“Dear Mom and Dad, I had to sit out at P.E. I am really sorry.”
Perspective is everything. The teacher sees a distracting wiggler; the parents see a defeated struggler; the child sees disappointed everybody. So you get this note and your heart explodes into a million different emotions. Does the P.E. teacher know he actually needs every second of the class to survive the day? Did he intentionally break the rules or was he simply overwhelmed and without an outlet? You know the heart of your child and his struggle to walk the fine line of rules versus needs. You see the confusion in their soul, as they apologize for being themselves. How often a mama’s spirit grieves the inability to mesh who God made her child to be, with who the world thinks they ought to be.
Now go back in time with me to the day Mary got word that she would give birth to Jesus. I feel certain she, too, had a heart explosion of a million different emotions. Step into her mom-shoes for a sec. She must have wondered how other people would judge her because of her Son. Would they believe He was who she knew He was? Would He be teased, challenged, and frustrated simply for being who God made Him and sent Him to be? Would He ever feel comfortable in His own skin? How will I ever convince people…even those who love him most…that His differences make Him perfect in God’s eyes? Nobody gets Him. Nobody believes me.
Oooooh the battle we face, sweet Mamas. The mother of our Jesus, Himself, gets it. She felt all the feels. She lived it out, and sobbed on her pillow at night, and begged to explain His actions, and even got “a note” from the rulers…inscribed on the cross He bore for us. She watched the most perfect Child God ever made, struggle through a life of rejection and defeat. But He was always perfect in her eyes and made for a Higher purpose that nobody but her and His Father God understood. The sweetest thing is that Jesus knew it. He knew she adored Him with her whole life and would do anything she could to make His life better. He saw her sad eyes and felt her disappointment with the odds against Him. He was sorry for her pain every single day and knew He tested her patience and hope. But He was God’s child. He was made to overcome it and the two of them made history because of it.
While we’re not raising the Christ child, we are raising Christ’s child. Our kids are His anyway. 1 Samuel 1:28 says, “Now I give my child in dedication to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” Easier said than done, right?! If we’re consistently turning over our young strugglers to the Almighty, He will surely fight our battles. He’ll work through the mixed emotions and widen the fine lines. He’ll put our hearts in one accord with P.E. teachers and those who have the privilege of doing life with our kids. It feels like a circus act sometimes, but God knit every fiber of life and wonder into that hyper, oversensitive, delayed, exhausting, challenged, angel of a child of yours and mine. In Mark 1, Jesus is baptized and hears the voice of God say to Him, “You are my Son whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” I find it interesting that the verses that immediately follow, are about Jesus being tempted and challenged by the devil in the wilderness.
Our kids are living in a wilderness of schemes and yet we join the good Lord every day by saying, “You’re my kid…I love you…I’m proud of you. It may take everything you’ve got to avoid a note from the teacher today, but you’ve been given God’s tools for it…you’ve got this, kiddo.” Sure, they may let their energy and excitement get out of hand at P.E. today, but tomorrow’s a new day and we’ll find some ways to channel that energy, and work with our people. We’ll forgive them for the millionth billionth time, wipe away the sorry tears, and find a happy medium that serves our spirited children within the confines of the rules at hand.
It CAN be done!! Building All Children has served to calm my fears and equip me with a new bag of tricks. I sense that “it’ll be ok” more than ever, and that God is going to use B.A.C. in MY life as much as my child’s. Next time you ‘get the note’ or ‘feel the feels’…remember that Jesus has a thing for moms…He gets you and loves you and knows the end of the story. And God created your little “sitter outer” with exactly what he needs to fulfill God’s plan for his full life. Building All Children can help facilitate ways to mesh rules with challenges, parents with teachers, and Jesus with the wilderness.
He built our kids, He built their potential, He knows their future, and He’s equipped us to handle it. Go team go!!