When God Gives You a Gift

Our week has been a whirlwind. My sister-in-law came home from India for a short visit, we have a family wedding this weekend, and by some calamity everyone we know has recently been under the weather…we’ve been fighting sniffles and throat scratchiness all week.

Regardless of everyone being a little worse for the wear, it’s been great to have Carli here this week. Austen is making up for lost time as quickly as possible—starting with pelting Carli with confetti eggs that first morning!

In the midst of everything busy and hectic happening this week, Austen did something astonishing. Right in the middle of our crazy, she started READING. 

Reading!!

We’ve talked about letters since she was a tiny babe, those fundamental bits of knowledge that we hoped she would soon commit to memory and keep for always, making them a part of our play, a part of our lives. She was quick to speak as a baby, quick to know those ABCs, quick to love books of any thickness, quick to settle into daily “reading” as a favorite pastime.

All the while, I suspected that she intuitively understood me when I talked about letters and sounds during playtimes and car rides and waiting rooms. I had no idea. Our educational play led us to a moment this week when Austen looked over my shoulder at the alphabet magnets on the refrigerator, letters I was swirling around to form short words. She looked them over casually, sounded each one out easily, announcing the words in front of her with lightning quick smiles: “Foxes! Math. Kids! Lids. Cars. Lips. Win. Me…” 

She read them as interestedly as I formed them quickly, a quick study at a game I did not know that she knew. I held my breath, waiting to see how far we could stretch. “Rug. Pug. The. Good. Not…”

She’s read two sight-word readers since then.

I’m feeling the weight of this unexpected gift, a skill we never dared to expect until I had somehow established a regular daily “school time” and pressed hard for it. It is so beautiful that Austen has discovered words and the sounds that make them, and I’m overwhelmed thinking of the world before her, suddenly ready to take her all the literary places I traveled to as a child. It’s this sudden success that has revitalized me, given me a burst of blessed energy for the task ahead, and I know I will need it. The road ahead—that of curating this collection of words and sounds and encouraging progress and (oh, mercy!) handwriting—will require patience and understanding that already feels beyond my limits.

And, oh, I needed this beautiful gift, this sudden new zeal in my heart for teaching my little. Can I be authentic here, just in this tiny space? Teaching Austen to read felt like an Everest-sized chore ahead of me. I wasn’t feeling pressured by her age; she is only three. But I was thinking about my desire to teach her at home in the future, looking at the preschool curriculum schedules I had already created and never managed to stick with, and looking at the weekly tasks I already struggle to accomplish, and I wondered to myself…How? How does anyone learn to read? How does any parent find the time to prioritize this over tasks that feel more urgent? How does any child with a normal-range attention span sit still and absorb information about letters and sounds and word formation? How does any mother actually teach her child to read?

Isn’t it beautiful when God knows your feeling of panic before you have even fully formed it or have been able to acknowledge to yourself that it exists? I had my expectations full of “real” reading curriculum, scheduled school time, and gorgeous child cooperation, and God met me unexpectedly with a gift during playtime. I wish I could take credit for Austen’s reading. But in a way, I really am glad that I can say that God guided us to this point. He can clearly help us move forward without any of my “help” (i.e. panic).

In the meantime, I am reminded of the parable of the talents in the New Testament:

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.” (Matthew 25:14-19)

It is so intimidating as a parent to know that God has “entrusted to [us] His property.” Our kids are His, not ours, and we are called to stewardship of those precious souls. As a mom, I try always to be intentional about so many things—caring for my child physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, etc—but the more things that I learn and try to incorporate into our daily parenting, the more I realize that we are all operating on grace anyway. It can easily feel like WAY too much to handle, much less accomplish well. I’ve definitely heard myself say, “I’m making this parenting thing up as I go!” to people who have asked questions about the way I parent. Nobody wants to be the lazy servant who buries the master’s property, and I know I certainly don’t, even when I am feeling totally overwhelmed. But God leads me again to this passage, reminding me that He gifts “to each according to His ability.” He has not given me more than I am capable of handling. He hasn’t given you more than you can steward well, if you determine to do so. And sometimes, some beautiful times, He rolls up His sleeves right along with us and a child miraculously learns to read.

Shouldn't we make a commitment to ourselves today to do less panic and more Godly purpose in our parenting?

Yup. This is a reminder to myself, people.

<3, Courtlandt