With steam coming out of my ears and eyes blazing as fiery as my hair, I would love to tell you that the cause is a noble one. Hardly. Yet again, it’s my “frenemy”—kindergarten mathematics. As the situation escalates, I’m trying (sort of) to remind myself, “Self, this is not worth it. Who cares?! It’s just kindergarten. She’ll get it eventually! Your relationship with your daughter is more important than this!” But the frustration barrels over my self-talk; the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, “Slow. Breathe. Look at your child,” is muffled by my perseverant stupidity. Here I am--I’m much less than I should be to my Little Bit in this moment. AAHHH!
So of course, I had those blissful (NOT!) moments of guilt, self-loathing, ugghhhness while going through the motions—walking away from the math to slap mayo on six pieces of bread, mumbling prayers of repentance to Jesus, and then for the umpteenth day in a row, asking my Little Bit to forgive me for being unkind and impatient during math. By mid-afternoon I’m praying AGAIN, “Lord, I got this wrong, right? Homeschooling calling? It’s all a big misunderstanding between us, right? Clearly, I’m not good at this. I mean, I’m good at math (ahhemm –pride), but I just can’t teach it well to a five-year-old, and you know, I can’t leave out the subject entirely forever.”
Jesus. Ahh…His presence is so good. His Spirit whispers back to my spirit the same thing I’ve said to women in far more serious predicaments than this one, “I will make a way.” Jesus will make a way when there seems to be no way.
So here’s the happy ending: He did make a way for the Little Bit and me!!! It was beautiful! (Even though I didn’t get to bail on homeschooling or the process of being made more patient, I did get to bail on math—sort of. She got a new, gifted math teacher.) I share my math teacher inadequacy with my Dear Husband. He comes home from work, takes the Little Bit and her little table into a room with all the wonderful math manipulatives, and after about fifteen minutes, sounds of laughter and cheering are pouring out beneath the shut door. Thirty minutes later they invite me in for a game. I’m the contestant. Little Bit is the gameshow host. We both win the game.
God is good. In a seemingly insignificant, routine day He reminds me that He’s infinitely creative. He has solutions we can't even conceive. And almost always those solutions involve relationships. He humbles us by placing us in the posture of needing someone else. (It's humbling because we all want to be so ridiculously self-sufficient at times.) He’s present and working in all things. Sometimes He changes our circumstances, but most of the time He changes us. Either way...he knows which is best for us and leads us in that way. He loves us so deeply that He meets us here in our little spots on the globe just as he met the leper, the lame, the little children, the sinful woman, the blind man on dusty roads on another little spot on the globe a couple thousand years ago. The same Jesus. The same Redeemer can redeem all things . . . can redeem all of us.
Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track.
Don’t assume that you know it all.
--from The Message, Proverbs 3:5-7a
don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track.
Don’t assume that you know it all.
--from The Message, Proverbs 3:5-7a
