Reading is Hard — Very, Very Hard
Over the past few weeks our seven year old has made a breakthrough in reading. He’s reading several shorter books by himself and even getting most of the words in some higher-level books. 
Bedtime now consists of him reading at least one book to us as well as us reading to him.
But, just a couple months ago this was a major struggle. We knew he had it in him, we knew he had been learning in school, but it was a lot of work for him to put it all together. It hadn’t clicked yet.
I would ask him to read for me and he’d get the first word or two from the book, stumble over the next one, and then give up.
Sometimes he’d ask me to read a simple word for him.
Sometimes he’d say, “ I dunno.” and walk away.
Sometimes he’d growl in frustration and anger.
I’d try to help, but sometimes he wouldn’t listen.
It’s hard to learn to read. It’s hard to push through a struggle.
In light of the fact that I’m writing for a book review site, drawing a parallel from this story to reading complicated, higher level books might seems obvious. Perhaps the lesson to learn would be about reading the books reviewed on this site. Maybe there’s a connection to writing book reviews, or even a personal confession about attempting to finish up and review a book I’ve been working through for about nine months.
But, if I may, I’d like to draw a bolder analogy:
Life is Hard
All of life is hard.
It’s difficult.
I’m 36 and it hasn’t quite clicked yet.
It’s day in, day out, non-stop daily grind.
It seems that when the rhythms of life seem to be under control the car breaks or one of the kids gets sick. And if you have your immediate family all squared away, then you’ve got to interact with other people and the world around you, at the very least, that’s a complicated endeavor.
There is joy in the journey, but it’s a long hard journey.
Sometimes when the bills are due, or when my son pees on couch, or when I realize I’ve committed to three things at the same time tomorrow I just want to walk away.
Sometimes I want to ask my Father to do it for me.
Sometimes I give up because I don’t know.
Sometimes I get frustrated.
The Kingdom
I’m 36 and I know better than to get impatient with my seven year old when he doesn’t want to push through and do the hard work on something like reading.
I understand; I have empathy.
Reading clicked for him; he made it through.
The older I get the less hope I have that this whole “life” thing is going to just click for me.
On the other hand, the older I get, the more certain I am that my Heavenly Father is with me, isn’t giving up on me.
Empathizing with me. Listening to me.
Helping me through…
