Pouring Out Our Hearts To The Lord

On Monday July 13th, we met at Kim Mayfield's home for a wonderful time of goal setting & prayer for our homeschools. Thirty ladies gathered for fellowship and yummy desserts.

Afterward we all sat down and Kim and I taught a little about goal setting. There are many types of goals that you can have for your children. Some we went over were: artistic, curriculum, family, life skills, ministry, physical, job training & spiritual. Kim read a wonderful email from Carol Smith about how she gets away to plan out the year ahead of her.

We talked about how to set goals. Goals start with a vision of what God is going to do in your life & your kids' lives. Once you have the vision, then you can make choices so much easier. As Nehemiah said in Nehemiah 6:1-6 when his enemies were trying to distract him from building the wall, "I am doing a great work right here and I cannot come down." Nehemiah knew clearly what to do: if it contributed to the vision, then the answer was "Yes," if not (distracted from the vision), then the answer was "No."

The application for this is threefold: 1. Pray that God will give you a vision of your life in the key areas you feel He is calling you to work on. 2. Write it down. Make a bullseye/target of what the goal is. 3. Act accordingly. If the decision moves you toward it, its a "Yes!"

Obviously, this whole process is to be done prayerfully. And if possible, bring the ideas God gives you to your husband and ask for his feedback, advice and consideration as to whether he thinks this is what God is saying to you both.

Don't be discouraged when any goal is not met in the timeframe you were thinking. You can be assured that God is at work in your life and in His timing things will work out. Trust Him when you go through those disappointing valleys.

We handed out notebooks that had: lists of goals, a section on making a Vision statement for your life from Linda Dillow's book Calm Your Anxious Heart, an excerpt from the book 401 Ways to Get Your Kids to Work at Home (regarding goal setting for practical life skills), a handout on character goals to think about based on George Barna's book Revolutionary Parenting, a handout on a Scripture Memory system, and some verses to pray for yourself & your children.

Then everyone separated for some private time with the Lord. We prayed privately and listened to His voice regarding the homeschool year ahead. Then we joined back together and prayed over all the prayer requests. Kim & I were so touched by how open everyone was and how many folks poured out their hearts for the families represented there. The Holy Spirit was definitely present and working that night!

We pray for you as you make the final countdown to the start of school that you would take some time to hear from the Lord. It is not about the curriculum you choose but about the hearts of your children!!