so I was like…you know

I had yesterday off, and I of course was looking forward to going to Macy’s, sipping on some coffee while reading a good mystery, and cleaning up my bedroom. I was going to get the kids off to school and my day was to begin. The kids I walked that morning, and as we came closer and closer to the school my son began to complain of stomach pains. Naturally, I shrugged it off and thought ‘Oh, he’ll snap out of this as soon as he sees his friends.’ To my surprise, his complaints became cries. “Mommy, I don’t feel good. I really don’t. My stomach hurts.”

The bell rang, the kids lined up, and Graeme’s face was filled with tears. He got in line behind the rest of the class and slowly made his way to the classroom. I whispered to Mrs. Steele (his teacher) “Keep an eye on Graeme today. He says he is sick, but I suspect he just wants to spend the day with me.” She agreed but then proceeded to tell me that at least 6 kids from the class were sick last week and that Graeme may in fact truly be under the weather.

Just my luck! I took him to the office, the nurse took his temperature and all was good, but I decided to ere on the side of caution. I cannot lie. I was utterly disappointed. I was looking forward to this day for such a long time. It isn’t often that I get to spend some time with just me, and I was in some serious need of alone time.

Hand in hand, we made our way back home. I voiced my concern in a not so loving manner, and he assured me that he was sick. I decided that I was going to “teach” Graeme a lesson. If he wanted to stay home then he was going to spend the whole day in bed. When we reached the house, I instructed him to “get in bed this minute”. The tears began again, but this time I could see the guilt in his face. On one hand it made me feel so sorry for him, but on the other it made me furious. After 15 minutes of crying in his bed, I came into his room ready to ream him out, but something in me told me to calm down and just love him.

We sat down together on the sofa in the living room and we talked. I asked him why he didn’t want to go to school. He said that no one liked him, that his friends thought he was weird. Mrs. Steele thought he was stupid and he did everything wrong. I held Graeme tight and told him a story of when I was a young girl.

“Graeme, when I was not much older than you, I didn’t want to go to school either. I’d tell my parents I was sick, or I would go to the office and tell the nurse I had a stomachache. Sometimes I would get to stay home and I’d feel so safe in my bed away from school because, like you, I felt like no one liked me and that I was stupid. But in the back of my head I always knew that tomorrow I would have to go back. Things had gotten so bad that my dad finally had a little talk with me. He told me something that I have never forgotten and to this day I still hear in my head over and over again. He told me THE HARD WAY IS THE LORD’S WAY. See, what that means is we must face our fears whether it be school, making new friends or even teachers. We have to do what we know is right no matter how hard it might seem.”

He then told me how he had an “empty space” inside, and immediately I knew that I had to lift Graeme up to God. We prayed for a few minutes and we held each other tight as we asked God to be Graeme’s friend. How fortunate that I got to share one of the most intimate moments with my beautiful son!

Seconds after we prayed, Graeme stood up and said, “Mommy, I need to go to school today.�

It was at that moment that I realized that the hard way truly is the Lord’s way.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.