A couple of years ago, my sons’ golf coach explained to them the needed mindset for golf. He related, “50% of golf shots you hit will be average, while 25% will be great, and the remaining 25% will be poor. The key to successful golfing is not your great 25% but what you do with the 25% of bad shots.”
In sports’ vernacular, this is called, “Grinding it out.” It means keeping your attitude together, not allowing yourself to get so angry or frustrated that it hampers your next moment. It means making the best of the situation you find yourself in, whether that is in the middle of the fairway or underneath a bush next to a water hazard. It means you don’t keep on lamenting about how bad the last shot was but instead you start planning the next shot. Now, I’m sure this is rather humorous to a non-golfer, but for those who are serious about their game, it is as serious to them as homeschooling is to us.
Let’s face it; most of our school days are average, ordinary days. We get started close to time and maintain a decent schedule throughout the day. While we may not have an educational epiphany every day, we do see that our children are making slow and steady progress. Sure, there are some days when the lights seem to go on. We see a spark of educational greatness. The children serve one another. The house may even stay clean. While this is to be celebrated, we have to know there will likewise be some challenging days when Dad comes home and finds Momma hiding in the bathroom with a gallon bucket of chocolate ice cream to help drown her homeschooling sorrow. What do we do then? We grind.
Grinding is simply a matter of not giving up and not giving in. It is a commitment to finish the day even if it means finishing ugly, and in that there is victory. It means we realize that there are greater lessons in life than math, English, and history. When our children see Mom maintaining Christian love at the end of a frustrated day, it preaches a powerful message, not measured in grades but in stars for eternal crowns. When there is sickness and everyone shows flexibility, deference, and teamwork, what we lacked in academic advancement is more than made up for in biblical sensitivity.
A mom of four shared her deep guilt for the lack of her children’s educational progress during a two year battle with cancer. Shame and a sense of failure were her boon companions. I told her that her children probably learned more in those two years than most kids will learn in their entire educational experience. Her children know what it means to grind it out. Just as they found a way to work through that season, they will find a way to work through future seasons of challenge as well. What will be too hard for them? They have faced some of the toughest tests life has to offer, and they came out as refined gold. That’s homeschool at its finest.
Grinding. It isn’t always pretty. It definitely isn’t glamorous. Still, grinding is a part of every person’s life at some time or another. Every day you endure, you are teaching your children a valuable lesson. Don’t let the lack of tremendous strides blind you to the fact that every day you end the day standing, you are teaching your children some of the most important lessons of life.
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