer before that would be hard (when we first got home from africa- ok. totally bawling my eyes out after re-reading that one!) and it probably was, but when i think of the summer of 2011, the memories i have are sweet - all the family and friends holding us up and carrying us. my memories of last summer aren't sweet, just hard. i don't want another hard summer. but sometimes life is hard, and that's ok.

we aren't doing a 'summer list" this summer (the last 2 summers, i've ripped it off the wall halfway through the summer and thrown it in the trash because it was stressing me out so much). but we WILL do fun things.

we aren't training for a 5k this summer. but we WILL be making individual summer goals and doing our best to reach them.

i see growth in myself. i say that in an "i hope that's encouraging to some of you" way, not in a prideful way. after 36 years, i am finally learning to have grace with myself. i know that God has used Lincoln and Levi in so many ways, some we might never know. but that is certainly one of them. and i'm so thankful! He took me to a place (and i've remained there!) where i'm past what i can handle, where i fail so very often, and He's poured grace on me over and over.