You know the saying, “all good things must come to an end”?  

I don’t believe that saying. If God is the Maker of all good things, and God never ends, then the good things can’t end either. He doesn’t just stop blessing people all of the sudden – it doesn’t work that way (unless you walk away and want nothing to do with it).

This year has brought me many new and amazing things, and it’s only April! I know that by now you’re probably tiring of the word “amazing”  because I realize that I’ve been immensely overusing the word. What else can I say? Things are just…GOOD! Spectacular! Amazing!

Okay, I admit that the down days do in fact come. Let me share an example with you. A couple weeks ago, I was preparing for my first night of a 7 week business course in the city. I was going to get there early, find the building immediately, and walk in cool and confident. 

I got to the campus, playing a happy song over my car speakers from my iPhone playlist. I felt confident and stylish in my fabulous sunglasses. Then disaster struck; I got lost! 

I drove in circles, baffled and completely out of sorts. I didn’t panic right away, knowing that all I had to do was pull out my beloved iPhone and give the office a call to find the location of the classroom. Easy, right? Nahhhhh! I had lost all my phone contacts the week prior, and forgotten to add the office number back in. I quickly tried to check my mail and retrieve the phone number in an email that was in the trash. The phone started acting up, pausing and freezing, finally requiring a reset (this was an iPhone – not supposed to happen!!). After 3 failed attempts to open the contents of my trash folder, I gave up, called my mom and had her pull up the information on my laptop at home. I sighed, calming myself, and dialed the number as soon as I got it. It was okay; things would be just fine.

Ring. Ring. Ring. No one answered the phone.

GAH! Not cool! I sat the phone down and reached for my bluetooth, planning to turn it on so I could drive around and keep looking. Thunk. WHAT WAS THAT? I looked down to where I had just set my phone. It was gone. I drove my hand down in the tiny space beneath my seat in panic. I needed my phone to call and find the class, and it was already ten past six – I was late! My hand got stuck and with a grimace I yanked it back out.

I jumped out of the car and tried to open the back door of my ’98 Explorer, thinking I could reach it from there.

The door wouldn’t open. 

I yanked and yanked, but that back door was stuck! WHY?! WHY ME?! WHY NOW?! It was 15 past now, and I was getting more anxious by the minute. Finally, I went around to the other side and opened it, and there sat my phone. I grabbed it and jumped back in the drivers seat.

Suddenly I noticed a number on my directions. Could that help me?? It was the building number, and minutes later I found the location. (Duh!) I parked, practically RAN inside the doors, and found myself lost again. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only person lost and didn’t feel so stupid walking in another 10 minutes later at 6:30 (a half hour late)! It was an unnerving experience and had me ready to just give up on the whole idea.

It’s things like that that hit me when I least see it coming. Things glitch, people make mistakes, or things come up missing. It might not sound like a big deal, but if I’m already stretched in too many directions, it’s likely that some part of me is going to snap like a rubber band being pulled too far apart and breaking as a result. My life is great but don’t get me wrong, I do have my bad days!

Bad days aside, if you’ve read this far, congrats. I commend you for your perseverance as I know I can be long winded at times!! (Years of struggling with not  knowing what to say have turned around into have too much to say!)

I do have a bit of exciting news I’d like to share before I close. I have been asked to do a one hour presentation at this year’s LEAH Convention in Rochester, NY, an event that attracts an estimated 4,000 homeschoolers each year. Of course, I won’t be speaking to quite that many in my workshop, but I do look forward to the event immensely! What a FABULOUS opportunity.  If anyone had told me 5 years ago I’d be speaking at the LEAH Convention, I would’ve laughed in their face and likely told that person to go jump in a lake somewhere (haha). So let me just leave you with this thought before I sign off for the night and get some greatly needed rest:

Good things don’t come to an end with God. He’s got your future all laid out – much like a blueprint –  and you will never be disappointed. He’s got your back!

My blog title really isn’t an expression of what I’m feeling right now. It’s probably leaning more towards the air of sarcasm, but we’ll pretend that’s not the case. These last couple of days, I’ve been sending out hundreds of emails to homeschool groups around the US, informing them of the existence of Bit & Bridle Magazine. It’s a lot of tedious work, but I pray it pays off. I’ve already been seeing some interest so I believe the results will be good. The thought to start my email chain was birthed by the memory of how I first learned of B&B. It was through an email, sent to my mom a few years ago by a homeschool group in my area. Who would’ve thought I’d be editor a few short years later. Huh. God works in mysterious ways! I won’t complain about that one. So that’s what I’ve been busying myself with these week.

Btw, I added 550 words to the book tonight, even amidst all the emails I was sending. It feels good to accomplish many tasks at once!

When I was really young, back before my homeschoolie days, I loved to hum and sing when all was quiet and I was alone. I recall singing on the playground swingset many times during lunch break in elementary school. I loved my voice so much that I once even claimed to have the beautiful singing voice of some Disney character in one of those sappy princess movies. Memories of those days make me smile and shake my head in amusement. 

As I got older, my taste in music went from Disney soundtracks to something a little more upbeat and trendy. I began to make new friends as I hit the teen years, and with the new friends came a new craze for wild music. It wasn’t anything too bizarre or out of line, but it was definitely different. The sudden change of CDs in my player was enough to make my mom wonder what on earth had possessed me. I tried like heck to pin up my favorite boy-band posters on my bedroom wall, only to have them pulled down by the wicked witch (I say that with affection) at every attempt. I get a big laugh out of it now, but believe me, I hated it then. I was 15 and definitely old enough to have band pictures on my walls. So what if they happened to be cute guys? I didn’t see the problem, but by gosh, my mom surely did. 

Those years passed after numerous struggles finally resulting in a burned CD. No, I don’t mean burned as in, on the computer. I mean, burned IN THE WOODSTOVE kind of burned. Yep, folks, she did it. Threw my root of rebellion right in the fire pit. I didn’t find out until nearly six months later what had happened to my beloved CD; I thought she’d merely confiscated it and planned to give it back when I was a bit older. You can imagine the look on my face when I found out it was gone for good. Ha, yeah. I wasn’t a happy camper.

Now that I’m grown, I of course choose my own selection of music without worrying about where it might end up. I have a small mix of country, indie, and Christian, but nothing too radical. Strangely enough, the CDs I listened to during my teen years were also “Christian.” But understand, it wasn’t really who sang the music, but rather how the music made me feel. The heavy rock and seemingly mainstream lyrics were really too deep for a girl my age to comprehend and interpret into a Godly perspective. I find it interesting how teenagers blow things way out of proportion. EVERYTHING is just a huge deal. Friends, TV, music. When they don’t listen to the wise counsel give, sometimes they just have to live and learn. I thought I was going to be the next teenage rockstar in those years, a shining pop singer like Hannah Montana or Hillary Duff. Well, what do you know, I turned out to be a writer instead. Funny how things work out, eh? I may never be a “rockstar,” but I do have to get a chuckle out of my new haircut (see pic at the beginning of this post). Rockstar, anyone?