Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. (5:14)
"Marcos Martinez," Carmen warned loudly as her son came barreling through the living room. Again. "I told you to stop running in the house! Now if you don't, no dessert after supper, am I clear?"
Marcos skidded to a walk. "Si, Mama."
Carmen took a deep breath. "Good."
Then she headed into the schoolroom to check on Isabel, who had been having trouble with a reading page the last time Carmen had looked in on her.
"How are you doing in here?" Carmen asked, leaning over her five-year old's-desk.
"I don't get it!" Isabel exclaimed impatiently. "The words don't make sense. It's too hard to learn to read English!"
Carmen crouched beside the desk, settling in for the long haul. "Why don't you read the words aloud to me?" Carmen suggested. "Maybe it will be easier that way."
"B-a-t." Isabel sounded out slowly. "B-a-i-t." Isabel's eyebrows scrunched together. "Bay-I-t? What is that?"
"No," Carmen corrected gently. "The 'I' doesn't make a sound."
"So it's like 'bat'?"
"No, not quite." Carmen patiently explained the phonics of the word to her daughter once again.
The eyes of both mother and daughter lit up when Isabel triumphantly declared, "It's 'bait'! I get it now!"
"Good job, Isabel!" Carmen declared, giving her a high-five.
It was the sparkle in her daughter's eye when she got it that made the work of teaching her children worth the struggle, even though it sometimes required a bottomless well of patience to do it.
The third chapter of an eleven-chapter endeavor centered around eleven verses in 1 Thessalonians. Reviews make my day; thanks!:)