I remember as a young child watching all the things my older brothers and sisters did, good and bad, and making a note to myself what NOT to do! I learned from their actions because I didn’t feel the need to learn things the hard way. Somewhere in life, in my teens years actually, I stopped doing that and I didn’t even know it. Along this life journey, I can honestly say my spiritual growth and maturing has come about “the hard way”. I feel like I had to fight through every life lesson and am an expert on telling people what NOT to do! Only because I have been there and done that and know the end results aren’t good! When you have walked the hard road, you can usually give directions towards the easier one.
Over the last few years, my mentor told me I was hard to teach. I mean I knew I could be difficult and hard headed at times, but I didn’t quite understand that concerning this area. I WANTED to learn. I was earner to change and craving growth. I wasn’t fighting this process! WHY was I NOT getting it?!? What made it so hard for me to listen to wise council and take it in? Well, I found that answer in the most unlikely way. I was doing a soul study with a group of friends. My attitude in this was, Ok Im going to do it but I’m pretty sure I’ve already addressed all my junk, soooooo I’m not sure what good this will do. HOWEVER, upon trying to become more teachable, I did pursue God and asked the Holy Spirit continuously to do a deeper work in my life. Surely my process was not over!
I went to soak (that’s my quite time) and sought after the Father about this process once again. And again, and again…still nothing. I then went on to bed to read. Once there, this soul journey began to unravel with one word….abandonment. Abandonment?! What? I heard the spirit say again…Abandonment, your mother abandoned you. Well, I began to argue that immediately! If you know me, you know I am fiercely defensive of my mom and love her like no other. NO SHE DIDN’T! I began to argue with the Holy Spirit. She was always there for me! She was my best friend, my confidant, my spiritual mother! She gave me all she had(and she truly did, I was blessed by this). Then like a spool of thread that was dropped from a tall place, it began to unravel and become painfully clear. She had left me spiritully as a teen, in the time I needed guidance the most. She assumed I was old enough to navigate in my own because she had instilled all she thought she could in me as a child. Yet, she stopped as a teen and I was left to figure it out on my own.
If you have ever seen, in the physical, a young person or teen left to fend for themselves, you can see the hardness, toughness, and I’ll figure it out on my own attitude. THIS was me when it came to the spiritual life truths. I was hurt, I was wounded, I was scarred, I was left to figure it out on my own during the hardest part of life. Did I? yes, but with much cost. Why am I sharing this? to blame my mom? ABSOLUTELY NOT! She did the most amazing job ever as a mom to me! I’m sharing because that moment led to a healing in me. I went from being unteachable to having an openness to listen and learn.
You see, I was left to grow up spiritually with just me and God(and that’s not a bad thing necessarily). However the word does say for the elders to teach the younger and for the young to take up wise counsel for a reason. I trusted NO ONE else not his this earth, but God. 
For me there was no wise counsel. I HAD TO FIGURE IT OUT on my own! Well, that’s the hard way. Since I had to figure it out, then I could do it! yes, still the hard way. I needed to learn the lesson on my own…still the hard way. Seeing my point here? Being left to do it on my own set me up to have to teach myself those hard life truths; therefore making life my teacher. If you have ever had life as your teacher, it’s a hard class that comes with lots of hurts and falls. Therefore, I became hard for anyone else to teach, due to the the harshness from life teaching me. After that excruciating painful yet wonderfully pivotal moment of healing, I then started to choose to trust in wise council, knowing that I would always check it with the word and father. With that step my growth blossomed and I enjoyed a new found love of learning.
You don’t have to learn the hard way just because I did. I don’t have to learn the hard way any longer if I don’t want to. We can look at others experiences and make a wise decision on what to do and what NOT to do. So on day 10… take away…listen and learn.
Like I was as a child, I am now becoming again. I am listening and learning. Becoming a pupil in life, not a pupil of life.