I was just sitting here thinking of, just some of the things we see, and experience in this world that is completely opposite of what God says in His word. For instance, and this is how I was planning to start off, is, in the bible we are told, in numerous different places, in different ways, that once you are born again, that is, born of the Spirit, you are a NEW CREATION. Old things are passed away and all things have been made new.
Your past is not held against you. This world, on the other hand, will absolutely hold you past against you.
Maybe I am in a unique position to see this, I don't know.
My start to life, like so many other's was not the best. I was born into one family, but called another mom and dad. Yes, I was adopted. Grateful that someone was willing to take me in, yet, angry that someone could bring, not just 1, but 3 lives into this world, and just let them go, and it definitely didn't help that I was child number 3. As I seen it, the first 2 gave them experience with parenthood, and even though we are close in age, they still had the experence. My new future parents had me just a few days short of 3 months, when I came down with a mysterious illness, that I would much later find out that likely came from spinal meningitis that had not yet cleared my system, My new parents were not told about this, and it came back in a different form in less then 3 months. That led to other problems which I overcame. That would have been fine, if that chapter had ended there, but it didn't, and it earned me some undesirable lables, once I got in the education system.
I recall a time in one of my "special education" classes," a friendand I, decided that we was going to write a short story and hand it in for extra credit. It wasn't a extra credit assignment, we just came up with this idea all on our own. Now my friend's short story consisted of 1 sheet of paper and large writing. It was maybe 4 or 5 sentences, at the most, suggesting that her placement was correct, at least, at that time it was. Mine was actually a short story. We took it up to the teacher. Told him what it was and why we were giving it to him. God bless him for seeing something in mine that led him to call my mom to set up a meeting, to get the wheels in motion to have me moved into a higher level of learning. And they did, however, it proved to be in vein, as the one's who were on the next rung of the latter didn't see the same value in my work. Rather than celebrating the achievements, the previous labels held me down. I on the other hand, think they did, but they had me in this low education system to produce low skilled employee's, and was not about to let me out of it. I still, to this day, believe that.
I just remembered another one, this came earlier so I'm not sure as to how much of actual memories of the event, and how much are memories from hearing my mom tell this story. I'm pretty sure some of it is my memories of the event.
Try to picture it! My special Ed class is in a line, in the hallway, heading to lunch. The "normal" class, with "normal" kids are in a line on the other side of the hallway going back to class, only as they pass our class, they would make fun of us, and pick on us. Shove, pull hair. Things like that. Our teacher wouldn't let us retaliate. " Just ignore them.", she would say. "You'll be past them soon enough", or something to that affect, that is until she got to noticing that the teacher's in those classes wasn't correcting their kids, I think she even caught one of the teacher laughing at how her students was treating us. Once that happened, she gave us permission to stand up for ourselves, which is exactly what I did. One boy as he past, called me 4 eye's, pulled my hair, so something. I just happened to be standing in front of a empty class room, door opened, I just reached inside, took the trash can from beside the door and proceeded to dump the contents of that trash can over his head, leave the trash can on his head, and slap it with my hand as to, secure it in place. Our teacher had to step back in the classroom so we would not see her laugh.
That is a funny event, and I do remember laughter coming from both sides of the hallway.
But, take those events and multiply them by all the other things that happened in K-12. Imagine what kind of message that sends to a child. Not a good one, I can tell you that. By the time you graduate, the receiving message is pretty well baked in. The messages of, your not good enough, your not smart enough. Heck, as recent as being in for my mom's funeral I heard the message, "your never be able to live on you own .", and it was not just said once, but 3 times, in the same day, by the same person; and has not even lifted a finger to "help". I'm thinking, "What? Was that for information purposes only?"
So, you can probably understand, from a previous blog, why, when I started getting bible knowledge, how it went to my head when people started coming to me with questions.
If you have never lived what I have described in my own experiences, it's hard to imagine what that can do to someone.
Can you see, in that later event, which I spoke of first, the one about writing the short story. If only the next teacher that got me had seen the same potential, and continued encourging me, how much of a difference that would of made. Maybe nurture the creativity that was in me; that just needed a little help to get it out. Things might have been a lot different. Rather than focusing on that, all they nurtured was the labels. I started out on the "special education " side of the line, and special education kids don't write like that. Excuse me, but this one did, or maybe I was put in a class that I never should have been in, in the first place. I was just slightly below grade level, that wouldn't have required a lot of time to get me up to grade level. They just didn't invest the time to get me where I needed to be. In any event, it didn't take long to bury the creativity, with all the, "you can't " messages that I was getting.
This took a direction I never intended. But, I guess it was meant to be. I really intended to put scripture references, if it had gone in the direction I originally intended. Oh well, maybe I will continue with this in the next blog, with scripture reference.
I just want to say this before ending. Everything that I have described is totally opposite of the word of God. If this system that we all live in was with God, it would have continued with what the teacher who noticed something in my writing did. Lift me up, help hone that natural ability. Smooth out those rough edges. That's just not how it worked out.
I also think, that short story alerted the powers that be, that they couldn't just produce another robot with me. Cause, you know, special education kids just don't do things like that! I guess that that showed rebellion to how I was supposed to think of myself.
Click here for part 2
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