Just Planting Daisies

You mean you have a Masters Degree in Elementary Education and a Rank 1 in School Counseling & you homeschool your kids?

Yes, Yes I do! 

I hear it a lot, all the time actually. Most people are surprised by my educational background and wonder why I left my job in public education to homeschool my kids. I could answer this question in a million different ways, but the short answer is GOD!

Yes, It’s another God story. Truth is my life is full of God stories. So, if you’re ready to hear how God flipped my career on its head and told me to walk out, keep reading. 

I will preface by saying God speaks in many different ways. It could be through a change of heart, a closed door, an open door, a tug or a nagging at your heart, through people that you meet, through someone you’ve never met, or even a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Sometimes God speaks subtle change into your life, and other times it is a straight DRAMATIC change. And if you’re willing to listen, you may end up with a life you never saw coming. 

My education journey started out at CU where I received a bachelors degree in elementary education. It was also there, where I had attended a convocation event and the speaker had vaguely mentioned something about listening to God, and he will direct your path. Of course, that was not really the first time I had heard that, but somehow those words stuck with me that day ~ got me thinking that teaching was not my first choice in career path, but somehow,  here I was. 

Right out of college, I landed a position in my hometown teaching a 2nd/3rd grade class. It was a really tough year and I cried and prayed everyday when I left the school building. I knew that if I got through that first year, I could get through anything! And well, God got me through it. I taught a total of 4 years at that school and finished my Masters degree at WKU during that time. 

After 4 years, I started to feel unsettled or that I needed a change (a friend of mine would say it was my 4 year itch) I would say It was God nudging me along. 

So, I applied for a reading recovery position at O Elementary in B County, I had an interview, but they ultimately choose another candidate. 

But… GOD!!! 

About a week later I received a phone call out of the blue from the principal at another  Elementary school in B. County. He had apparently talked to the principal at O. Elementary, and that principal suggested that he call me for his open Reading Recovery position! WAIT! WHAT???

I got lots of advice as to why I should NOT take that position in B. County. Because why would I leave where I was? It was in my hometown 5 minutes from my house. Why would I drive 50 minutes each way?!?!? So, when I was offered the position (Without an interview), I kindly declined. 

Immediately, I felt that sick feeling deep down in my gut. It was God telling me I had made the wrong decision and I needed to call them back! 

YALL God works in the craziest ways! AND HE WILL ACCOMPLISH HIS PLANS, WHETHER WE LISTEN OR NOT! The path is just way easier if we do! 

~It reminds me of that story in the Bible of Jonah who ran from God and well he ended up in the belly of a big fish~ Moral of the story… If God tells you to go to Ninevia, then you go to Nineva! (paraphrased from a sermon given by brother Gary at Church) 

So against the earthly, seemingly good advice, I listened to God and called them back. I taught Reading Intervention in B. County for 8 years. During that time, I went back to college at WKU and got my Rank 1 in School counseling. 

I was moving right along in my career… But then the next 2 years were a series of life events that would drastically changed my corse. 

I met my husband (That’s another God Story), got engaged, got married, got pregnant, had a miscarriage, lost my position as a reading intervention teacher (God closed that door), got pregnant again, taught in a 1st grade classroom, had a baby, sold a house, bought a house, sold another house, SHEW! If that isn’t enough, my husband, 2 week old, & I moved in with my Mom & Dad while we got our new house in living condition, I took my full 12 weeks maternity leave and didn’t return to my classroom position, moved into our new house, & applied for several other jobs with no luck! 

But then… GOD! 

A person, I had NEVER met (you know who you are) randomly messaged me on facebook one day, and said that they had a counselor position open at her school and she thought I should apply. 

WAIT!!! WHAT??? 

Are you all seeing a pattern here? If you’re not within God’s plan, he will use every means he can to get you back on the path that he has laid out for you. That includes using other people to randomly call or message you, people you have never even met!!! It is truly wild! 

So, I went for the interview and was immediately given the position! DUH! God knew that was gonna happen.

For the next 2 years, I was happy to be the school counselor at LES and it was 30 minutes from home. I had taken several trainings, was the NTI coordinator, and was making plans to go back to college to get a Rank II principalship. It was a good plan and seemed to be the next likely step up the ladder in my career. 

By that time, I had had my 2nd child, and was struggling over the decision of where my oldest daughter would go to kindergarten. My options ~ Our hometown public school, our local small Catholic school, or I could bring her to the school in which I worked. There was SOOOO much that weighed on me with that decision. I prayed about it, prayed about it, and prayed about it.

As another full year rolled around, I found out I was pregnant with our 3rd, I was still struggling with the kindergarten question looming above me, continuing to pray about it day after day. But then, my heart began to shift~I can’t really explain the shift or a certain thing that caused the shift, it was just a nagging on my heart. A nagging or longing maybe; That I should be home with my kids. WAIT! WHAT???

Being a stay at home mom had never even crossed my mind, not to mention homeschooling, and here I was with a sudden longing to keep my child at home instead of sending her to kindergarten at a school. What a CRAZY idea coming from a someone who had put 18 years of heart and soul into teaching others children in a public school setting! And if it were crazy to me, Imagine what others would think!!! I would be NUTS to walk away from my career and besides, it was financially impossible! 

BUT GOD…

God knows the plan before the plan is revealed to us. If we knew the plan upfront,  God knows we would not be willing, So he has to spoon feed us in little bites and nudge us forward little by little. 

I prayed day after day for several months for God to either take that nagging from my heart or make a way for it to happen. 

That’s when Norwex was basically dropped in my lap. Something that I loved and had been using for years. Could that really be the answer… No way that could bridge the huge financial gap. Maybe not the whole gap, but maybe it was a start. 

By the end of that school year, a School Counseling position opened up at the school in my hometown, where I got my start so many years ago, so it just made sense for me to apply. I Got the Job, enrolled my daughter in that same school for Kindergarten, and continued to IGNORE that nagging at my heart.  But guess what????

Yep, you got it! GOD had other plans! 

I went to work and my daughter went to kindergarten that August, but I barely even got the school year started in my new position before the baby girl I was carrying had stoped growing in my womb and it became a high risk pregnancy. I was making trips to louisville for ultrasounds multiple times a week. Long story short, she was born a few weeks early and I went out on maternity leave just 3 weeks after the school year started. 

Upon returning to my position after my maternity leave, THE NAGGING BECAME OVERWHELMING. It was so loud, I could hardly function on a daily basis. It’s AMAZING how God changes the desires of your heart, when it doesn’t line up with his plan. 

Meanwhile, My husband’s business was growing and he could no longer keep up with paperwork and so, one day he said, “I think I need to hire a secretary.” Now mind you, I helped as much as I could, but there was only so much I could do with a full time job and 3 small girls. 

I immediately started calculating the cost of paying a secretary & the cost of childcare for 2 children and well I’m sure you can already guess where I am going…

Yep! Home! God answered the prayers I had been praying for. Definitely not in the way I had expected. I had expected that nagging in my heart to go away, and I would continue climbing that ladder in my career, but he didn’t. Instead, he made a way by growing my husband’s business! WOW! 

So, I resigned from my School counselor position at the end of the 2017/2018 school year. Again, all the earthly advice was given as to why this was a really bad decision. SO much money was spent on my college degree! I often think about that and why God would send me down that path, and then turn around & send me back home? 

Many of our journeys are learning experiences to prepare us for where God is ultimately leading us. There is a saying I’ve heard many times that God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the call. But, I believe that God does both. Our experiences, & failures are God equipping us and preparing us for what he has in store for our future. And the nagging & nudging is him calling us forward to what is next in our journey. 

I must have looked totally insane to most people, like I had lost my mind. But when it is God, It somehow eases your mind and calms your spirit when you are doing what he has called you to do. 

So, if you ever wonder why someone suddenly has a dramatic life change where they drop their life to move to another country for missions, or for a job, or totally change directions in their career, or leave that career for something else, maybe just maybe it is God’s call on their life. 

I have been at home, homeschooling my girls for 8 years now! It still blows me away, to see how this all played out in my life. My home is my mission field right now. That is where God has called me to be, and that is where I am serving. And God has truly blessed me and been faithful through it all!!

Does that mean I will always be here, no. But I am here until God calls me out.

~TRUST THE PROCESS~ 

With Love💚

~Mandy Anderson