Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The P’s of Parenting: Patience and Perseverance

A couple weeks ago, it seemed like our entire week went awry.  My son, especially, was really struggling.  After all we had just had two weeks of vacation, enjoying the luxuries of fairly “free” family life and celebrations for the holidays.  Now, we were delving in again, into our homeschool life of studies and routine, and the kids were a bit resistant.  My son had a really hard time, and I had multiple conversations with him about attitude and diligence.  I felt dismayed.  Could I really keep up like this?  Maybe I should just throw in the towel?  Nonetheless, I plodded forward, trying to  instruct him in the way he should go, not knowing when the course would change.  Little did I know, our great God was at work in an amazing way (as He always is), and he rewarded me with great fruit the following week.
My son woke up one morning, raring to go!  He had decided that we (all of us) would finish school before lunch time.  His mind went to work and he wrote a schedule on the whiteboard.
IMG_7549
We followed his schedule that day, and it worked!  The kids were so excited!  Since then, the kids – especially my son – have really looked forward to getting school done before lunch.  This has been a long-term vision of mine, one that has seemed nearly impossible to accomplish.  At times, I have surrendered my ideal and realized that I could not expect that from my homeschool at this time.  However, I still pressed on, trying to get my children to have productive mornings, and now – at least for the season – it is paying off.

Parenting is not easy.
Patience and perseverance are necessary
elements of this walk. 

We must not give up!
Keep your vision.  Press forward, bit by bit. 
It was fitting… Today I read a story with my younger children for Language.  The story was about a crow who was flying around in a parched land.  He was very thirsty.  He found a pitcher that had some water in it, but the level was too low.  The crow could not reach the bottom of the pitcher nor could he push the pitcher over to get the water because it was too heavy.  He realized he could put pebbles in the pitcher, one by one.  As the pebbles sank, the water would rise, and eventually he could drink the water.
The book says the moral of the story is:  “Many hard things can be accomplished with patience and perseverance.

Galatians 6:9
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

1 comment:

  1. Wow that is great to hear, my son has a little bit of an attitude. His "yes mamm" army man response has left him since after our busy holiday and vacation as well. We have talked about it and prayed many times.. I know God is working in his heart as I show him that the behavior is okay in our home. Glad to know we are not the only family going thru this.. That is great, finishing school by lunch~yay!! We have the opposite, chores, music and bible study are in the am..after lunch we start school are done by 4! ;-)

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