One Good Thing Every Day: May 10, 2013
This week is "Testing Week."
As a home school family, we have the benefit of completing our annual testing in a comfortable, familiar environment. The results are seen by the testing administration company, myself, my husband, and my children. Yet, performance anxiety remains in spite of encouragement and assurances.
A year's worth of knowledge bursts at the sight of the answer sheet's bubbles. I feel the pressure, too, as my right brain cajoles and my left brain criticizes my efforts. How will the results of their learning and my teaching look to...us? Nevermind what the world, our friends, or our family think!
Our self-perceptions blind us from performing an accurate analysis of percentages, bar graphs, and statistics. We overlook the absence of last year's tears over taking a timed test for the first time. A child who qualifies for adaptations completes the two hardest sections without assistance on Friday. How do we stay on task despite illness and busy schedules?
I see only one possibility. We close our eyes to our inner mirrors as God unveils His master portrait, reminding us of His unchanging, unfailing love.
"The desire to 'look perfect' is a driving force for many of us...when we grow frantic trying to get everything done and make it look easy, we sacrifice more than our own sanity: we miss out on seeing God glorified in our weakness....An unwillingness to allow yourself to fail at anything, or to let anyone else see that you have failed, is a key indication that your heart does not trust God with the outcome." from A Jane Austen Devotional
"Becoming humble means seeing ourselves as God sees us: needy, yet liberated. We feel the private contrition associated with our neediness, accept God's forgiveness, and then as for help." from Joan C. Webb's It's a Wonderful Imperfect Life
"Although self-sufficiency is acclaimed in the world, reliance on me produces abundant living in My kingdom. Thank Me for the difficulties in your life, since they provide protection from the idolatry of self-reliance."