Five Minute Friday ~ Grasp

Joining up with Lisa Jo "...where you are welcome to be a writer.

...where a beautiful crowd spends five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing 'em over here.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in. 
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks! 

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on...

Grasp…

"Grrrrrrr... aaasssp."

"G... aaasssp."

"Very close. Try again. Grrrrrrr... aaasssp."

"G... arrrrsp."

"You were closer the first time. Look here. You moved the "r" behind the a instead of the front of the a sound. Make sure your a always sounds like the a in cat. I know you're working really hard. Can you try it once again. Grrrrrrr... aaasssp." 

"G...uh... wr... aaasssp."

"That's not exactly right, but it is much better... Good job. Now let's try another r sound..."

I've been having conversations like this a lot lately. My little man struggles with speech and language. We live on the backside of the desert where the nearest speech and language pathologist is hundreds of miles distant. And so, it is up to me to try and help him navigate this path. This really is the only "academic" area of schooling and teaching my kids where I feel totally overwhelmed and totally underprepared. That's not to say that it is always easy! It isn't - not at all. But in all of those other areas, I love and look forward to the challenge and I see big leaps and gains and jumps in progress frequently.

This? I worry that if I can't get it right, he'll always carry around with him this mark of his mama's failure. That people will mock him and his speech behind his back - even if they don't to his face. I can't bear that thought. He's such an open, happy-go-lucky, cheerful and friendly little guy. And we all know that as he moves closer and closer to middle school and junior high that things like funny speech can become more noticeable and more important to peers and strangers than his generous welcoming heart.

One of the things I'm learning in speech and language remediation is how you search and search to find a place or a word where the student makes the desired sound correctly... and you have him mentally and even physically grasp onto that. He practices and tries and finally isolates a particular sound. Next, he'll think of that other word, one where he's got it right, to try and help him correctly pronounce it in other words and situations. He has to concentrate on the position of his tongue, his lips, his teeth, his jaw... even how he is sitting when he tries to enunciate the word... in the hopes that what he's learned and mastered once in another situation will transfer to this new word.

The Lord seems to be using a similar therapeutic strategy with me these days. As I start 

to doubt, 

     to wonder, 

          to fear, 

               to tremble deep within, 

                     to get angry, 

                            to lose all confidence in Him and myself...

(and it seems like I do a lot lately), He silently points out a time when I wasn't like that, when I was trusting and confident in what He was doing, even when I didn't understand, when I was trusting Him and His leading rather than my own ability. He offers that as something for me to grasp tightly so that I can concentrate on the position of my heart, my mind, my spirit and soul, my body... in the hopes that what I've learned and mastered once in another situation will transplant and begin to take root again, here and now.