I Am the Vine--Break Week!

Hi Everyone!

You would "think" I would learn and move my memorizing schedule downstairs where I have my quiet time each morning instead of keeping it posted on my bathroom mirror--but not me!  So I have ended up getting a bit "off" from the schedule. . . last time I was working on two verses, but didn't realize those verses each had their own individual week for memorizing.  And then this week is supposed to be a "break" week--which I do need, as I am having trouble keeping up with everything that is going on in my life!

This past week our homeschool started up again after a summer break.  I do not normally break completely during the summer--for good reason (your children's brains turn to mush!).  But this summer found us in the middle of a kitchen remodel, and when the sink and counters left the house so did my ability to do anything except cope!  Fortunately the lovely new counters and sink are in place now and working just fine, so the family is once again being fed! ;)  But having a break completely from our normal schedule made things a bit difficult in getting back into the routine.  Add on top of starting homeschool the big brother going back to his college classes and my hubby going back to his teaching--all on the very same day--made for a huge change all of a sudden for all of us.  But I "think" we are over that hump now, fortunately!  This week brings our homeschool to the end of the second week of the new school year, and things are starting to go along pretty well.

Back on the memorizing front things have not been going as good as I would like them to.  Not only have I been mixing up the memorizing schedule, but I also have not been able to keep up with memorizing as well as I would like to.  The previous memory piece went a lot better for me--and I am not exactly sure why.  It is true that John 15 has a lot of repeating in it (I am the vine!), and that seemed to mix me up right from the start.  The previous passage I learned--Isaiah 55--did not have that.  So I know that is one part of it.  And as already mentioned, we have had a LOT of other things going on in our family and home--and kitchen remodeling sort of has a way of putting one in a "survival" mode. . .   Be that as it may, when I repeated my verses recently to my daughter  I was actually surprised (and pleased!) to find that I could repeat pretty firmly through verse 16.  No, it may not be up through verse 20 like I am supposed to be up to, and it may not be without a prompt or two when I came to a "stuck spot," but it was much better than I had thought I would do.  At first I was tempted to feel discouraged--and tell myself that I had failed.  But I don't really believe that.  Although I may not have this memory passage as well as I was able to learn the first one I tried, no time spent in God's Word is wasted--whether we are memorizing or simply meditating, reading or listening.  And so I plod along.  And I would rather be spending time in God's love letter to me and only be "so so" at memorizing it than to be doing something else entirely without God but be really good at it.

And so I will happily plod along--with God.

Have a beautiful week with your beautiful Savior!

~Susan