We are nearly settled in Okinawa. I am working on establishing new routines, and I am thoroughly enjoying having Lee home more than the the last three years.

One of the routines that I started before we start up school officially is morning reading time. One of my children is a good reader and enjoys reading, but the other two need more practice to become proficient. One doesn’t particularly enjoy reading and is an average reader. I have to work really hard finding books that are appealing and fun. My youngest shows evidence that once she puts all the reading lessons together, she will be a good reader and enjoy it, but it has been very difficult motivating her. She is quickly discouraged, is keenly aware that she isn’t reading like her siblings were at her age, and has a short reading attention span.

God is at work, even as I work to help her read. I have a few books that I brought that I think were too overwhelming for her (one was too hard, one was too long), but God provided a couple books at the base thrift store that were just right. As we sat down to read together, and a few tears came, I asked her, “Do you want to learn how to read?”

Her response? “I want to KNOW how to read, not LEARN how to read. Learning is too hard.”

It made me laugh. I also considered how often I have the same attitude. I want wisdom, but do not want to learn wisdom. I want patience, but do not want to learn patience. I want a clean house but not the discipline that it takes to keep it picked up. And so on. It was a good reminder for me to be content as I learn and grow more like Christ. I have not arrived, but I am on my way!

(And, just in case you are wondering, God has been answering my prayer for wisdom as it pertains the reading lessons. I decided that she needed the short Bob books that my older two didn’t need. I purchased a set and discovered that they were just right. I have had some sighs but not tears as we work together. And I see progress.

This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.” Martin Luther