This question has been on my mind a lot lately. Each of us have within us a set of skills and a knowledge base that we regularly take for granted. But where did those skills and that knowledge come from? Didn’t someone teach you? Think about it, if no one had ever taught you how to change a light bulb, you wouldn’t just naturally know how. You might be able to figure it out on your own, but you wouldn’t realize that the light would be hot while it was on unless you first touch it. We learn from people around us, we learn from reading and we learn from our experiences. But if you had never had those people to teach you, and if you hadn’t had those life experiences, what skills and knowledge would you be deprived of? It’s sobering to realize that what I might consider common sense, isn’t so common after all.
This post is about our residents and the joys of getting to instruct them in life skills, but really it’s a letter of appreciation to my parents, for I realize daily that they equipped me with so many valuable life lessons which other young people are deprived of. Last week the girls and myself were working on some little sewing projects – I’ve been teaching them some of the basics of sewing. I asked one young lady to iron a piece of fabric for me and as she brought the pressed piece to me, we noticed smoke coming from the board. She had left the iron face down on the board! My initial thought was, “How could she be so careless?! How could anyone not know that an iron should NEVER be left facing down!” Thankfully I was able to somewhat recover from my shock and attempt to give her a lesson on iron safety. “How could she know, if no one has taught her?”–I realized. The next day I did an “ironing lesson” with all of the girls and taught them how to properly iron a shirt and of course emphasized iron safety.
Recently, I asked one of our girls to slice an onion for me. She willingly got a knife, a cutting board and an onion. She then proceeded to slice the onion without peeling away the outer layer or cutting off the ends. I asked another young lady to measure a pillow for a case we were making. She got the tape measure and the pillow, but couldn’t get much further than that without assistance. They knew the tools to use, but weren’t sure how to proceed. “How could they know, if no one has taught them?”
Please don’t think poorly of our girls. Some of them do struggle academically and a few of them are working to complete their GED’s, but even in that, much of the reason for their lack of academic knowledge is due to poor circumstances and due to the lack of value placed on education during their upbringing. As for these other misunderstandings that I am talking about, they are from lack of experience and instruction. “How could they know, if no one has taught them?”
I have found myself pausing and teaching life lessons daily to these girls, planned and unplanned. How to wash dishes, how to set a table, how to pass food around the table, how to drive, how to stop and consider consequences before making a poor decision, how to clean up after yourself, how to apologize, how to challenge yourself, how to try new things...the list goes on. All of these seemingly common knowledge, and yet, really these were taught to us.
I’ve recently been reading a book called The Threshing, A Weapon Forged By Fire. It was given to me by the author, Marsha Winters. In her book, Marsha tells her story of coming to this country from Jamaica as a small girl. She faced verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse from family members and peers and grew up surrounded by darkness and pain. At age six, some neighbors started taking Marsha to church. She continued to go to church faithfully despite the harshness of her life throughout the week. I was amused by her reports of the first time she went to church. She had never seen such love and kindness, and church continued to be the only consistent place she found it. She mused at the way her neighbors disciplined their child in love, rather than beating her out of their anger and frustration. At that point in the story, I had to stop. I’ve never known anything different than discipline with love. I’ve never questioned my parents love for me. I’ve never known a world where the joy and love and peace that comes only from the Father, cannot be found. Yet, as I read the story, and mused upon the earlier question, I realized, “How can they know the love of the Lord, if no one has told them or shown them?” So many of the residents that we work with have never gone to church, never sat around a table for a decent meal preceded by prayer, and never been shown the Love of the Lord. Kyle and I are doing life the way we know how to do it. A way that involves waiting on each other to sit down and have a meal together, a way that involves helping one another out and caring for each other, a way that involves asking questions and listening, a way that involves praying. But the way we live, the environment we have created in our little mismatch home is foreign to these young people, yet, somehow they quickly adapt and grow comfortable in it. It becomes a source of peace for them, whether they realize it or not, they are experiencing the peace and love of a God who knows their past and their brokeness and still longs for their hearts. We may not remind them often enough with our words of the God that brought us here, but, by His grace, it is the way that we live that speaks louder anyways.
I am thankful every day that I married a man with the heart of a teacher and a passion for instructing. He challenges me and encourages me to be a better teacher for our girls. There is such joy in bringing knowledge to people, no matter the age.
Be patient with those who don’t know the things you think they ought to know. Maybe no one has ever taught them. Maybe we should spend more time teaching and less time telling.
"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that is did not know him...This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers...Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth." ~ 1 John 3:1,16,18 (NIV)
"Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone." ~ Colossians 4:5-6 (NLT)
