Rough Waters With Rays of Hope

 It's been a rough season in the Collins household. I'm being pulled a lot of ways, and often school feels like the last thing that's getting my attention. I feel defeated just trying to get my teens out of bed in the morning, or away from the video games at bedtime. The middle kid is really struggling with her anxiety and emotions and I've had to give up on having her "in the classroom" with the other two. My youngest is truly getting the short end of the stick with her fun co-op days constantly being cancelled for one reason or another, group work become unpredictable and often skipped, and Mom somehow never available to help her with her math and science and then riding her case when she's defiant and rebellious right back to me.

But God.

In His faithfulness he is allowing me moments of genuine connection with my struggling middle child. Spontaneous discussions where it's clear that she is applying the Christian worldview we've made central to our family to the secular media that she consumes, and doing a very good job of it. He's let me see her compassion and desire to help a friend who is struggling in her home life. He's sent adult friends to help her brainstorm ways she can troubleshoot her academic troubles and anxieties, and a grandma who is happy to have her hang out at her house for a few hours every other day or so and work on school in a quieter environment.

He's allowed me to see my oldest get really excited about his martial arts training and slowly take up some responsibility for the steps required for black belt testing - even writing a really very decent "personal perspective" paper, which is way outside his wheelhouse. He's let me see signs of growth in a bunch of areas, academic and personal.

He's let me have some good times with the youngest, who gets So Upset when she doesn't understand or think that it sounds worth while, but is so fun to work with when she can get her attitude in line. He's let me see her demonstrate that she can absolutely synthesize information from adult sources and put them into her own words, and that given patience and practice she's going to be a perfectly good writer after all. He's reminded me that listening to "Freakonomics" podcasts on the way home from dance and talking about the info Totally Counts as school, and the fact I never, ever call it that is just a bonus (to her!)

When I look back at the last week I can see all these little rays of light He's sent that say "This may be hard, but I've got them" and remind me I can release the end results to Him.
And I am so grateful for that.
Because tomorrow will be another struggle. I'll probably end up in another shouting match with one of them, make the middle one cry, and make a bad time compromise for the third, who will also find a way to drag out 10 minutes of math practice for 4 hours.
But it's still good. We're still on the right track. And He really does have them.