“Obedience is the compass that guides you in the path God has ordained for you.”  – Abundant Living

I have never seen Sarah jump out of the bed so fast before!

Usually getting Sarah out of bed on school days is a multi-step process that can take several minutes of gentle wake-up calls to finally pulling back the covers and helping her get up. Sarah struggles to fall and stay asleep, but she equally struggles getting up in the morning. If I walk out of the room, she will climb back in bed.

But this morning it was different.

Kendall a few months ago bought temporary burgundy hair color to do with Sarah but they never had a chance to do it. Sarah found the box earlier this week and kept trying to use it on herself. I would grab it and say, “Oh! I think Kendall wants to do this with you.” I would then put it away, but only to have Sarah find it again. Later, I found Sarah watching Youtube videos of ladies dyeing their hair. YIKES!!

I said to David, “We can’t wait for the next time Kendall is home from school. Sarah really wants to do this. I’ll dye her hair tomorrow morning.”

The next morning I opened Sarah’s door and said, “Hey! Do you want to dye your hair this morning?”

I went back to my bedroom to find a pair of scissors I hide from Sarah (as you know, she has had issues of cutting her hair off so we hide all the scissors.) I thought when I dyed her hair, I could trim up her bangs. I walked only a few steps into my room and Sarah was right behind me. I have never seen her get up so fast!! I distracted her so I could pull out the scissors from my dresser drawer without her noticing it.

Sarah was so obedient. I read the hair dye instructions and it said she needed freshly washed towel dried hair. Sarah climbed in the shower and I washed her. When she got out she grabbed her towel and began rubbing her hair with it to dry it. She has never done that before!  I put an old paint shirt of mine on her and she sat on the floor as I stood over her and dyed her hair. She then sat on the bedroom floor for the next 30 minutes as it processed. I have never seen her just sit there for that long for anything! She really wanted this!!

Here is the final product (I opened the front door to get some natural light on it.):

She is BEYOND pleased!

I was so impressed with her obedience! I know it is because she really wanted it, but I think it stood out to me so much because I am struggling with obedience right now.

As you know, many schools are meeting on-line due to COVID-19, including Sarah’s school. We have done on-line school since March and it has been rough at times. Sarah struggles with the video calls and making eye contact with the class. During summer school, we would get through the morning video call with the teacher and she would then go and cry in her room for the next 15 to 20 minutes. Later, she would come down and we could get chunks of work done in between times of crying and meltdowns. I made the call that no matter what we would be done with her summer school schoolwork by 2pm. It wasn’t worth the fight! Summer school is supposed to be a bridge to help her maintain her learning, not to make her miserable.

On Wednesday, the teacher wrote that it looks like we will have up to six video calls every day (basically on the hour) followed by homework based on the call from 8:15am-3:15pm, Monday through Friday.

My heart sank. Six video calls a day, every weekday? I am speechless about this. From March – June, they had video calls a few days a week, Summer school was three days a week and she struggled with both. Now we will have 30 video calls a week! I must be there with Sarah as she doesn’t want to sit and listen. It is not easy.

I feel so selfish about this because I am dreading this. It is going to be exceptionally long days of meltdowns with no break. We will be trying to get the homework done during the hour, so we are ready for the next video call the next hour. For the time being, this will be my life.

Yet, God has called me to do this. How come obedience can be such a struggle sometimes? Pricilla Shirer says that obedience is God’s love language and we can show our love to God by obeying Him.

I want to be like Sarah who jumped out of bed and quickly obeyed all she had to do because she was excited to obey. Or like Samuel in I Samuel 3. Three times (three times!) Samuel thought the priest Eli was calling him and he jumped up to go to him. The first time, I can see me jumping up. Second time, maybe. But the third time?? I would be laying in my bed debating, truly deep-down debating, about getting up. Or, maybe waiting to hear being called a fourth time before I got up. Not Samuel! Each time, he jumped up to obey.

I want to be like that!

I began this blog with this quote:

“Obedience is the compass that guides you in the path God has ordained for you.”  – Abundant Living

God is directing my steps. (Proverbs 20:24 and Jeremiah 10:23) I want my obedience to be the compass to guide me to whatever and wherever the Lord is leading me to do. For now, the Lord is leading me to start off this school year learning obedience by helping Sarah with school. Hi, I’m Jill and I am in Obedience school. 😊

Looks like Sarah and I will both be learning from home. ❤

“Be obedient (to God), even if you don’t know where obedience might take you.”- Sinclair Ferguson

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

“And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands.” 2 John 6a