a tiresome task

Even after all these years of homeschooling, it doesn't really get easier, it just finds a groove. Homeschooling is the most fulfilling and more exasperating time of my day. October has come, and we've found our groove, but the pains of learning are tiresome. Without a lot of details,  I'll confess that I'm not good at teaching math. My parents, the genepool from which I have come, are both brilliant in the world of numbers. Sadly, I have trouble combining like terms. It's one of the most basic algebraic operations. I struggle with parenthesis and get turned around when it comes to negatives. You guys, I feel like the one of the least capable when it comes to teaching math. Thank God, and I mean literally, I thank God, for Khan Academy. It's been a life-saver for this struggling teacher. 

There are tears when math is hard. Even when it isn't as hard as variables in fractions. The learning is difficult. It requires attention and retention. It is a cumulative discipline that requires mastery of one lesson in order to master the next. Unfortunately in my school, the Southridge Academy of Hopeful Assignments and the Honors System, sometimes students aren't carefully monitored, and they find shortcuts. It shows up later, sometimes much later, and the discovery is painful. Thankfully, I am here to redirect them back to the beginning where they stopped learning. 

I find this to be true in so many areas of life. We have these goals of perfection in areas of organization, knowledge, physical fitness, personal achievement, and the list goes on. We find ourselves trying to cheat the system in order to race to the finish-line. I'll give you an example. After I had my third baby, I had gained a considerable amount of weight and felt awful. SlimFast wasn't cheap, but it was an easy fix. I lost weight and found myself wearing the same size clothes I had worn in high school. It was thrilling. I didn't have to exercise or eat vegetables. As a matter of fact, I could even keep eating McDonalds, as long as I drank a shake for breakfast and a shake for lunch, and I honestly liked drinking them because they are delicious! Genius. You can imagine my shock when I got pregnant the fourth time and gained all that weight back in a week, plus much more as the pregnancy went on. My fifth pregnancy was completely different because I had already established a healthy pattern of eating and exercising when I found out I had a bun in the oven. As the pregnancy went on, I gained weight, but it was nowhere near as much as I had gained previously, and it came off quickly after I had the baby. 

It took a daily commitment to do what needed to be done. Just like math. Just like following Jesus. There are no shortcuts. It is not some magic formula that you say a prayer and you're good till Heaven. Look at the gospels, you'll see how Jesus weeded out the ones that really wanted to follow Him and the ones that wanted a quick fix. Following Jesus is about a daily walk with Him in prayer, meditation, and Bible study. It's also about doing the next right thing according to what He teaches in the Bible, not some rule of morality that someone has dreamed up for themselves. It's reaping and sowing good works. It's considering others more important than yourself. It's a daily walk on the chosen path of righteousness. But let me assure you, it's worth it. It's worth every step because in return you will have streams of living water bubbling up from within. You will not agonize over the need for purpose or identity or satisfaction in your life, because Jesus fills all of that.