I always thought that God was doing this for my kids, I am sure He is but I am also certain He did it for me too. I recently told someone who straddled the fence for homeschooling that I was the worst person God could have chosen to homeschool her children. I have no patients, a bad temper, poor time management skills, terrible with routine and consistency, I....could....go....onnnnnnn!
But what I am learning right now is far more important than what my children are learning. I mean they are learning but God is teaching me. You see I struggle with my motherly role have since the day I found out I was pregnant with my first. I am not that lovey dovey motherly person, I mean when their babies it is easy but as they grow I have to make myself cuddle and adore and love like I did when they were little and easy to love, with some mom's it seems effortless but for me I have to make the effort. I think partly because I am a grudge holder and when my kids are straight up bad or talk back or cause a scene in public I hold a grudge and loving them isn't easy, I do, it just isn't easy and it takes time for me to work past the grudge and want to show my love again and with 4 kids I tend to stay in a state of grudgeness all the time.
I think God is teaching me to love the way He does through this experience, remember this is not exactly effortless with my children, so you can imagine the love I fail to show others (most humans in particular). But I am getting to see something very unique in them, how they learn in, from and about the world around them. In teaching Trenton to read I have began to sense when he is trying and struggling or when he is not in the mood to even try, or he is tired or getting down on himself or when he is confident. Before it came across as he is being difficult and doesn't want to learn how to read or he is just rushing through his lessons, but now I can read the subtle things he does and I can pin point the issue know when to push, discipline, comfort or encourage. I am getting to know my children and the little unique and special person that each of them is. I have always seen the uniqueness in them but I always tend to look at them and their behaviors (good or bad) and see how they are alike as opposed to how they are different unless it is to say how "none of our other children act like that". I have struggled these two years to understand their style of learning I think because it doesn't fit into one box they are unique in every way. I sometimes can't help but thank God over and over and over again for allowing me this opportunity I think how no teacher would ever see all those unique and special things about my children and in a class room with 19 other kids would have never known how they truly learn. I also thank God for allowing me to learn those very things because when I remember all those special and unique things, I can't help but love them.......effortlessly. And if my children are these special and unique little creatures created and loved by God, then every other person I encounter is too.
I still have bad days and moments, I still have no patients, a bad temper, poor time management skills, terrible with routine and consistency, and I....could....go....onnnnnnn! But I am also learning that God gives me strength in my weakness, that He is using this opportunity to refine me, that everyday I feel Him working out something in my life I have never managed on my own and in Him I am developing patients, and I am slow.....er to temper, I am able to manage my time and my day with a little more routine and consistency. I struggle deeply with it but God is Awesome and on the days when I wake up with nothing to give, His strength is palpable. Imagine what God could teach us all if we chose the path less traveled, the difficult over the simple, or when we choose God instead of ourselves.
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