Originally posted at “the-dance.org” June 2012
My son is learning to read. I am learning to live.🙂

He was sitting in my lap, focused and engaged….and completely out of breath. He does this thing while he is sounding out words on a page, with each sound there is more exhale and yet he doesn’t take a breath, in short, he doesn’t breathe. I remind him to stop and breathe and just look at the word. He does. He reads and then we turn the page. He does it again, doesn’t breathe. Its like all his mind power is spent on recognizing the letter, recalling the sound it makes, putting all the sounds together and finding the word. I can feel his body. It gets more and more tense as he gives it all he’s got. Oh my son, so intense. He is dedicated though and he does it over and over again. You can imagine after a short book how exhausted he is. After two books he is spent.

When you know how to read you forget how many steps there are to figuring out one little word. Most likely you don’t have to sound it out, you have it memorized, just at the sight of the word it is default to know what it says, and what that word means at the same time. It has been so interesting to me to go back and take him step by step, training him to either figure it out, or to just advise him to spend time memorizing a certain word. I know how to read, but I have found myself in a different situation that has required that I go back to the beginning and take it step by step. Learning to live out of Jesus’ life and His Spirit inside of me.

As a 28 year old I have habits that my choices have produced in me. Flesh patterns. I respond, think, believe, speak and act in many ways that are default. I don’t think about them. I am not talking about involuntary acts like breathing or my heart beating. I am talking about choices that I have made over and over again throughout my life that have become habit. Most of these “flesh patterns” have become a part of my every day life without me knowing it. To me they are normal. I have behaved or thought a certain way for so long that I have forgotten where they actually originated from, or why.

Most of my beliefs have been corrected; first of all my concept of God, the truth about how He sees me, and the truth about who I am as His child. I have spent time diagramming my “flesh patterns” (ways that I get my needs met apart from God), and I have been exposed to the truth concerning how deep they go. I have learned about my rights and how I need to let them go (there are so many!)and I have forgiven those I had been choosing not to forgive. I have surrendered to the love and grace of Jesus Christ like never before. With all of this knowledge the Lord has given me through my class at CFT and the Word I now find myself at a place that requires action, and spiritual breathing, and at times physical breathing, seems hard.

Jesus has been faithful to open my eyes to the error of my beliefs and my actions and he is taking me back to the beginning and teaching me how to live my life, every minute of it, in accordance to His will and in the center of His grace and love. Every default in my mind is being stopped, re-worked and then put into practice over and over again. I am trying to create new “defaults” Wow. It is so much easier to learn something right the first time instead of trying to re-learn it.🙂

So these days as my son sits in my lap and I teach him the basics of phonics and I encourage him as he breathlessly struggles through, I find myself sitting in the lap of my Father allowing Him to teach me the basics of spirit filled living. He constantly encourages me with truth, reminding me of who I am to Him. Just as my son takes each letter and discerns its sound and role in the word, my days are spent taking each thought captive and discerning if it is truth or lie and then allowing the Spirit within me teach me how to act according to His life and His will. I feel emotionally exhausted. My son spends 15 minutes max learning to read each day. He is 4 and that is all that can be expected of him. I on the other hand have the opportunity to learn and be taught every second of every day. There are days when it goes well, and other days when I just want Him to back off and give me a second to breath…but He loves me to much to allow that. He wants more for me. He wants my needs met in Him, He wants all of me, He wants me to be intimate with Him…

It can be overwhelming, but the Lord has equipped me. Equipped me with truth and love and grace, and as I yield my behavior my identity stays safe and sealed in Him. I am encouraged and excited every day as I experience the Spirit opening my eyes to the choices I have before me, and the beliefs I have going on inside of me. He is an attentive teacher. He never lets anything fall through the cracks, He knows this is an important lesson to learn.

Each time Jakob and I practice reading I have thought about addressing it more aggressively, this interesting and exhausting way my son sounds out words. But I know that it’s necessary to give yourself over to the process. I know how it feels to stretch yourself; mind, body and soul. Sometimes in the little mundane moments (or letters) you have to exert yourself and everything you have to do it right. You have to train yourself to do something new, or different, and at times it requires all of you.

I pray that my son becomes an excellent reader, for those of you that know me you know that it is one of my great passions.🙂 It is the first stepping stone into learning, working, and sharing with others. Just as the skill of reading will open up many doors for my son as he grows, so will the skill of listening to and yeilding to the Holy Spirit in my life. I want to be Spirit led in all things I do, I want His actions to be my actions, His thoughts, my thoughts and His words, my words. I want to let go of my rights entrusting myself into His heart, finding every need met in His arms, trusting Him to provide and protect.

I hope I will have the honor of teaching my son (and daughter) this way of living one day. Teaching them that this life is not meant to be lived based on how we feel, yet it is meant to be lived from the center of a wild, adventurous, always bigger than us, relationship with our creator. Who passionately loves us and wants us to experience this life, His life, abundantly!