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LSEM > Wow Story > Struggles

Struggles

  • March 26, 2025
  • Posted by: Caitlin McCallum
  • Category: Wow Story
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~written by Becky Warnasch, LSEM Teacher at Zion Lutheran School in Georgetown, TX

I had to give up Facebook a few years ago.  I do miss it sometimes, especially when my friends start talking about exciting current events in other friends’ lives. What I don’t miss is how it made me feel about myself.  Somehow my house didn’t seem as tidy or as fancy; somehow my kids and I didn’t seem to measure up.  My head knows that these things, these comparisons, should not matter; but my heart feels like they do.

That’s something that I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older.  Every single person has some kind of struggle.  None of us are as perfect as we may appear to outsiders. I still remember the time that I found out one of my co-workers who seemed to live a “charmed life” grew up with an alcoholic father, in a broken family and had some lasting emotional issues because of her not-so-charmed childhood.  Through God’s grace and blessings, she was able to thrive after battling depression about her own failed marriage.  As sinners living in a broken world, we all have trials, challenges, and flaws.  Through the grace of God, He supports and sustains us.  He heals our brokenness and makes us whole through the righteousness of Jesus.

My Wow story begins with Adam and ends with Jesus.  My students come to me in brokenness.  Most of my students have met criteria for a specific learning disability in reading skills.  Many meet criteria for dyslexia.  Most of their parents react to the word dyslexia as if it synonymous with cancer.  Also, many of the parents put-off, or postpone having their children assessed as if somehow hearing the word dyslexia is a reading-death-sentence.

Through Jesus, I have learned that it’s in our brokenness that He can be magnified.  In confessing our sins to God, we admit our areas of need.  Similarly, in acknowledging a reading difficulty, teachers can now pinpoint instruction to best help the students be successful. Only through admitting a problem exists, can the correct prescriptive strategies be applied.  I sometimes remind my students of this very thing.  That we all have flaws — every single one of us.

Our flaws are not something to be ashamed of, but something that we can let God’s glory shine through.  In our weakness He is strong.  In admitting our areas of weakness, we can then address those areas and let God strengthen us.  Through trials and tribulations, we build skills and grow stronger.  Sometimes the students whom I notice struggle the most in older grades are the ones who never had the opportunity to learn how to manage struggles.

So this is my wow story.  I don’t just teach reading and comprehension.  I teach perseverance and grit.  I teach hard work paired with trust in God can pay off in goals that become realized.  I teach patience and that things worthwhile are not just things that are handed to us. I teach prayer.  I teach life lessons.  I teach how to glorify God through our short comings and how to show empathy to others who inevitably have other, sometimes hidden short comings.  I teach faith.  I teach God’s love for the students – and how He created them – including their flaws. I teach that each student’s worth is not based on his academic skills, appearance, wealth, or popularity. I teach that his worth comes from being a child of God.  His worth comes from God loving him so much that He sent Jesus to the cross to pay for humanity’s sins.  I am no different than any of the other Lutheran teachers.

I don’t just teach reading and academics.  I teach God’s love.