Little by Little (or “Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day”) – Part 1

We live in a society where so much is instantaneous or almost – fast food, fast internet – we don’t like to wait.

But not everything happens quickly – there are times and there are seasons.

When spring begins, it doesn’t come in one day (at least where we live) but comes over a period of weeks.

Children don’t learn to walk immediately, but go through developmental stages, from standing holding on to something, to travelling while holding onto something, to standing on their own, to taking a few steps, and then a few more, and eventually walking and sometimes falling, until they are finally walking steadily.

As we teach our children, whether academic subjects or behavior for life, they do not learn in an instant. Yes, sometimes things just “click,” and they get it without much effort. But other times there is a slow progression. Perhaps they aren’t developmentally ready when we introduce a concept, and we need to be patient until they are ready. Perhaps we need to try and present it another way. Perhaps we just have to work at it and work at it and work at it with them.

Patience.

The non-academic things we are teaching our children can sometimes require more patience than the academic subjects. “Don’t hit your sister” was one that took our boys quite a long time to learn. “We don’t hit girls, we protect them”. (“Yeah, but what if they are provoking me beyond measure?” “This is how to handle it:________”). And this concept needed to be taught over and over and over. How to handle provocation without physical violence. A good concept for life.

And because these things need to be taught over and over and over, it might seem that our children will never get it!

Be faithful. Keep at it. And pray.

I remember one season where I would call to my boys in the morning and they would come to the bottom of the stairs (their room was in the basement) to see what I wanted. “Time to get dressed”, I would say. (They had been playing and were still in their pajamas). “Oh Mom!” they would groan. “Do we have to? Can’t we play?” But in spite of their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration) they would have to stop playing and get dressed and begin their day.

I wondered to myself, why we went through this scenario Every…Single…Day. Didn’t they understand that they had to get dressed every day when I said so, no matter how much they complained or didn’t want to? Why didn’t they get it?

And then one day I noticed that they just got dressed without me having to call and tell them to do so.

Patience. Faithfulness. Little by little, every day.