No Words

"That's what you do, ma'am. That's what you do."
        I am staring at my fourth-grader, trying to discern what planet he just left. My understanding of little-boy world was Daddy-wrestling and a pinata with the neighbors and chasing the fireflies through the dark.

"When you get to Parker One, that's what you do. You try to figure who could beat everybody else up."
His buddy nods, eyes solemn.
       Of course their hall parents would never allow violence. But in the hallway across from the bathroom my heart breaks for my serious-eyed boys, because no one should feel like he has to hurt others to prove his worth.
    I worked hard and read lots and tried so hard to learn. But nobody's education program covers "Reshaping the Culture of Cool Among Elementary Boys 101."

       "That's just like a guy, right Ma'am?"
        She means the movie line about no man ever really wanting to get married because it destroys his chances to sleep with so many women. And I want to turn off the whole thing off, kibash all movies preaching love-lies.
        I asked questions about dating and read books and considered the "courtship" phenomenon for myself. Never picked one up about convincing my tenth-grader that some men actually love forever the girl in the white dress for whom they promised to forsake all others.

      "I really felt like you were undermining my authority all afternoon."
       I press my lips, hope my jaw doesn't fall to the floor. What on earth?
       No one told me that my efforts to reach a frustrated child could be considered the undermining of authority.

      And I wonder why I am here, why I went to college that early, why I didn't just go get my masters like a normal nerd. School is easy. Research the right answer, contribute to the discussion, find the textual evidence. If you fail, the only things lost are time and money.

      But now I am an adult and on a mission field and the absent answers don't mean one failed test. They mean less truth, less light in their eyes. They mean someone walks away feeling unloved. I know answers can mean the world turned upside down and I who long to give the Great Story away have no words.

    "But ma'am, they never liked me since I got here! They hate me and I'll never forgive them, never!"

      I look at another of my little boys, his sweet brown cheeks streaked with tears. He shakes his head and I know the story in his downcast eyes: I am tired of being rejected.

     Jesus. My preschool Sunday school class is right. Jesus is the answer, always, forever. And I know He stands right by the swings, loving my sobbing child.

    I know because of the greatest relationship in all of reality, the one love between the Father and the Son and the Spirit three, Jesus felt a loss. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus knows rejection. And in His greatest loss we gain, in His pain we are healed, in His abandonment we are brought home.

     I know because I was unloved once too and because I decided I would never forgive them, never, never, never. Because I became hard and angry and hurt for ten years before I believed that I had a friend again.

    I still am shaping poor words, trying. How do you share the Gospel that saved you from suicide with the boy on the swings?

   "I am so sorry. But if you don't forgive them, love, then you will become hard and angry and I don't want that to happen to you."

   "But ma'm, ever since I got here last January those girls have always hated me! They'll never love me!"

    "I'm so sorry. I love you."

    I haven't even given a theological answer, never said that God loves him. I am exhausted with the weight burning inside and I only want to swing and forget the world. He offers to show my the Parker One highly classified trick for achieving awesome new heights on the swings. We rock back and forth from earth to sky.

    "You're my friend, right ma'm?"

    I think about how everyone warns you not to try to be your child or student's friend, to be their authority above all else. I decide I don't care.

    "Yes, I think you're my friend."

    We swing our toes up to the patch of darkening blue beyond the mountains until the Parker One boys are called home.

    He goes off laughing and I run inside, because tears are for sadness in the elementary world and I haven't time to explain that tears are for happiness too and also relief and ten years' story of walking in the dark.

    Someday I will have those apples of gold in settings of silver to offer. Someday I will see a fuller picture of what the Artist has been making with the tessarae of heart-shards, theirs and mine.

     But for now I only swing with my children and fumble for words and glory in the answer Jesus.