Ostensibly: To all outwardly appearances

Chaos: A state of utter confusion

School has been in full force for two weeks now. Getting ready was no easy task, especially since my husband, Marty, & I were in Florida for 10 days and got back home the evening before school started! I know, crazy! To make it more complicated, my son, Chism, who’s an eighth grader and has disliked school since the first grade, was already beginning to complain. While in Florida my daughter, Brooklyn, who is a senior in high school this year, called from home to let me know she got accepted in the two Dual Credit courses she had applied for and, of course, was informing me it was time for me to pay for them. That would have been fine and dandy except the college website would not accept my computer; therefore my efforts were unsuccessful. Was this an indicator of what’s to come? It’s been two weeks and guess what’s happened…

One of Brooklyn’s classes got dropped because it reached max capacity before I had a chance to pay; Chism was doing any & everything to get out of actually going to school; All the stores were out of the last bit of supplies we needed; & I didn’t have my before-school-devo planned out. Good thing God was in control because I sure wasn’t! Although I was praying, I began seriously interceding for my children! As I prayed, God allowed me to find out that either Brooklyn, her school principal, or I could ask the math professor if she would accept another student. With Brooklyn at school at the time, and thinking the principle would have more pull than me, I asked him if he would please contact the professor and ask on Brooklyn’s behalf. He basically said no and, I found out later, told Brooklyn to tell me not to call! Little did he know I had already sent the professor an email, talked to the assistant dean and the head dean. The head dean informed me that it was totally the professor’s decision but very out of character for that professor to accept more students. Before hanging up he told me that he would pray favor over Brooklyn that she would get in. I sent the professor a second email and still prayed. That evening I got call from the assistant dean saying he had been praying and that the professor had compassion on Brooklyn and accepted her! Did I mention this is a secular college?!

Praying about it before my kids woke, the Holy Spirit revealed to me exactly what to study with the kids therefore our morning devotionals have been going great! In addition to these blessings, knowing Ephesians 3:20, that God can do more than we ask or imagine, Chism openly accepted my challenge to pray that he’d begin to actually like school. Yep, you guessed it! More blessings! He got an extra class in his schedule in which he is able to do all his homework with a teacher on hand to assist. Having no homework, new students, and wonderful teachers, God answered all our prayers with “yes” and Chism actually likes school! Though our lives are not near perfect, we try to stay focused on the Truth and keeping in line with His will and even through seemingly chaos, God Speaks!

Blessings, Treva Hamm