Lost Marble

In 1989, we bought a little over an acre of land that had been horse pasture for as long as I had lived in the area. At the back were three fruit trees, the remnants of an orchard (ancient fruit trees, even then). Using my imagination, I could look back in time and see little pioneer children playing, and after that, children of the depression, and so on. The house two lots to the west of us was probably built around the turn of the century. The houses flanking us were probably built in the 1930s and 1940s. The acreage we bought belonged to the people who formerly owned the house to the east, and several properties to the east and north of that.

So, often, when digging, I would find treasures. On the eastern fence line, not too far from the neighbor's house, I found the remnants of an old burn pile--melted metal and melted ancient hand cream jars, lids, and so forth. When digging out on the western fence line, to the north, in what has always been pasture, as far as I can tell, I found an old, pre-matchbox era, toy fire engine. This spring, in our south pasture, to the west, where a little lean-to has stood for maybe a decade (Jake's house), a sparkle in the dirt at just the right time of day caught my attention. When I dug it up, I had a light blue and green marble. To me it looks old, especially given the imperfection at the top. I assume this is a hand-blown marble, and I don't think it was my daughter's. So I assume that it was lost by some child in a very long-ago time.

This marble seems to delight in being lost. When I found it, I stuck in my pocket and brought it in to wash it off. But when I set it down, it rolled to the floor and disappeared. A day or two later it reappeared right in the middle of the floor. So I picked it up, and not wanting it to be lost again, and wanting to show it to my daughter, to see if she recognized it, I set it in a flower pot that had been given to us, which had some living plants in it and little polished rocks like a little stream.

A few days later, I walked by the plant and remembered the marble and remembered that I wanted to show it to my daughter, but later that evening, when my daughter and son-in-law came by, the marble was nowhere to be found. I took all the rocks out and dug around in the soil, but the marble was lost. This became rather a joke to my family--me losing my marble and all. But it bugged me.

The plants died in the pot, so today, when I took it outside to clean it out, I sifted carefully through the dirt and found that marble. I don't intend to lose it again, but it seems to have a mind of its own. Nevertheless, at least I have a picture of it now, so people will know what to look for if they intend to help me find my marble.

Tolerance

I think God uses special people to help our areas of weakness. I know by the son that He has given me that I needed to grow in the areas of patience and tolerance.

Patience is a long lesson, built like a strong wall, brick upon brick upon brick. I get it. I get opportunities to learn patience almost daily. Brick upon patient brick.

I did not know I was not tolerant. I guess the opposite of tolerant would be critical, condescending, judgmental. I suppose I am and/or have been all of those things to some degree, because God is sure using my son to teach me about tolerance--from the other side, from the side of being criticized and judged, on account of my son.

He's such a special kid. He is exuberant and enthusiastic, full of life and energy, intellegent. But he has a blindspot for social things. He has never had a sense of personal space, first of all. I don't know if this is because of his vision or because something in his brain is wired differently. (I hesitate to say "wrong", because I believe that God knew what He was doing when He made K the way he is.) And so I find myself constantly reminding him that people like to have an armslength between them, when talking and such.

Another social area that we work on continually is reading body language and facial expressions and listening to words other people are saying. It's so hard when he sees other kids wrestling and such and he wants to get in on it, but he doesn't understand how to be gentle at the same time, and he doesn't realize how much bigger he is than other kids. When does "no" really mean "no"? He doesn't pick up on the subtle clues that differentiate "no" from "no". Are they smiling when they say it, or are they turning away and frowning? The subtle nuances that you and I take for granted, he does not see.

Last year, a parent called him a "bully" because of this. I suspect, now that the parent has known him for a year and through other sports and such, that he would not call K a bully now. But that was, nevertheless, his first impression. I can feel parents this year criticizing me because of my son's lack of social "comprehension", because they don't know him, and they don't know me, and they don't know us.

And it hurts. And there is nowhere to go with it. When I was raising my "other" child, I was the condescending, critical one--if not overtly, at least on the inside. So I guess, in my old age, and because I am on the other side of the coin now, I will think before I have a critical, condescending, judgmental heart. We are not all wired the same (thankfully!). It isn't necessarily lack of good parenting that makes a child blurt out what comes to his mind or play too rough or too long. It isn't a matter of 'us' and 'them', but it is 'we'. How can we help each other and encougage each other, rather than criticzing and judging each other?

Growing into the people God wants us to be sure is painful sometimes....