Are You Struggling and Can’t See the End?

“You just don’t understand!  I'm not the schooly type.  I'm the cowboy type, Mom.”

My son was nine. We had worked phonics and spelling rules, grueling work for my son battling with dyslexia. Fingers of sunlight filtered through the French doors of our classroom and beckoned my son to come and play. 

I scrutinized the splash of light across his laboring pencil, and his head shot upward, freckled nose following the light like a pointer-beagle targeting a coon. Exasperation darkened his face. He squared his slim shoulders and shook his silky, blond bangs. 

“Can I go out and play, Mom?” At the clear response written on my stoic face, he tried harder. “You just don’t understand!  I'm not the schooly type.  I'm the cowboy type, Mom.”

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed, shook my head, and drank in his earnest eyes. Didn’t this child sleep in six-guns and boots? What would I ever do with this boy? 

Most days this would not have been funny. My heart cried for my son who had to work hard to grasp academics. He was quite accomplished at anything hands-on, and his verbal skills were high. But written words and spelling dodged him at every turn. Obscure, they were burrs under his saddle, trying to steal the glory of each and every day. I can’t remember, but knowing my son and his ability to out-sell a charlatan, I probably allowed him to escape outdoors.

The fruit of adversity is the accomplishment of a goal which dangles, elusively, just out of our grasp… But its fruit is sweeter than any other when breakthrough snaps it from the branch.

Seven years later on a nippy, December morning, this same son strode into the Department of Public Safety to take his written driver’s exam. More than six feet tall, he towered above me. I smiled when I spied his polished-to-a-shine western boots, and they reminded me of a younger cowboy.

I wrangled with what seemed like abandonment when I pivoted to leave him— alone—for his first all-important written exam. Wasn’t this the son who grew sick and sleepless at the thought of test taking?

The driver's test was the first big hurdle into the adult world, and my anxiety level was as high for myself as it was for him. I winked at him and squeezed his nervous hand.

 "You'll do fine. I'll be praying for you..."

An hour later, I returned. His face was solemn as his eyes met mine from his seat across the room, and my heart lurched. Was this the face of good news? Slowly, his features stretched into a relaxed smile, and he stood and stepped the distance between us. Reaching my side, he was breathless with excitement. 

“I passed.”

All the years of letters dancing on a page for my son flashed before my eyes. His tears and endless ways of trying to get out of schoolwork flooded my memories. I could shut my eyes and still hear the droning of the cassette recorder the past weeks—playing the driver’s handbook over and over into the night. This is a day I will hold in my heart forever. A milestone, born of struggle—attained. We’d found a learning style that worked.

The fruit of adversity is the accomplishment of a goal which dangles, elusively, just out of our grasp… But its fruit is sweeter than any other when breakthrough snaps it from the branch.

What adversity do you face this day?  How are you coping in the middle? Or, are you at the end of your long struggle and have a word of hope for us?

When we don't know where to go, His whispers lead us...