Homeschooling Mama to 7 on earth, 2 in heaven: Our 2020

(Fort building in the woods with the neighbors)

During the time around New Years I always find myself reflecting on the previous year, this year even more so. I have heard all around me that people cannot wait for 2020 to be over. The term “2020” is used almost as a curse. I disagree.

This year has actually been a really nice year for me personally, although I do acknowledge, and my heart goes out to, those who have real reasons to not feel the same. 2020 has enabled me, our family, to slow down big time—and I cherish that. I have always strived for the slow in life, I’ve read books over the years like Chasing Slow, The Abundant Mama’s Guide to Savoring Slow, Breaking Busy, Finding Spiritual Whitespace, When Less Becomes More, and Slow Lane…clearly I craved a slower pace of life, but at the beginning of 2020 our family life far from resembled that.

Most of my 2020 reads

When “shut down” happened, mid-March where I live, it honestly felt like a relief. I remember there being a two week period right before that when I had no free evenings at all, I hated that! I had known that I needed to make some changes to our schedule but wasn't sure what to cut out. Usually in the past I had been fairly good at being able to simplify but February and the beginning of March had just been crazy and I was feeling overwhelmed. Now, even though a lot of things have opened back up, or activities have started back up, we made the changes we needed to have a nice balance. I have my evenings at home back most of the time!

I have always been an introvert but this year has brought that out even more and I have embraced that part of myself. The “stay home order” felt like a privilege to me, not a prison sentence as it did to some people. Although I did miss my church, family and friends, we figured out creative ways to stay connected.

(Spending time with my brothers outdoors during quarantine)

About a year ago I finally officially accepted God’s call for me to ministry. I talked a bit about this in my last post…a year ago(!) I had felt Him calling me to more and more with the ministry I am involved in, but I did not feel equip…I was like “God, how can you be calling me to be a pastor?!” So it took a little while for me to surrender my feelings of inadequacy and to say Yes, Lord, I will follow where you are leading me…wherever that ends up being!

My "classroom"

I began taking classes locally in Jan. 2020, in the spring I received my local ministers license, and then in the summer I became a student at Nazarene Bible College and have consistently been taking classes to work toward my district license and ultimately toward ordination in the Church of the Nazarene. This is a big deal for me…being in college is hard and extremely time consuming. I was perfectly content just being a stay-home, homeschooling mom. But I could not deny the calling God was putting in my heart. I know this journey will be worth it.

The highlight of our year was Camp Meeting in July. I am incredibly thankful the opportunity our family had there. I felt very privileged to be asked to lead children’s services for that week. It was such an amazing week for me personally with getting ministry experience, and being able to involve my kids in everything was priceless. They all helped set up and run services, lead worship, play games with the other kids, etc. We spent every afternoon at the pool, it felt like a mini vacation for all of us.

Preaching at Camp Meeting

It feels like we spend most of the spring, summer and half of fall outside with our neighbors…this was another benefit to this “COVID” year…everyone was home…we built on relationships with those around us in ways that we didn’t always “have time for” in the past. Spending time with them was one of the best parts of 2020.

I am so very thankful for many things that 2020 brought, but the slow times of just being together as a family has been my favorite. This year we have played more board games, card games, completed more puzzles, taken more walks, baked more treats, and read more books together than ever before. None of us knows what 2021 will bring but we can all chose to find things to be grateful for in our lives.

Here are some pictures that represent our year: