An Alien Invasion

They've really done it this time, those extraterrestrial invaders. They've sucked up my son and replaced him with a child who, at 8:10 a.m., is saying to his father, "C'mon, Dad! Let's get on the bike! We need to get to camp!"

Uh huh. I kid you not. This kind of martian is not altogether unwelcome.

On the other hand, I must, in the interest of full disclosure, tell you that when I picked him up today, something nudged me to ask the teacher how he was "doing" (meaning, "behaving") in class. She mentioned that he was OK but that there had been a bit of name-calling. Sigh.

He related to me right away that he'd had to sit out once or twice to chill out. No particulars on why, and he still seemed to have had a good time, but apparently we haven't achieved Full Angelic Status yet.

I was starting to feel discouraged as we drove home, starting to plot my little chat with my son. Cue the violin music -- WHY can my son not handle a classroom environment of any kind? WHY must he name-call when that's totally unacceptable at our house, and he's NOT a mean kid? WHY must he always be just a bit ... impulsive? (This happened at one of our co-ops last year on a regular basis, although he was by no means the only one). I grew up bringing home report cards, homework, essays spangled with "A's" and praise -- and most of it came pretty easily to me. Now, here I am doing the hardest assignment of my life, and whoa, there are NO easy "A's." There might not even BE "A's" at all. It might all be a big mystery, plugging away at the homework (Home Work) until after the final exam, whenever that may be.

Well, guess what? Got some light, folks. Every SINGLE time I question God as to WHYyyyy my kids are a certain way, despite my tireless efforts to turn out upstanding citizens, despite my secret craving for the kind of "joy to have in class" feedback that strokes the parental ego, He reminds me: I got exactly the children that I NEED.

"But darling" -- says God to me -- "if you had trophy children whose behavior constantly validated your success as a parent, wouldn't you be rather insufferable? So ugly in your pride and self-sufficiency? So disdainful of other parents who 'clearly don't have things under control'?"

Here's a little relevant something that shepherded my soul last weekend, from the study of the book of Luke we're doing as a church: "Although Christ as the High Priest is taking care of us, we all have our own thought and feelings as to how He should care of us; many times we do not know what is best for us or what the reason is for certain things; only the Lord as the High Priest knows the reason, and His care for us is always positive."