"I don't like doing this"

Those are the words I heart today as I tried to get my littlest woman to work on her letters.  "I don't like doing this."  Somehow, she seems to think that means I won't make her do it, or that perhaps I might cut the lesson short or go easier on her.  It reminds me of me.  When I am faced with a chore I really hate.  Like dishes.  "I don't like doing this!"  Maybe someone will come do them for me.  I have some help with the dishes, which is great, but if I just said, "I don't like doing this!" and refused, somehow, I thing everyone would be unhappy with me.

Then there is my walk with the Lord.  Sometimes, it is reading a passage of the Bible I find particularly , shall we say, "challenging."  "I don't like doing this!"  But He has something for me in it.  A lesson better learned from print and paper than from the school of experience.  Sometimes, it is going through a particular trial (many trials, for that matter!)  I just want to stomp my feet, and say, "I DON'T LIKE DOING THIS!" And I hear the Holy Spirit gently reminding me that there is a lesson to be learned, a friend to later be encouraged, or perhaps just some of life that must be experienced rather than avoided.  I wish I could find away out of those trials, but there they are.  A part of life.  We can face them with anger or whining, like my daughter with her page of letters, or we can face them with trust and the peace of God walking through it with us.  I have to be honest.   A lot of time, I am like my daughter.  I hate admitting it, but truth is truth.  I don't like to bring my friends down, but when we walked through the loss of not one, but two babies in the second trimester of pregnancy, I will tell you, there was a lot of anger and whining.  The second time through, there was a lot more peace, though.  Not because experience in any way made it easier, but simply because I made up my mind each day, each hour, and frequently, each minute to walk through that fire holding tightly to the Hand of the only One who could hold me up through the whole thing.  Maybe when I grow up, I can respond to trials like Jesus, pleading for God to take the trial away, but accepting in the midst of the fire the peace that only He can give.