Crushed Crayons

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

JAMES 1:2–4

DR. CATHY CARPENTER IS AN ACCOMPLISHED PHYSICIAN WITH a heart for God. Her second child, Matt, was a difficult boy from day one. He became known as their “birth control baby,” making both Cathy and her husband, Gordon, swear off any thoughts of having another child. Whereas Cathy and Gordon took much pride in their quiet and accommodating first child, with Matt, Cathy confesses, “I had been forced to shift to the role of trying to survive parenting.”

Many people had volunteered to watch their “perfect” baby named Bethany, but nobody volunteered to watch Matt—even though Gordon and Cathy needed a break from him ten times more than they ever needed from Bethany. Word got around about Matt, so before long, Gordon and Cathy had to shell out serious dollars to get someone who was willing to babysit him for an evening. Matt got kicked out of his first preschool by the age of three.

Many people assumed that a difficult child meant substandard parenting. It seemed everybody had an easy solution, and they were quick to offer advice, implying that Cathy and Gordon, despite their graduate education and relative success with their compliant firstborn, didn’t have a clue about what they were doing. Cathy made this wise observation:

Parents with difficult children are special people needing support, love, and understanding. Instead, they are stranded on a desert island in a fortress of isolation with walls to the sky. They are surrounded by those well-meaning relatives, busybody friends, and complete strangers who make statements like, “Oh, he’s just all boy, dear.” “Why can’t you control your child?” “Maybe he just eats too much sugar . . .”^a

Matt’s energy quickly became a safety issue. By the time Matt was two, he had learned how to get out of car seats. Cathy and Gordon bought three car seats with three different types of restraints, hoping to fool their two-year-old, but Matt figured his way out of each one of them in less than thirty seconds. The coup de grâce came when they finally borrowed a seat that Cathy says seemed to fit Matt like a torture chair in a James Bond movie. The chair had been specially designed to keep troublesome tykes safely in their seat. They strapped Matt in, put in a kid’s music tape, and got ready for their drive out of town.

Sixty seconds later, Gordon looked in the rearview mirror and saw Matt standing straight up in the car seat, dancing and waving to the music.

Matt’s energy and creativity knew no bounds. For some reason, Matt became determined to smuggle crayons into kindergarten, even though the school provided each student with his or her own crayons. After Cathy made it clear to Matt that he didn’t need to take crayons to school, she noticed a bulge in his sock as she tied his shoes. Suspicious, Cathy asked Matt, “Are you hiding crayons in your socks?”

Matt defiantly stood up—how could his mother even think such a thing?—and watched, mortified, as crayons poured down his pants legs and out of his shirt. Cathy then did a full-body search and discovered that Matt had stashed crayons even in his underwear. She eventually counted 116 crayons hidden in various parts of Matt’s clothing!

As a young girl, older sister Bethany drew a picture of her family. Matt stood in the center of the family, his hair on end, with Gordon, Cathy, and Bethany facing Matt and looking weary. Cathy admitted, “She captured our family portrait.”

What strikes me about Cathy’s story is how a prominent physician and her very intelligent husband (I’ve met Gordon—he’s on staff with a church, runs a bookstore, and is a well-read man) “always wanted to be the type of parents who remained anonymous,” but whom “Matt gave the distinguished privilege of being in the speed dial format of every principal’s phone system.” One middle school teacher cruelly (but somewhat understandably) told Cathy, “The best part of my day is 2:30 when your son goes home.”

Yet even in the midst of being misunderstood, Cathy sees much good in having such a difficult child:

God worked in my life to change attitudes of bitterness, embarrassment, and resentment into attitudes of grace, love, and hope. These new attitudes developed out of pain, self-sacrifice, and a little creativity. God accomplished this by walking with me through the hard times I longed to control but could not. As I prayed and sought wisdom and courage, [God] placed people in my life to restore control.^b

Just listen to Cathy’s hard-won wisdom: “While people may judge us by our children’s actions, God judges us by our reactions to them. I needed to stop being mortified and to start being modified. . . . At times, I actually pity those parents who have easy children. How will they ever learn these valuable lessons?”

I so appreciate Cathy’s insight—that we parents need “to stop being mortified and to start being modified.” It mirrors what I believe is most true about Christian family life: that God uses parenting to shape and mold us into his servants. We must learn not only how to love compliant people but also how to love difficult people, overly active people, strong-willed people, and even, on occasion, cruel people.

When we see parenting as a journey of learning how to love, the type of child we must learn to love becomes almost irrelevant. The onus of love is on the one doing the loving, not on the object of love.

Heavenly Father, how do you want to modify me? What is it about loving others that you want this child to teach me? Where do I fall short? Where is my heart weak and immature? Point out my sin, my pride, my selfishness—and use this child to make me strong and holy in you. Thank you, Lord, for the grace of this difficult child who can teach me how to love. Amen.