Encouragement

Homeschool day 59 of 180
Government school day 48 of 170

My sister Julia tells a story about when she was 12 or 13 years old. There was a neighbor that was about Julia’s age. She was a bright and beautiful girl who was really quite a talented musician and student. I do not know if I have the story quite right, but it seems about that time that they both started learning to sew. The neighbor girl’s sewing was simply amazing. She chose relatively difficult patterns and worked hard to sew them right. Everyone marveled at her creations. By her own admission, Julia’s first efforts were pretty bad. She started with simple patterns and worked hard, but sewed them badly. The neighbor girl gave up sewing completely in less than a year. Years later, Julia continued to sew both as a professional seamstress and to make beautiful clothes for her family and friends.

I remember Dad and Mom raving about some of the first items Julia produced. The rest of we kids thought her first dress looked pretty much like a badly sewn potato sack. Dad and Mom could find nothing wrong with it, badly irritating the rest of us with their effusive praise. They had her wear the dress to Sunday Morning meeting and raved about Julia’s brilliant sewing skills to everyone there. The neighbor girl’s first dresses were beautifully sewn and much more complicated than Julia’s first dresses, but she rarely wore them because her mother always found some reason to berate them and her. The hem was a little off. A stitch was in the wrong place. Why could she not get them right? The poor girl found no joy in sewing because the person most important to her who should have been providing encouragement focused on what was wrong about the dress and the poor girl. Dad and Mom made a serious effort to find something right about what Julia had produced and about Julia herself. I think the fact that she had used the sewing machine, something new that she had never tried before, might have been about the only thing she did that was worthy of praise. But that is worthy of praise. If you do not start, you cannot improve.