Spared from the flames

“How great a matter a little fire kindleth!” James 3:5

My son was diagnosed with ADHD in the first grade, though his preschool and kindergarten teachers rightly suspected it before that. As his mother, I resisted any attempt at labeling my son and his unique skill set. I realized that academics were always going to be a struggle for him, and I resigned myself to the long haul ahead. However, it was his everyday life fiascos from which I learned the most.

When he was in second grade, I had broken my ankle, and my son learned that he could outrun his crutch-laden Mama, easily escaping upstairs or outside, leaving me well in the dust calling to him to come back. He could be headstrong and defiant, and always impulsive, but lovable, empathetic and curious at the same time. I spent every day trying to figure out how to be an adequate parent, feeling most days that I’d failed. I often prayed that God would spare him from himself, and make up for my deficiencies.

“Mommy, I’m scared,” he murmured, and I immediately began sifting through all of the potential disasters that he could have initiated around that corner.

Toward the end of my stint on crutches, we ventured to a furniture store where I was shopping for a desk. I had been hobbling around in the back of the store when I heard a sales clerk suddenly calling out to someone. He proceeded to run toward the front of the store and disappeared from my view. I looked up to see my son appear around the corner of a nearby desk with his eyes round and bulbous, a look of alarm on his 8-year-old face. “Mommy, I’m scared,” he murmured, and I immediately began sifting through all of the potential disasters that he could have initiated around that corner. I heard, “What did you do?” leave my lips, though I distinctly remember wanting to grab his hand and flee through any other possible exit than the front door, leaving the mystery unsolved.

Where did he get matches? Where did he light the matches? How was the furniture store not going up in flames?

To my chagrin, the clerk appeared momentarily with a handful of foot-long matches, with the ends evidently already burned off. They were wet and had apparently been shoved in a snowbank. I looked from the matches to the look of recognition on my boy’s face as the clerk glared at him and admonished him with a very stern, “Don’t you know you are not to play with matches?” My mind reeled with questions. Where did he get matches? Where did he light the matches? How was the furniture store not going up in flames? I apologized profusely, and herded my son through the couches and recliners toward the front door, the clerk following us, probably making sure we didn’t make any other stops along the way.

“…I just wanted to see if they were real.”

As we passed a coffee table, my boy pointed to a decorative round receptacle that stood conspicuously empty next to a centerpiece. It had a strip of rough paper on one side. “They were right there, Mom. I just wanted to see if they were real,” he explained. “I took them out and rubbed them down the sandpaper and they lit. I didn’t know what to do, so I put them back in the cup.” The entire scene played out in my mind in a brief second, and I suddenly became enraged at the sales clerk. I wheeled on my crutches to face him directly, and fired, “What kind of decorator leaves matches down where children can reach them?” I didn’t give him a chance to respond; I turned again and hitched along as confidently as possible on my crutches till we were out the door and back in the car. I breathed a long sigh, relieved that somehow my son did not drop the burning torch of matches on the floor in the midst of a furniture store. How many 8-year-olds would take a moment to carefully place flaming matches back in their holder? I imagine that sales clerk must have wondered the same thing.

Sometimes I would fantasize that, yes, this was it; this was the pinnacle of parental distress, and now it was over, and I would never again have to be quite that tormented.

I thanked God for guiding my son’s hand and mind in that moment. Probably one of the worst effects of these vexing ordeals was the ever-present worry that this may not be the worst parenting experience I would have to endure. Sometimes I would fantasize that, yes, this was it; this was the pinnacle of parental distress, and now it was over, and I would never again have to be quite that tormented. But then I would come back to reality and the certainty that children’s minds should never be underestimated.

There were many more mentionable incidents along my parental pathway. I will share more over the coming weeks in the hopes that others will take heart along their journeys and know that there is still light at the end of the tunnel, even when it’s a flaming torch of matches!