Children assume fun means easy. However, in order to get to waterfalls, you usually have to hike. And hiking is work. Usually hiking is hard work. But, to get to the more enjoyable part, the fun part, you gotta work.
I don't try to make every single moment of school fun for my children. (I'd be exhausted!) I'm teaching them now that anything worthwhile takes work. To get to the waterfall, you gotta hike. To master concepts, you have to do the steady plodding that causes you to progress through your education.
In life, I cannot abandon my pursuits or my duties, because they are no longer fun, nor interesting. An adult will have hopefully already learned the self control to persevere when something is no longer fun and interesting. Self control is formed in the character training of youth. Self control grows every day as a child learns to take the next step, do the next page, tackle the next problem, when they simply don't feel like it.
If I mothered or managed this house only when I felt like it, only when I thought it was fun, I'd probably work, mother, and manage only 25% of the time. I LOVE being a stay at home wife and mother who homeschools. It is my dream and I'm so thankful that I can live my dream every day. I am not deceived into thinking it is fun every single minute.
This is not Heaven. When Adam and Eve sinned, toil and labor became a part of everyday life. Now, work is... well... WORK.
Did you ever think about how before the Fall of man, tending the Garden of Eden wasn't really work? In Heaven, it will be like that again. The sorrow or hard part of work will be gone. Let us never be confused by Heaven and Earth's differences. I love living my dream, but there is still real, oftentimes, unenjoyable, work involved.
I look forward to the waterfalls of life, but to get there, I gotta hike.
Sweat.
Exert.
Work.
May the girlies never shy away from working toward something worthwhile,
because they have to work for it.
