Preparing to Understand.

How can we gain understanding of things we don't know about? We can't. We must first expose ourselves to information and study things after that. We need to make deductions, try out ideas and come to conclusions. It is easy to decide what we are going to learn in life and what paths we will follow, but is it a fulfilling choice? I learned when I was young we don't get something for nothing. I mean I was spoiled, but as far as effort for results was concerned, there definitely was a correlation in reaping what we sow. The past few days our little family has been playing Wii sports. My Wii fitness age was pretty high. I think my last test said 54 years old. Yes, this is just a video game, but it goes to show that I don't practice hitting home runs very much. The kids do though and their scores are better. If we learn an instrument and practice it, we will understand music more and learn things we couldn't have other wise learned had we not had the experience. We put forth the effort and then we come to understand how it works.

I bring this up because I believe life can be a great learning experience. We can comfort others as we battle the same challenges. We can feel empathy and do good as we prove ourselves strong in this human existence. Spence probably won't learn to talk just by praying it that way. He needs every level of effort and instruction we can give him, plus professionals, and prayers. Some things I am just not interested in learning at this time in my life, like how to run a half marathon! hehe. Other things I am interested in understanding. That's the beauty of it, we can choose what we value and ponder on those things.

We cannot learn to swim or ride a bike or do our finances successfully unless we work at it. I want to work on reading my scriptures and help my children to value that. I'd love to learn more about genealogy too. For now, I am learning about behaviorism and taking time to teach my children things that can help them to learn, grow, and understand life. I value my opportunity as a stay at home mom to be involved in their upbringing. There is much to learn and I'm glad to have Brian to help me to teach our kiddos. He knows quite a bit.:)

This thought of preparation before understanding hit me as I was being in a situation where Spanish was spoken the whole time. If I hadn't had so many years of instruction in High School , college and exposure to Spanish in my home growing up, I wouldn't of been able to understand as much as I did. I would have missed out on wonderful family stories and great thought provoking lessons given there.

I used to get down on myself thinking I knew only a little about a lot of things, but wasn't super fantastic at one thing. I thought it would be great to be a concert violinist or an expert swordswoman.~ Now, I say well good as least I got some exposure to some things to help me to learn, teach, understand, and help others. Hooray for life and the great experience that it is!