The Hard Things Are the Best Things
ByJoe just wrote an article about his favorite PSU basketball memory. It was a great encouragement to me this morning as I struggled to shepherd Abby’s heart in the right way.
We have been getting back into the school routine the last two days after a week and a half winter break. I knew it would be tough to come back, but I really thought she needed that break as well. So this morning as she was complaining about not wanting to do school, especially language arts (which she finds the most challenging), I had to bite my tongue from just wanting to change her outward behavior. My initial instinct is to nip the whining in the bud with something like, “If you whine again you are going to lose your 30 minutes on your Leapster today.” But thankfully God stopped me from saying anything and encouraged me to use this as a teaching opportunity with her. We talked about how life is full of responsibilities vs. privileges. We also talked about how some things are harder for us that other things. I then shared briefly that although our responsibilities are sometimes hard, they can bring us a lot of joy when we persevere through them and come out on the other side.
This is one of my biggest struggles in life. When Joe was home and we were out to dinner by ourselves, we were discussing what our biggest idol in our life is (he was currently reading Tim Keller’s “Counterfeit Gods“) For me, I know it is the idol of comfort and ease. I want life to be without hardship and really struggle with others when they make my life “harder”. To see this sin in my own life gives me a great opportunity to help Abby at a young age to recognize this sin and apply God’s promises to it.
I am thankful that my husband sees that the hard things in life as often the most beneficial. If we could all walk through life with eyes of faith in that way, I think much frustration and discouragement could be eliminated!
4 Comments
January 5th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Thank you for the motivating and inspiring piece. The Boy is struggling to get back on routine too, and I have been tempted to anger, but as I look at my reaction, I find that it is my own sin. Never before have I felt less patient with him in his short life than the past few days. Parenting well certainly is not the easy road, that’s for sure.
January 8th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
He has a selective memory; they beat Michigan and Michigan State, but lost to Iowa in the Big Ten semi-finals.
But it was still a cool article, and I’m glad it brought encouragement to you!
January 13th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
When you have children like I have who struggle with chronic health issues (autonomic malfunctioin), often to the point where they cannot function physically, you learn to constantly adjust-often from hour to hour. My kids cannot function physically on the level other kids can and I’ve had to learn to change my view of what responsibilities are versus what they can handle.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
[...] but it was a challenge to me in many ways. But as I mentioned in an earlier post, it is often the hard things that are the best things in life and teach us the [...]