Just Add Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust: Back to School Blessing ~ 2024

Friday, August 30, 2024

Back to School Blessing ~ 2024

On Sunday night, the night before Anna headed back to college, we had our annual 'Back to School Blessing'. It is a really special tradition that we started years ago.

On this night we like to pause and share with our girls a family intention for the upcoming school year.

This summer I spent a lot of time pouring into my girls. So at the end of the summer I really wanted to pull together all of the learning we had done all summer long.

Part One:

This summer I read aloud the classic story, The Secret Garden (the unabridged - I do think there are some shorter chapter books out there and even some picture books) by Frances Hodgson Burnett. There is so much I could say about this book, truly a book about light and darkness and what happens when we let beauty into our lives... when physical beauty comes into our lives it changes us.

I read that book bit by bit, chapter by chapter throughout the summer and finished reading it aloud by the end of the summer.

On our Back to School Blessing night I reread this quote from chapter 27:

"So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored, and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push her about for her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer, crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and his 'creatures', there was no room left for the disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired. So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hurly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical, half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring, and also did not know that he could get well and stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. When new, beautiful thoughts began to push out the old, hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins, and strength poured into him like a flood. His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and there was nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discoursed thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous own. Two things cannot be in one place.

Where you tend a rose, by lad,

A thistle cannot grow.

Oh that thought in there about how we push out the bad thoughts - how we can fill our minds so much with the good that there is no room for discontented, unhealthy ones. "Two things cannot by in one place" We spent some time on that piece there.

There really are so many times when we are in dark days and it just feels impossible to lift ourselves. I wanted the girls to have a picture in their mind of the secret garden in that book and how the two children changed because of the beauty. We all need to be reminded that goodness and beauty are waiting for us and they will change our thought patterns until we are changed.

I believe strongly that when beautiful thoughts begin to push out the old, hideous one, life comes back and strength will pour into us like a flood.

Part Two:

Oh goodness, I didn't take a photo of something important that was on the table that night. Throughout the summer I had typed up all of the notes from every bible study - every dinnertime devotional - every discussion that I tried to reach their hearts. They are now all in one document that they can have forever. And I talked about how now they have everything they need. As Proverbs states in chapter 4, we get wisdom and when wisdom is part of your life, it is beautiful.

Part Three:

I read my intention statements for the school year and charged them to do the same. When we write out and state our intentions we are better able to remember when our thoughts gets dark where we want to be headed. Here is what I shared with the girls:

I feel calm at school. I am well prepared for each day. I smile and look into the eyes of each student and reach their heart with God's help.

I meet individual needs and move my class forward in an organized whole approach.

I stay focused and remember why I am there each day: to bring light and goodness, skill and loving curiosity and fun first to my class, second to all of those in my school.

I am grateful even on challenging days to be what God planted as a seed in my heart all those years ago.

I am a child of God. The same God that sees me today is the one that held me as a little girl, a teen, a young adult, through early marriage years, and young motherhood. He knows my future and I trust in His steadfast love completely.

I spend time each day in prayer, reading His word, and immersing myself in the writing and inspirations of saints and other that can guide me. This is the oxygen to do life well.

I am kind first to my little family. I look and pray for ways to bless them, love them, and show them a bit of God's reality in this life. I speak life-giving words to give them a treasure chest to draw from throughout their lives.

I am a memory keeper so my girls can look back with delight on their years.

I make time to enrich my life, mind, body, and spirit. I put effort into my home to create a beautiful, restful, cozy, happy place to be.

I don't compare myself to others but rather run my own race continuing to stay on the path God leads me on. I remind myself to not be so serious and rest in His faithfulness knowing that god will work things together for good those that are called according to his purpose.

And of course I decorated it for the upcoming season of fall. Here are a few pictures of our special night including the stained glass engraved stars the girls opened.