I’m not sure what went wrong yesterday morning. But I know I wasn’t choosing gratitude.
I chose discouragement. I wanted to give up.
All over a stupid math problem?
Yes.
Set 32, problem # 7, to be exact.
But parts of it I don’t. The parts that pull out my impatience. Or the parts that take up too much of “my” time.
Or yesterday, the parts that require extra brainwork when I’m too tired and too selfish to hand it over.
So instead of deciding to be grateful for the freedom to teach my own child in my own home in my own timing, I decided that I couldn’t do it. It was too hard.
I quietly went to my bathroom. I closed the door. I sat on the floor. And I cried out to God, “I can’t do this!”
But God is more faithful than me. After my cry, I took an internet break to check out Barbara’s “The Week in Words”. And what did God send me there?
We have thankful days and unthankful days.
And even our thankful days are not as thankful as they should be. Just think of how joyful and thankful you would be if your heart responded to God himself and his ten thousand gifts with admiration and gratitude of which He is worthy. – John Piper
He nudged me back to the dining room table, back to Set 32, and forward to problem # 8.
I had found gratitude again. Nothing had changed but that. It was a choice: to be thankful that I had time to learn something new (even though I know I learned this 5 years ago). That Jenna was being super-sweet. That life wouldn’t end even if we never worked problem # 7.
Which we still haven’t, by the way. I know it’s still out there, looming large. But I don’t want to let a math problem turn into an attitude problem. Instead I want it to remind me to choose thankfulness. To respond to God for the gift of himself and the 10,000 gifts he gives me daily.
Choose gratitude. It’s the right answer inside any and every problem.
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24 comments:
It is not happiness that makes one grateful but gratefulness that makes one happy.
I home-schooled for four years, and neither math nor science were my fortes. My husband was a physics major and math minor, but he worked all day -- it would have been nice if he could have handled those classes for us! But we could leave the thornier ones to ask him about in the evenings, I do admit there was a time or two I looked at the answer in the teacher's book and worked backward from that before I could explain it to my son.
I'm glad that word ministered to you yesterday!
I like hip chick's comment, too.
God is so awesome! I love how He teaches us and encourages us along the way. Thanks for sharing, Lisa! Blessings!
I hear you on this one. For me, sometimes, it's opening up my e-mail to find a question from a student that I just don't feel like answering. Suddenly, I'm ready to quit. "Why did I sign up for this? Why am I teaching?" Or it's the one cantankerous resident at the nursing home. And there I go. I'm done.
And then, in God's grace, He reminds me of why I keep going. Not because of the money or because it's my job. Because I have been given so much. Because I've been given something to share--something to share with my students, with my residents, with the world.
I keep going because God is good--and that's reason enough.
I love the gratefulness quote, too.
Barbara, if you only looked at the key now and again, you did much better than me. I use my key EVERY day. So glad you were attentive to the words you heard during the week and shared them at just the right time.
Rebekah, it is all God's grace, huh? We have so much to give from our overflow. Yes, God is good and that's reason enough to keep going. Keep him as the reason you serve and bless your young students and your older residents.
Often it is TOO hard, but I am glad you found gratitude again! (smile) Happiness is a choice and so is gratitude.
O Lisa, I have been there! (so many times!) I am grateful for the calling of the Holy Spirit, prompting us to choose gratitude.
May your week be full of answers!
Oh, dear Lisa, I've been there and done that. :( Often it is the littlest of things that trip us up, like math problems. So thankful God blessed you with words of encouragement and that you chose to give thanks. What a gift!
What a great post, Lisa. Choosing gratitude. I needed to be reminded of that...
Thanks for this reminder to choose gratitude. It certainly changes everything we do.
Lisa, what grand thoughts and how a little attitude adjustment can help. Besides it brings so much glory to the Lord. For He owns everything anyway...our time, possessions, talents and dreams.
Okay Lisa, though I am clueless, my son is in grad school and has a clue when it comes to mathematics. I linked to your post and asked him for input based on your photo. This is his response (maybe it will make sense to you). Hope it helps!
"Looks like some trigonometry problems. sin(arccos(-1/2)) means find the angle with a cosine of -1/2, then take the sine of that angle. The reference triangle in this case is a 30-60-90, and the cosine of 60 degrees is 1/2. To make it -1/2, move it into the second quadrant, so you want 180 - 60 = 120 degrees. Then you take the sine of 120 degrees. The sine of 60 degrees is sqrt(3)/2, and sine is positive in the first and second quadrants, so sin(120) is also sqrt(3)/2. So that's the answer for what looks like part (b).
“For part (c), we want cos(arctan(4/5)), if I'm reading it correctly. Okay, let's see...if the tangent is 4/5, then we have a right triangle with short legs of lengths 4 and 5. Then the hypotenuse is sqrt(16+25) = sqrt(41), not a nice number but we can work with it. So the cosine of the angle is adjacent divided by hypotenuse, which will be 5/sqrt(41), which is approximately 0.7809.”
Becky,
Wowsa! I’m floored that both you and your son took the time to look at my problem and send me this help. God is more gracious in more ways than I can imagine. I may have to add more math problems to my blog in the future. ha.
Tell your son super-thanks from me. If I had seen this reply on Monday, I would have gone and cried some more. But I re-read the math chapter more closely last night, so now I can actually track what your son is saying. And THAT is something to be thankful about! :-)
Blessings to you both!
Lisa
I'm glad you found gratitude again, but as a mom who has homeschooled for 20+ years, I want to encourage you by saying that it's easy to feel tired right about this time in the school year. I hope you will be able to enjoy a break soon and find some refreshment.
Ohhh, as another homeschool mama of over 18 years, I sure can understand when things just don't click in my brain! And I've chosen discouragement too. But there's SO SO SO much to be thankful for.
I am part of both the 1000 gifts and Imperfect Prose with you!
I'm grateful for YOU! Give yourself grace dear friend, you've had a hard road this year.
Elizabeth
http://www.justfollowingjesus.com
Sometimes I too have a hard time finding gratitude in the midst of the homeschooling woes. I think that we need to give ourselves a bit of grace as Elizabeth mentions, I try to remember that even though the days seem oh so long the years are way to short! Embrace this season for it will pass. Thrilled to stumble upon your blog this morning from Emily!
thanks for sharing this with us...always encouraging when god meets us where we are...and john piper is one of my favorites as well
my imperfect prose
Good words. Great words. And a much-needed reminder...
Haha! My big question was "what is the math problem?" and I see that someone already got the answer for you above. Awesome. As for the deeper thoughts of your blog, of course they are dead-on right. Thank God for little reminders like that, from so many different sources!
dear Lisa,
thanks for sharing and i love that it's a math problem...it is such another language and if you're not in it it might as well be Chinese!
i taught high school math for 5 years so come my way if there's trouble in the future...i'd love to help:):)
p.s. YOU CAN DO IT!!
beautiful, lisa. and thoughtful. he is so good, meeting us there on the floor when we cry, no? i too have these unthankful days. oh, to live in a state of constant gratitude. this, we pray. love to you.
We all have a set 32 problem #7 that knocks the wind out of us. Thanks for this great reminder about being thankful and moving forward.
Homeschoolers are so amazing! I would have wanted to do it [it was only beginning back when my kids were solidly in school], and even though I'm pretty bright, my patience level and my math or chemistry/ physics, etc., skills -- or lack thereof -- would be scary, to say the least. So, bless, bless, and bless you again for stepping forward and doing what our Father has put on your heart.
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