Behind that Angelic Face. . .

I received an interesting email today from my child's teacher.  We have been emailing back and forth daily for a week or so as we have been partnering to help this kid climb up to the next level, where he really needs to go.

The email started out, "Your child is working well today."  A good start if I ever saw one.

The rest of the email detailed how he had been climbing the fence (literally) and she'd had to pick him up at the principal's office, that he was swinging his arms during music class, and how he took the majority of the blame for the disruption.

I don't know how other parents would react to such an email, but I knew that I had just been handed my next blog posting.

"Which is it?" I wrote back with a smirk.  "He's working well, or he's causing problems?"  Or, I strongly suspect, as it would be quintessentially this child, ". . .both?"

This child has the face of an angel.  Behind it, he is scheming how to dash past unseen, how to break a rule, how to get out of work, and how to hide five hundred acorns under his bed--all without attracting notice.

This child is the catalyst for rising blood pressure in adults with stewardship over him as he merely passes among them.  If he knew that, though, it would break his heart.  

He is the best boy with the finest heart.  He is the one who, in pure shock, told his I-don't-want-to-go-to-church-it's boring brother, "We have to learn the gospel!"  He is the one who has requested in family prayer--for no apparent reason, that we won't go to jail, that we won't get hit by cars, that we won't get kidnapped.  He is the only one who consistently, every single time, begins each prayer--even the blessing on the food--with "We thank Thee for this day."

And he is the one who has a bad day, every day.

Observing this child in a classroom setting, you would guess that he picked up less than one thing from what was being taught.  But later discussion would reveal that he learned and remembers all of it.  How he takes it all in while doing several other things is the great mystery of his life.

This is the boy who would be the first one out there, trying everything.  And the last to let a doctor near him with a stethoscope.  He will fearlessly volunteer, then crumple.

He will boss and argue with every child, then be devastated when they won't be his friends.

On your way to his bedroom to apologize for overreacting over one of his misdeeds, you will often discover yet another one.  Still, the best reward for good behavior that he can think of is twenty minutes of your time.

His head may have taken more bonks than a football player's, but beneath that hard head, his heart is spun of fragile glass.  Under his scabbed and bruised skin, we must remember, he is a shining angel of light.

It is not possible to place a value on or even enumerate the things he teaches me.  But, here's one.

It may be exaggerated in this cherubic and impish boy, but, really, in all of us, there are such enigmas, such contradictions.  With everyone we know, we must accept the hard things with the good, and love, love, love them.

Also, ourselves.  Also, situations.  It is all we can do.

It is the only way there is.  

It may be the only work of value that there is.