WALKING THE WALK

Yesterday, I wrote about the fears that face me as I make plans to become a stay-at-home-mom.  

As I was working on that post and mulling over the things that I wanted to say, a perfectly timed email arrived in my inbox.  It was a blog post by Jamie Martin titled The Fear and The Funk of Homeschooling.

Within that post were two important quotes that really helped me to look at my fears from a new perspective.  

Jamie wrote:  "When it comes to combating fear and its lies, the vision you ultimately have for your family serves as the most powerful weapon in your arsenal."  

And from Holley Gerth's book You're Made for a God-Sized Dream (which was referenced in Jamie's blog post): "Fear camps out right next to whatever it is you're most called to do.  That means the closer you get to your calling, the louder fear sounds."

It is pretty obvious that neither of these quotes really does anything to "solve" my fears.  But they go a long way toward helping me realize that I am headed in a direction that is right for me.  These quotes remind me that my dream, my vision and my heart's desire - all leading me to stay home - are bigger than my fears.  Much bigger. 

I ran across one more quote, this past week, that has also helped me to mentally push through my fears and encouraged me to keep moving toward my goal of staying home.  Toward the end of Donald Miller's Storyline 2.0, Donald wrote: "If you have a fear of failure, here's my advice: fail.  ...What costs you is the fear to try.  Everybody loves and respects a person who tries, whether they fail or not.  Failure is an education, not a judgment."

Being a stay-at-home-mom is an endeavor that I need to take a good run at.  I know that if I didn't try, I would always wonder where it might have taken me.  I'm almost certain that I won't look back at my children's baby and toddler-hood's and wish that I had worked during that time.

I realize that staying home isn't the right choice for every mom and that many families aren't able to make it a financial possibility.  But this is the path that our family is choosing and we are going to push right through our fears to see where this journey takes us.

Many, many thanks to Jamie, Holley and Donald for your perfectly-timed encourgament.  And many thanks, also, to the staying-home moms who have told me how much I will love it.