Apples and Oranges

About a month ago I started tutoring a young girl in math, I'll call her Faith, for blogging purposes. She's 13 and very energetic. She has so many talents and is so full of life. She's a strong new Christian with so much going for her. I can't wait to see what she does in the future. Until this semester, she's never had trouble in any subject. She's still doing very well in every other class. Her parents quickly found some help for her before the bad scores on her tests and quizzes became a problem. I enjoy so much her company when we meet for our "sessions." She learns so well and is so smart! I felt so good to know that after we started she made an 100 on her first quiz!!! (wow for her but Whoo hoo for me too!) I think I was happier than she was.....ok, maybe not. Anyway, as we learn (yes we: I have to re-learn most of what she does in class), we chit chat and giggle about this or that. She talks about how sister did this or brother did that or mom did this other thing. Until tonight, I considered her an average teenager.

Tonight I began tutoring a second young girl in math, I'll call her Hope, for blogging purposes. She is also 13, smart, whitty, and a fireball with so much potential that it's almost BURSTING out of her. Something is holding it back....not sure what, yet. Her parents, unlike Faith's, waited until she failed math last year and still failing well into this school year to get help. ("Why so long," was my first thought) Her problem with math is that she honestly doesn't get it. She's trying so hard, but I think half of her doesn't want to learn, and the other part can't wait to learn. There is this inner struggle that I believe doesn't involve math at all. We didn't learn much tonight, I just got a feel for how she learns and how she reacts to me. I took her home afterwards, stopping to get ice cream before we made it there. (Of course it was my idea! I was craving it.) We chatted like girls do. She seems to trust me with certain issues she's having. I listened and took mental note. I asked stratetgic questions, leading a discussion. None of the answers she gave me suprised me and none of the problems she had suprised me. But on the way home I replayed all of our conversations and I began to remember what I had forgotten about being a teenager....

Why blog Kristy? Why blog about this?

Before tonight, I saw these two girls as practically the same girl, or "type" of girl. I saw them both as 13-year-olds that have the same problems and the same issues. I look within myself this evening to realize my own shallowness and ineptitude to see silent plees.

Last week I saw one girl with the faith in knowing there is something else and willing to attain it no matter what lay ahead. Tonight I took a look into the eyes of another young girl who had a hope for something else....anything else...grasping for the faith of the first. Both with struggles, both with pain, both with Christian values in a world of impurity.

How is it that two seemingly similar people can be miles apart? Intellectually I know that all of us are unique, with unique situations and reactions to those situations. So why not these?

All that these girls need is prayers.

As a mother to a little girl, I'm not looking forward to teenagerhood.