Making It Look Easy

Yesterday we made a stop at Books-A-Million for the fun of it and to get that birthday gift we missed out on Friday. When we were checking out, the young lady behind the counter commented on how there were so many trinkets on the counter and around the checkout area it was hard for her to work. It was also hard for little hands not to touch and play and beg. Horribly conniving marketing it is. Ivan found some little candies in bright shiny sugar coated colors and with his big blue eyes glowing in anticipation asked me to look. I quickly and firmly said, “put it back.” He was disappointed and whined a little but made no delay in getting the candy back to its original display. The clerk stopped what she was doing and stared at him for a second and then said to me, “That was easy.”

My first thought…though it did not escape my mouth…was, “no…no it wasn’t easy!”

After her comment, I looked at Ivan and had flashback after flashback of episodes with his iron will that left us both crying and exhausted. Ivan is the one I’ve had to discipline again and again for the same issue because he is determined and strong. However, in the past few months it’s as if he has pulled through that stage. He doesn’t test me as much as he used to and responds more quickly and with a little less complaint. So…though it looked easy to get Ivan to obey quickly…it wasn’t. It’s taken most of three years to get that response from him.

It’s that way with so many things. No matter how much natural ability someone has…in order to make it look easy on a football field, you have to practice. In order to bake from scratch and make it look easy, you have to have lots of mediocre and failed attempts. People used to comment to my partners and me in our drama team at how natural and unrehearsed we looked on stage. It was not because we were unrehearsed; it was because we were so rehearsed we knew forward and backward what was coming from the other person and how to respond appropriately.

In all of those thoughts, I pondered our blessings. It’s easy to look at other people’s lives and the favor they seem to have in some area, or the abundance they have, or the relationships they have, and think…why do they have it so easy. Maybe we just don’t know what it took. Maybe…just maybe…God is laughing at our reaction to His blessing on someone else and thinking…”no…no it wasn’t easy. It took me most of 30 years to get her to be friendly to people and acquire healthy friendships.”

We simply do not realize what we are looking at when we see the process involved in creating God’s masterpieces. My friend/cousin-in-law Michelle recently posted on her blog about going through trials and how she is determined anew to rejoice in those trials, realizing the great benefit they have brought to her life. I think we all need to do that, and more than that we need to have the patience to allow others to mature in their trials. We (or maybe it’s just me) are too hasty in frowning on what we know nothing about.

I am faced with decisions everyday which test my endurance and grow my patience. I am hoping that I learn more and more to recognize those tests, large and small, as steps toward making it look easy.