God is Good in the Struggle
I’m rejoicing right now! I love the fact that God cares about the little things in our life and sometimes intervenes in the areas that don’t seem very spiritual. My “mama heart” is celebrating the goodness of God!
My sweet baby girl has been struggling with learning multiplication. She is so smart, but memorization (especially involving numbers) can be very difficult for her. This struggle has taken a toll on her self-esteem and, as a mama, my heart was breaking because of how even her personality was being impacted. My joyful, vivacious little girl was being overcome by anxiety and doing every thing she could to avoid the frustrating exercise of trying to memorize her times tables. I was trying to help her but nothing we were doing was working.
God is so good! During a casual moment of conversation with a friend, I mentioned our struggle and she offered to come over and help us. She told me she had a system she had used with kids in the past and that it uses pictures with numbers and stories. While I didn’t understand how the system she was sharing worked, I was willing to try anything to help my child.
Last night, we worked on 4’s and guys – she already has them pretty much memorized! Those of you you who find yourselves in this same part of life with their school-ages children now or in the future can find this incredible learning resource on Amazon. Below is a video featuring more information about Memorizing in Minutes: Times Tables.
Two Are Better Than One
Joy for my daughter’s victory overflows within me, especially after witnessing her response to overcoming her struggle. Her excitement and newfound love for memorizing set her on a personal mission to help a fellow classmate she knew was experiencing similar struggles. Today she brought the binder of materials with her to school read to make a difference in the life of her friend.
I love the fact that her immediate response was to think of how others could be blessed by the gift God gave her. She and her friend will no doubt encourage and strengthen each other while they work together to overcome the challenge before them. Isn’t that what the Lord intended for our relationships?
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. ~ Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (ESV)
Truths Revealed>>Lessons Learned
Last night during our time of prayer with God we were laughing with the fullness of our joy and a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving spontaneously poured out of us. As we prayed and talked about how God answered this prayer, a few things came forth:
- We are fearfully and wonderfully made and although we may struggle with being different from others, God will use us just as we are and there are things locked up inside of us that He holds the key to unlocking. We may be hardwired differently than others, but He will use that unique hard-wiring in our destiny with Him. He knows us better than we know ourselves.
- God is the God who sees and He truly cares about the hurts we are enduring. He takes no pleasure in seeing us suffer and doesn’t want us to believe lies about who He created us to be.
- Struggles do not mean God is punishing you! God does allow struggle and sometimes this truth is hard for us to grasp. God loves Jesus and He loves us. He sent Jesus to us out of His great love for us and Jesus endured a tremendous amount of struggle. The struggle prepared Jesus to do what he came to do; our struggles will prepare us as well.
- Our struggles make our victories sweeter and will enable us to help others struggling with the same things we are or have struggled with. They create compassion within us and points of connection to others. Often, our shared pain can be a place of Godly connection that can be used for great good.
- There is great value in struggle and lessons learned that easy success can’t teach us.
It pains my “mama heart” to watch my child struggle or suffer in any way. Through the years I have often suffered alongside my child, blaming myself for the struggle, jumping through hoops and experiencing tremendous anxiety trying to solve the problem. Beware that in the midst of fighting our battles, we can inadvertently send our children the message that they are defective and not good enough the way God designed them.
Sydney is my youngest child and at this stage in my life I am teaching her lessons I did not understand with my older children. I’m able to do that because God has exposed deep rooted lies I believed about myself and what His truth is.
God Sees Us
The truth is God made my child and though I don’t like to see her struggle with a learning issue, I must trust God to work in the midst of her particular struggles. What is important for her to be taught and truly believe is that God loves her. God sees her. God cares about her pain and although she may not always understand why He doesn’t intervene, she is His dearly loved daughter and He takes no pleasure in watching her struggle.
Her struggle is not because she is a bad girl and He is rejecting her. She is growing stronger in the midst of the struggle and God disciplines those He loves. Our children must be taught that trials will be a part of their life. We must understand this as well.
We will learn valuable lessons through our trials, lessons that can’t be taught any other way but through struggle and even failure. I could go on and on. There is so much in my heart! But for now I leave you with this thought:
Our God cares about every detail of our lives and desires to use the negative things every bit as much as the positive things!
I pray this encourages you my dear friends. I encourage you to share this testimony in the hopes that others might be able to find comfort and direction if they have children who are also struggling to learn multiplication. It is my sincere heart’s desire that that more parents gain victory and hope in that battle they are fighting!