The Problem is...Laziness

I am teaching my 4th grader long division.  Every time I say it's time for math, he stalls.  "What time is it?"  "Do you need me to watch the younger kids?"  "Aren't we supposed to be reading now?" 

When he does sit down to work, he usually does handwriting instead...on his math page.  He covers his paper with, "I don't get it.  I need help.  I don't know."  I remember learning long division.  It's the most challenging of the math operations to learn for sure!  But my 4th grader is extremely bright and knows what is required to divide. 

When I went over his work with him, explaining again and again what he needed to know, it suddenly occurred to me what the problem was.  I told him that there was a technical term for the struggles he was having.  I wrote it on his paper.  L-a-z-i-n-e-s-s.

He smiled.  He knew I was right.  In order to do long division, you have to guess at the correct answer.  Then you have to check to see if you are right.  If you are not, you have to erase and try again.  And you repeat this process over and over.

How many times in my life have I been like my son?  I've said, "I don't know how to lose weight.  I don't get how to exercise regularly.  I need help to get organized."  Yet, like my son, I really didn't need someone to tell me over and over and over how these things were done.  I knew what needed to be done.  I just didn't want to try, make a mistake, and start over.  The problem was l-a-z-i-n-e-s-s.  I can smile at that. 

Is it time to work on your problems?

Help for a Headache

I was having a new dishwasher delivered in two hours and I needed to make sure my basement storage room was picked up so there was easy access to the water.  I had no idea where the water access WAS in the basement, but I knew I needed to get busy.

I was furiously moving the piles of clothes that are a part of life with six kids when I stood up and rammed my head into a pair of faucets.  OUCH.  I went upstairs in pain and retrieved a phone message from the day before telling me that I had to have my old dishwasher uninstalled or they would not take it away.  I panicked a bit at first, but then I determined that I COULD uninstall my old dishwasher. 

I unplugged the dishwasher and headed downstairs to find where the water line led to.  I moved ceiling tiles getting tons of dust in my eyes each time.  I couldn't figure it out.  Back upstairs I went where it looked like the water line just needed to be undone with a wrench.  I disconnected the hose and turned off the water.  Wow!  I was quite proud of myself.

Then I set about to try to get the dishwasher out of the cabinet.  I could only get half of it out no matter how hard I lifted, pulled or twisted the machine.  In the process I smashed my hand.  I started running the water only to discover that I no longer had hot water.  What I DID have was a flooded cabinet and kitchen floor.  So much for my plumbing skills.  I put everything back the way it was.

All this time I was trying to solve this problem alone and I was not doing well.  It hadn't occurred to me to pray.  I'd love to say that the moment I prayed the diswasher just slipped out of the cabinet.  But God had a better idea.  I called the delivery people, planning to tell them that I just could NOT uninstall this dishwasher and they needed to keep the new one until I got some help.  Instead, the delivery people explained that as long as I had an installation appointment (I did), the installation people would uninstall the old one. 

Oh. 

When the installer came, he never set foot in my newly picked up basement.  Pride goeth before a fall...and a headache, too.