I love this spring season of winds and showers.  It feels like a cleansing breath in the middle of not only Lent, but also in this season of the year and perhaps also of  this time in my own life.  A season,  for me at least,  where burnout in homeschooling and in parenting lurked in every corner; where every foray seemed frought with difficulties.  Have you ever been there? Perhaps, like me, you have been, and perhaps like me you also find the cleansing spring tides that most perfect remedy.  Beautiful and lovely days are here!

I find this a wonderful time to…

• Begin your spiritual practices anew
• Clean out clutter in the home
• Spring clean
• Jump start healthy eating with a spring cleaning of the pantry
• Make plans for a new school year
• Make homeschooling fun again
• Change tactics regarding a troublesome situation in parenting
• Observe the children in front of us and how we can best guide and help those children
• Cast aside the things that are not working
• Renew putting your self -care at the top of the list
• Find your own strength courage as we head toward the end of the school year

Last night I attended a Tenebrae Mass.  In the Episcopal Church and Anglican tradition, this is a service of  darkness usually celebrated during Holy Week.  Prayers and readings are chanted, sung or read as candles are extinguished one by one until the church is in darkness with the exception of the sanctuary lamp.   In our parish, we also use incredible choral music. The children sang, and it was an amazing and stirring performance.

How often life is like that service; we feel at the end and in the darkness but yet there are others beside us and walking with us.  And if we look up just right, we can see in the distance the light just like that sanctuary lamp and the promise that things will come together and it will be good.  Life is always and still beautiful, my friends.

May you all have a blessed spring and find the renewal that is so important this time of year.  It promises to be a glorious time ahead.

Many blessings,
Carrie