They are small, my boys, in different ways. Some of them are little in body, a couple are little in self confidence, one is tiny in his new faith. Little, small, timid and tiny, my boys. But in other ways they are mighty - in words, in actions and in love.
Mighty Words - While Riley and I waited in the school pick up line yesterday, we were thumbing through a stack of photo prints I had just picked up. There were several that will hopefully fill out a collage frame I got for Christmas and grace our living room wall, but there were also a stack of random shots that I thought might be nice to look at when they weren't on a computer screen. Riley enjoyed finding photos of each of us, most especially himself. I had selected the pictures in large clumps since I was short on time so there were some photos that would be seeing the inside of a trash can in the very near future. A lot of these were not-so-attractive shots of me that Riley had taken himself during his recent fascination with my camera. Riley centered on one of me that was completely unflattering (no shower or makeup, hair pulled into some kind of wad on the back of my head, mouth gaping open in mid-comment to another child, ratty clothes covered in ingredients that would hopefully become dinner) and he told me I was 'so beautiful momma'. Really? Not this one over here that the pro took on photo day with daddy (and makeup)? 'No, this one momma, you are soooo beautiful'. This from the same child who asked me on Sunday why I wanted lipstick to try and look pretty. A reminder to me that what my children see of me is certainly not the image I try and portray to the world at large. So sweet. And yet, that picture is still going to find it's way into both the real trash can in my kitchen and the cyber receptacle on my computer.
The kids don't come and drag me out of bed as soon as they wake up on the weekend anymore (THANK GOODNESS!!!) and will play on their own for quite a while before I have to get up. I hear them though and on Saturday morning I was woken to the sounds of two little boys playing together. I would hear their voices, turn over and try to eke out 5 more minutes of shut eye. One of the wakeful times brought me voices that weren't happy. They weren't yelling, but I heard Riley say 'Please forgive me' to his brother in a very sad voice. Scooter didn't answer right away and then Riley said 'Scooter, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?' Scooter replied 'All right, but please don't do that again' which was answered with an 'Otay!' and then the boys moved on. I don't know what the disagreement was about, but I was so proud that they resolved it all by themselves. A few moments later I heard Riley educating his older brother on the finer points of 'Stop, Drop & Roll' which led to some actual dropping and rolling . . . right into the coffee table which was my cue that it was time to get up and start the coffee.
Mighty Love - It was only a year ago that I answered question after question about Scooter relating to empathy and his lack thereof. This was something I really worried about because it's one of the more frustrating aspects of autism, at least for me. I stressed about the possibility that my child really was on this spectrum and wasn't ever going to develop empathy which was going to make his relationships with his brothers increasingly difficult. How could such a sensitive child be so lacking in empathy? It didn't make sense to me and I worried about how it would affect our family. It turns out though, that Scooter was just slow to develop and/or demonstrate this emotion. I see more and more examples of his growth all the time. Sometimes it's just the fact that if his brother falls right next to him he actually stops to ask if he's okay now, but other times it's even more evident.
This morning Scooter asked me why good guys sometimes had to go to jail. Since I wasn't sure what the heck he was talking about I asked him what made him think of that question. He said he thought he remembered me saying 'one time' that sometimes good guys went to jail. Ummmm, okay. I didn't remember that so I tried to come up with reasons that this situation might occur and settled on 'sometimes the police think they did something wrong, but then they figure it out and let them go'. About a minute later I heard crying in the back seat and turned to find Scooter upset. It took some urging to get out what was wrong, but it was finally revealed that 'I just don't like it when good guys go to jail'. I asked him if he was scared that was going to happen to someone he knew, but he wasn't. We whittled down what he was feeling to just not liking that this could happen to people. Hello empathy.
Mighty Faith - My son Tyler is a brand new Christian. The joy I feel when I think of this is so immeasurable and indescribable. My baby is about to be 12 and at the same time he is a brand spanking new creation in the the eyes of the Lord. How amazing is that!!!!!! With this 'newness' has come a new awareness that has taken me by surprise. I've seen adults do this, but my general idea of a child that is a new Christian is that there isn't too drastic of a difference - or so I thought. Within days of Tyler's decision I noticed differences in his attitudes toward his friends and his brothers. A boy on his basketball team had annoyed him until he noticed the boys parents fighting in front of him after a game and realized that his friend was hurting and could very well be facing a split family situation soon. We have had several discussions about the friend he took to church and whether that friend was going to 'forgive' him for expressing his beliefs and taking him with us (he didn't have to go - he chose to go, why is he holding it against my son????) which led to me teaching him what it means to look at something 'in light of eternity'.
My little budding engineer is also very stressed out about how his science teacher has been talking in class lately. There have been a lot of comments recently that fall under the 'some religious people believe' heading with a fair amount of negative connotation backing them up evidently. Tyler wants to fight back, but I advised him against open defiance. I appreciate how he feels and I told him several stories about studying Anthropology and History and finding a way to reconcile what I believe with what is 'known' and 'taught'. Fighting when you don't have enough knowledge on either side of the topic is a sure fire way to get squashed, but someday he'll have the knowledge to back up an argument with an authority figure like that. We talked a lot about God inspiring us to seek answers, whether we are believers or not, and that it is people's interpretation of the things they learn that gets muddled. It's the people that determine you absolutely cannot believe in both religion and science that don't respect the power and majesty of either one. To think we could ever understand it all is naive in the extreme, no matter how educated a person may be. He told me he didn't want to study science and be an engineer if it was going to get in the way of what he believed, but I told him that there were believers in every field and every job - he has to use the gifts God gave him and make a difference that way. We also talked about how our God is bigger than the misunderstandings of human intelligence. We're having lunch with a friend who is an engineer and a believer this weekend and I am hoping that he can encourage Tyler in this area. (Insert a side grumble here - why are teachers allowed to undermine religion, but not allowed to say what they believe when they are believers? If you don't think Christianity is persecuted in today's enlightened society you are mistaken. Just sayin . . .) In the mean time - it's just like any other year when you don't like a teacher or you disagree with them, he just has to get through a couple more months and then he'll be on to the next challenge.
Yep, my kids are tiny in some ways. Riley is working hard at being the shortest 4 year old we meet, but he does pack a whollop with the things he says and the way he says them with that little voice of his. Scooter's social skills and confidence are something he will always have to work on and even though he sometimes doesn't understand why he needs to respond to the person in front of him, his love for other people can sometimes be overwhelming to his sweet little soul. Tyler's faith is new and fragile and needs careful and diligent tending but the evidence of it's existence and the changes that God can make are staggering in just one little life. They are so Mighty, my boys. Yeah, we fight the normal battles of selfishness, disobedience and attitudes. I try so hard to teach them what is right and true and just and then I wake up and realize once again that it's the children teaching me again and they teach it to me with their great big, huge, humble, sensitive and MIGHTY hearts.
Thanks and God Bless!
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