Thursday, 01 October 2009

• Currently Growing Deep in the Chrisian Life see related

  Commonalities of Pregnancies and Algebra II

  Patience is always pointed out as a virtue no matter where you turn. It's not really a very sought after virtue though. Lots of joking about those who foolishly sought after patience is bantered back and forth when people get together and start to poke fun at each other! Like the story about the lady who asked for prayer that God would give her patience and while she was asking her house was flooding and she got home and found lots of opportunity for patience! or The story about my friend who was ordered to bed with her difficult pregnancy who said," I know what God is trying to teach me! He's trying to teach me patience and I wish He'd hurry up!"
  
  
  I've often been told that I must be a very patient person to have had six children and  to have home schooled them. When the kids were little and people said that to me. I would laugh and say,"No I'm not a very patient person. I use all of mine every day!"
  
  This week I found myself pondering patience and standing back and thinking about how and why I've been discouraged from developing a patient attitude and patient habits. And really, we are encouraged to hurry up all the time! Don't wait for anything. Make it happen now!!!!!
  
  One of the things that brought this whole topic to mind is that right now I'm watching and encouraging three of my daughters as they weather pregnancies. Another is that I'm teaching my youngest Algebra II.
  
  Pregnancy is something I know a bit about, since I did give birth to six of my own offspring. So, I can speak with some degree of authority in that realm. Although, doing something six times is really not that much experience! I'm definitely still learning about pregnancy and birth. It's really interesting to have a chance to sit in on a conference with my daughter's midwife and to listen to the other two who are doing their pregnancies farther away and are doing lots of reading and researching as they progress through the nine months of preparation. It seems that there are always things to learn and ways to make a birth experience and rearing of a newborn better or worse.
  
  Algebra II is something I am no expert on. I am as much of a novice as Song and we are both learning from the computer program we are using. It is really fun to do this though, partly because, I can see how much more patience I have than I had when I approached the subject with my oldest child. Now I am better able to sit there and not push the information down Song's throat. I can wait for her to digest the material and spit back the answer in her own time.  She is slow to respond sometimes and trying to hurry learning often resulted,in the past, in a frustrated and stunted learner, when I got too impatient. Now I can sit, wait, keep my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself and she stays cheerful more often and the wheels turn in her head a bit easier than they would if I were shoving and pushing her through the material.  I am more patient with my own dullness and slowness in the area of higher math too and have learned to look at it as if I'm breaking a secret code or learning a foreign language.
  
  Patience is definitely a gift from God and it's fun to see it being given to me! Maybe a lot of what I'm seeing is the result of time with God. Time passing by coupled with  more and more experience with others and with myself have shown me the value of patience. So now I am pursuing it a bit more vigorously. And I find myself more cheerful more often during more difficult situations which makes me feel pleased. It's a nice cycle.
  
  
  
  

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