Sweet Reward

I shared a sweet moment with my grandson Nathan this week. The moment he realized he could read. A lot of frustration and temper tantrums are behind this milestone. Nathan happily trots off to kindergarten but asking him to do anything school related outside of that often entails pouting, groaning and flailing about. Not too conducive to learning.  But, learning to read takes a lot of practice, so despite his frustrations and 'I don't wanna' attitude we've been working on those letter sounds and sight words. Resulting in Tuesday morning when I put words he's practiced into sentences and he was able to read them. He stopped for a moment, turned wide eyes to me and asked, "Grandma, does this mean I can read books?" "Heck , yes!" I responded and off we went to find one.

This got me thinking that some of the sweetest rewards come from working through frustrations.  Too often I deny myself those accomplishments by letting my frustrations and 'don't wanna' attitude get the best of me. But with Nathan's example and remembering the joy on his face as we sat down to read that first book, I think I'll start my diet, finally clean out the garage so we can park cars in it, get my bedroom painted, get my gardens weeded (so they can grow back again).................................oh yeah, and make some jewelry.  Dear Holy Spirit, help me.

Blessings, Carolyn