Kids

I love kids.  I enjoy working with them and playing with them.  At my school I am a peer tutor, which basically means that I help an elementary kid with his schoolwork once a day.  This past week has been rather rough in working with him.  I do my best to be patient, but these past couple of days he has just been very unfocused and uncaring.  There is only so much that I can do to help a child who does not want to learn.  You can point to the worksheet, you can talk to him, you can try to coax it out of him, but if he doesn't want to do his work, then there is absolutely nothing that I can do.  Personally, I find this aspect of peer tutoring very frustrating.  It's sad to me, to think about how much potential a child might have, but they waste it.   How can I make a child have a passion for learning?  How can I make a student care about his grades?

Honestly, I don't know the answer to that, but if I feel that disappointed with a student when he has given up, how does God feel when we give up? He tries to convict us, He points to things that should be fixed in our lives, and we just shrug our shoulders and say, "Whatever." 

I am in a constant battle to do what God desires for me, and sometimes that is painful.   Jeremiah 29:11 tells me that God has plans for me, and that his plans will not harm me.  This verse does not say it won't be hard.  The verse says that God will not harm me. 

I will trust God, even if that means I have to push through some pain.  In a physical sense, your muscles grow sore as you work out.  Eventually they grow, but there is pain involved.  I have to trust that the pain that I endure while I try to chisel things out of my life that are unholy, will build perseverance, and that perseverance will make me stronger and more complete. (James 1:2-4)