More is Caught Than Taught

 On those days when the math lesson falls apart, when you lose your patience over spilled paint, when you feel like you're failing because you didn't finish the curriculum—remember this: your children are learning the most important lessons not from your perfect execution of phonics rules, but from watching how you live.

They see you when the car breaks down and money is tight. They watch whether you respond with panic or prayer, with bitterness or trust. They're learning about resilience not from a character study workbook, but from observing you pick yourself up after a hard day and try again tomorrow.

When you apologize for snapping at them, they're learning humility and grace. When you admit you don't know the answer and look it up together, they're learning that learning is lifelong. When you make time to help a neighbor or call a hurting friend, they're absorbing what it means to love others—even when it's inconvenient.

Your Most Important Subject

Here's the beautiful truth: a mother's primary job isn't to teach history or algebra. It's to teach love by loving.

Your children are catching your values like they catch your colds—through close, constant contact. They're absorbing your worldview through a thousand tiny moments: how you speak about people who disagree with you, whether you complain or give thanks, if you keep your word even when it costs you.

The atmosphere of your home—the patience, joy, and kindness you model (however imperfectly)—will shape them far more than any curriculum you choose. Your gentle answer when they interrupt for the hundredth time teaches them more about self-control than any lecture could.

Grace for the Journey

So on the hard days, be gentle with yourself. You don't have to be perfect. In fact, your children need to see you aren't perfect—so they can watch you extend grace to yourself and others, so they can learn that mistakes aren't the end of the story.

They need to see a mom who keeps showing up, who loves them through the chaos, who trusts God when things don't go according to plan.

You're not just teaching subjects. You're teaching them how to be human. And that holy work happens more in the in-between moments than in the planned lessons.

I'm finally understanding what it means to walk in union with God. It means trusting that He holds all things. The fretting, the worrying, the desperate grasping for answers on my timeline. True union with Him is learning to rest in His rhythm, to wait for His voice rather than filling the silence with my own anxious noise. He will answer. Just not always when I demand it.

This is the lesson of a lifetime: surrender isn't passive resignation. It's active trust. It's waking each day and asking the question, then having the courage to listen, to wait, and to move only when He moves. At seventy, I'm finally learning to let Him lead the dance I've spent so long trying to choreograph myself.

Keep going, dear one. More is being caught than you know.

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About the Images

The images in this post are from my Bible journaling. It is a creative way to combined art and Scripture study. If you'd like to explore this meaningful blend of faith and creativity for yourself, I'd love to have you join me at BibleJournalClasses.com.