March Newsflash: Some Things Don't Come As Easily as a College Degree

Over the last several months (since last September, actually), I've been struggling through attending a Russian class for English speakers that our church is teaching. It is a tremendous blessing to have this opportunity to learn to better communicate with those of Slavic background, and also to exercise my mind to learn a new language and way of putting words together. 

While there have been several victorious "aha!" moments, there have been several (severals of) moments where I feel like I'm trying to learn something impossible (imagine trying to swallow a mountain).  Tenses, cases, gender, and the list goes on. It's confusing stuff, and I doubt I'll ever achieve mastery over it.

Instead of throwing in the hat and calling it quits, though, I'm trying to change my perspective, swallow my pride (instead of a mountain), and stamp down my laziness. 

Perspective: Instead of thinking of how far there is to go, I'm trying to think of how far I've come -- Or, rather, how far God has brought me. I'm also realizing just how blessed I am to have people in my life who care enough to support and help me through this learning process. 

Pride:  I struggle with allowing people to hear my bad accent and witness my poor memory, but am learning to deflate my pride (which is much puffier than I ever imagined) and accept and even ask for help.

Laziness: Learning a new language, I've discovered, does not produce results nearly as fast as a two-month university course. Learning to read new letters, how to make new sounds, and remembering new words is a more difficult and requires more dedication. 

In expressing my frustration over my poor Russian reading skills to someone a couple months back, I shared how I used to cry a lot when I was a small child learning to read (English), and how learning this kind of thing does not come easily. My listener (sensibly) responded with, "well, now you'll just have bigger tears." While I found this highly amusing, this was an excellent point: Sometimes learning something requires painful work, and shedding tears because it's hard isn't a good excuse to quit.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:16-17 (English Standard). If we're doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, we're not going to let selfishness, pride, or laziness control us. Oh, for Christ's all-transforming grace to enable us to work -- at all times -- heartily, as unto Him!

Hold fast to Jesus!

Sonia (or, as I frequently write in Russian, Соня)