I'm too Sick to Get Out of Bed: The rest of the story....part 2.

It just keeps going on and on and on. I home school my children through a private Christian school. It's a private school set up to service the needs of home school families. They offer some wonderful high school classes. My son is taking three of them. When he stayed home sick, I asked him if he e-mailed his teachers to find out about his assignments. He said yes, and I believed him. Keep in mind, he's been sick for two weeks. He goes to class once a week, get's a week's worth of work and then spaces the assignments out for the rest of the week (and he does it very well). Up to this point of the year, he has straight As.

 

So, I went online to check his grades for January and found out he had a F in his writing class. He had 27 out of a possible 100 points. Instead of freaking out, I e-mailed the teacher and the academic director and asked them to look into which assignments he missed and what he do to make up the work he missed.

 

My son was at church. I picked him up early because I knew he had some work he could do for his writing class tomorrow, and I knew youth group had wrapped up early as well. He was ticked off at me. I very calmly told him about his grade and he calmed down. I also pointed out that I had looked at the rest of his monthly grades from the beginning of the year until now. I reminded him that he had scored in the high 90s all year in each of his classes, and I told him how proud I was of him for making those grades. He talked about some possibilities to fix the grade.

 

Then I made a reasonable request. I asked him to write two more journal entries for his writing class, and he didn't want to do it. He spent 20 minutes telling me the teacher said he didn't have to make up the work. I didn't raise my voice even though he raised his and was frustrated with me. Finally, I pulled the mom card and told him he didn't have to agree with me but he had to do what I asked. So, unable to persuade me to see his point of view, he stormed off and did it.

 

After he finished the first entry, we talked again and he calmed down. I gently (honest) reminded him that even if my request is unreasonable, he still has to do it. While he wrote the second journal entry (about his unreasonable mother), I received an e-mail from his teacher. She had forgotten to post one of his grades. After she corrected his grade for the month. it went from a 27 to an 88. What a difference a grade makes. The teacher also verified that My son didn't have to make up the journal entries.

 

And grace won the day once again.

 

Why am I e-mailing again and telling you this? Because you planted a seed during a conversation back in May. It took the seed nine months to germinate but it's bearing fruit and we are all reaping the benefits. As I share my journey of grace with my girlfriends, they are thinking about what I've said and then telling me how God used it to remind them to extend grace to their families. I pray that the Holy Spirit will build this into the fabric of our beings so we can hang on to it and continue to practice extending grace to the people we love the most, our own families.

 

I want to encouraging you to keep plumbing the depths of Scripture on this elusive topic called grace. Keep preaching the message of grace. You are right, God is a very unbalanced parent, and the rest of us need to be more unbalanced in our parenting. I'm reading through the Bible in a year and just read the 10 Commandments. Now I know where that verse comes from. It's tucked into the commandment warning us against idolatry. Hmmm.

 

Yes, you can tell this story. Shout it from the housetops, post it on your website. We desperately need to see and recognize the grace of God at work in each other's lives and celebrate it.

 

Thanks again for being a vessel of the grace of God in my life during the brief moments we spent together. May God bless you as you go about the plans He has for your this week.

 

Sincerely in Christ,

 

A Thankful Mom