It started with a slight tapping. I can deal, kids need to move-- no big deal. It moved to a standing and tapping... well, my kids at home throw imaginary "footballs" and hit imaginary "baseballs" while learning-- again, no big deal, I can deal. Next, sliding a chair across the room... Ignore, just ignore-- it will work, it has to work. Now, we're standing up dancing instead of listening to the story of Moses... okay, ignoring's not working. "Let's talk in the hall." Mistake #1. Rookie Mistake. It only amps up from there, and, quite frankly, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I lost my cool. I wasn't kind. I wasn't loving. I was, for lack of a better word, mean. Mistakes #2 - 15? My words may not have been directed at him, his character, or who he was/is, but in my anger, I did not want a changed behavior, I wanted revenge. My pride reared its ugly head through anger, frustration, and unkind words. I knew it as I felt the words roll off my tongue. I felt it. I was immediately convicted. It was at that point that I realized/remembered/experienced that you can't take words back. Once they're said, they're said-- for better or worse. No matter how much I tried to rewind, I tried to back-track, I tried to recover, the words were said, his behavior was amplified, and I was sitting in the aftermath.
I'd love to say that I took this to heart, humbled myself, apologized immediately, and chalked it up a lesson learned the hard way. Unfortunately, that would be stretching the truth. No, I went to lunch crying in frustration. I called for the social worker to come talk to him because he was "out of control." That's when her question hit me... "Can you tell me what happened right before he (insert the amped up behaviors)?" Do I tell her what I wished happened? Or do I tell her what actually happened? "Well..." I recount the story to her-- how it all started, how it escalated, and how I lost my cool... Talk about a pride check. I recounted the story not just to her, but to a few others as we decided together the best way to handle the situation. I knew the best way to handle the situation. Grace. Mercy. Love. But my pride kept me from saying so. So, I spent the afternoon in my bed wallowing in my own self-pity. Why me? Answers in my mind: Because you're a poser. Why would you think that coming to a foreign country would change the way you dealt with kids? You lost your cool-- yet again. The same way that you lose your cool in Oxford. You're wasting your time, you're wasting the Ranch's time. Fake. Poser. You don't deserve grace. You don't deserve a do-over. Every bit of this would be true... "BUT GOD, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved -- and raised us up with him and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" - (Ephesians 2:4-10)
His voice is louder. Through the doubt, through Satan's lies, through the shame, through my sin, through all that I deserved... LOVE. GRACE. MERCY. He overshadowed it all with His love. He washed it in His grace. He covered me in His mercy. His Word cut through the layers of doubt, insecurity, and self-protection in my heart and refined me. (Hebrews 4:12) Still lying in the same bed of self-pity that I'd made only an hour earlier, it was as if the Lord spoke these words of scripture over me. His grace is enough-- even when I use mean words, lose my cool, and make things a million times worse. His grace is still enough. It's not about how righteous I am. It's about Christ's righteousness in me. It's out of that righteousness given to me by grace alone, not by merit, that I begin to see a transformation in the way I walk, talk, and act. That doesn't mean that I'll be perfect. I'll definitely fail. But that's the point of grace. When I do fall, when I do fail, He's there to pick me back up.
That leads me back to my tapping, chair sliding, dancing friend. The Lord convicted me, and I knew that I had to apologize. So, I prayed through it, gave it the night to settle in, and I planned to approach him the next morning. That's when the social worker met me at breakfast the next morning... "How would you feel about giving him a chance to earn his reward back?" GRACE. YES. So, I apologized, we talked. We did some one-on-one math together, and he earned his reward back. It was during the sweet one-on-one time that I saw myself in him. In the same way as he'd acted out the day before acting impulsively and not thinking about his actions, I had as well. God gave me grace in heaps and bounds, and I was able to share that grace with my sweet little friend. As we sat and talked about grace while he worked his math problems, the Lord made it so very clear to me that this moment was "why me." This is why the chaos happened in the middle of my "normal." So that I might get just a glimpse of the power of grace, and that I might just begin to understand that the little bit of grace that I got to share with my little friend was infinitesimal compared to the vast oceans of grace that He has given me.
And that moment... that realization has forever changed me-- as a teacher, as a daughter, as a friend, as a sister, as a person. (to be continued...)
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