Another Year

When my in-laws divorced I clung to the idea that once we got through the first year it would all get better from there. You know, the first round of birthdays, holidays, etc. I held out through each event certain that after we had been through it once, the next time would be easier - and then it wasn't. I woke up on the one-year divorce anniversary and was so disappointed to realize we were still in the same place as when we went to bed the night before, except we had another whole round of birthdays and holidays to get through.

In this moment I feel the same about the school year. Every year we start strong. We collaborate with teachers, we get an action plan in place, we promise it will be "the best year ever," - and then it's not. I hear the same complaints, wipe the same tears, and shed my own over the same concerns. We've spent hours on end and dollar after dollar for tutoring, training, medication, and herbal "support." What was it all for if what I hear at the end of the day is still, "I'm the only who can't do it." "I try and try but I can't learn it." "Everyone makes fun of me and thinks I'm stupid...?"

Does anyone else out there feel like their child's school career is destined to be a series of the same frustrations disguised in the context of a different classroom?

I kind of hope so, because if someone else did then maybe I would feel more like this is just part of learning and growing and less like it's probably my fault.

Ok, ok. Time to stop griping and get a grip instead. Let's review some facts: my daughter is a better reader than she was last year, and she was a better reader last year than the year before that. She is doing well in history and in writing and she scored the class high on three different assignments in the first half of this year. She has improved and for that matter, so have I, so regardless of our homework meltdown tonight, there are lots of things that have changed for the better this year. Something that has not changed and will not ever change is that SHE CAN LEARN and SHE IS NOT STUPID.

I suppose every year is another round of spelling tests and timed drills to get through, but it has to be more than that. It's a year - 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, - of learning lessons (whether you like them or not), and in that year it's the moments and not the grades that count. I don't know if we will ever have a school year where Dyslexia and ADHD don't trip us up a bit. Whether or not we have a day when I don't compliment my daughter, give her encouragement, and tell her I love her, is up to me.

A new calendar year is approaching and the school year is half way done. We're better than we were before and who's to say we won't be better yet? So, bring on the new year - we'll be taking it one day at a time.

In The Morning - 12/14/12

In the morning I groan when I hear the alarm go off - I'm not a morning person. We gather the kids, say a prayer as a family, and send them still bleary to brush their teeth and get ready for school. I make breakfast, they pack their lunches, we drive the 25 minute commute to school.

Our Friday morning was a carbon copy of our every other normal school day morning, but across the country the school day morning at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut was shattered by gun fire, violence, and terror. A school shooting, 28 dead. Children, families, communities devastated in minutes.  Our everyday morning became an afternoon of mourning.

In considering this tragedy I found comfort in these words:

"When Christ rose from the grave, becoming the firstfruits of the Resurrection, He made that gift available to all. And with that sublime act, He softened the devastating, consuming sorrow that gnaws at the souls of those who have lost precious loved ones.

I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross.  It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.

But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind. And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise... 

Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come." Joseph B. Wirthlin: Sunday Will Come

I celebrate Christmas because I believe that Christ was born on earth and lived as the Son of God. I believe He gave His life on the cross and became the Savior of all mankind. I believe that on Easter morning He was resurrected and because of that all of us will also be resurrected and reunited with our loved ones. And in that day, like on the morning of Christ's resurrection, there will be joy where there was sorrow. 

I ache for those who will spend nights of anguish and emptiness as they mourn this tragedy.  I pray they will remember when they face Christmas without their children, that because of Christmas, they will have their children again, and that because of Christ, "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."Psalms 30:5