Down the Mountains, Through the Valleys

There are mountains and valleys to learning.

One of the best, and some would say worst, parts of homeschooling is being a part of the journey up the mountains and through the valleys.  Steady plodding is our approach to the valleys, the mountainous inclines, and the momentum-inducing mountainous descents.

One of our girls was dealing with a lack of self discipline.  We needed to crack down on this tendency before it became something that damaged her entire educational career.  We knew the "crack down" would be hard.

After a few weeks, the fruit has been worth all the tears we pushed through.  Thank the Lord.  He works every day miracles in our lives - even if it is "just" in our school days.

As I was grading her work the other day, marveling over the progress, wondering at the changes, I was reminded by this fact ~

Different people are good at different things.

That will always be true.

We are teaching her to discipline herself to seek out information on her own.  To push through when it feels hard.  To realize that discouragement isn't the end of the journey. 

Surely, she will be better at some skills than others.  Now she is learning that she can push through, figure it out, put her best out there, and improve what she did yesterday and the day before that, whether it comes naturally or not.

God only knows her journey... He's walking it with her.

Photo credit: Blossom1