Poetry Sunday ~ My Graduate

Ex. 40: 36And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys:

My Graduate

2014

Out of my womb, placed in my arms

Not yet touched by worldly charms.

I counted ten fingers then ten toes

Traced your lips, then tapped your nose.

I saw in you complete perfection

I cradled you with motherly affection.

I watched you as you began to walk

Loved when you babbled thinking it talk.

I tended your journey as you strode

Lending you strength with every load.

I gave you love and watched you grow

I did all I could, just so you know.

Today is the day I hold pride in my hand

You get your diploma and there you’ll stand.

A flip of the tassel, to the future you’ll stroll

Taking on life and your new manly roll.

Go with God always letting Him guide

Forever I’m here for you to confide.

My work in you now seems complete

March to life’s drum, your very own beat!

Congratulations Adam on a job well done!

Graduation

Prov. 8:10 Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.

Well this is it, two more days and my son graduates from high school. I remember five years ago when we moved to Nebraska and Steven said we should put him in school. I was so not up for putting him in school.

You see, I home-schooled Adam. I didn’t feel society had anything to offer him and putting him in school would only taint him. Boy was I wrong. When we mentioned sending him to school he got all excited. As I often do when I’m faced with a task or something, I pray. And pray I did. Adam and Steven were already on board with the whole school thing and now I needed some guidance.

Adam was seven when we moved to Texas and now at thirteen we were moving to Nebraska. I was shaping him and forming him for the world and now I had to let him go into the world and see how he’d respond. Would society accept him? Would they taunt and tease him? Would they take away from him all the work I did?

His first year of school was ninth grade and they saw that he was different; he was a ‘home schooled homeboy’. He had a lot of city upbringing in him and he was among the country folk who have a whole different way of living. Wouldn’t ya know it, it was the outcasts that accepted him first.

His first year was rough with all of the bully’s eyes on him. He was different, he stood out, he had different beliefs than they had. Sure this was a God loving place but you see, when kids are normally taught God and thrown into society at six, it is society who shapes and molds them. God shaped and molded Adam so he was different in that aspect. It was obvious that society had not shaped him.

I clashed with the rules of the system big time. When Adam got pushed I told him to push back but the system was different. When someone walked up and punched you in the face, you were told to go to the office and NOT hit back! I was raised in the city and if someone hit me, we hit back or get a worse beating the next time if we ‘tattled’. When I see the bully NOT get punished because, “we just want to get him out of the school.” But Adam got punished for hitting back? Yeah, something is wrong with the system!

And we wonder why these kids are getting bullied and going back to the school and killing many? I don’t wonder at all. I know they are angry at a system that sees these kids as their property, not individual human beings! When a school has a dress code and no one abides, there is no punishment for non-adherence. The girls are allowed to wear up the butt tight shorts, but bullies are allowed a free pass? Something is seriously wrong with the system.

By eleventh grade it was a little better, except now Adam had his own mind formed and was learning rights; the rights of the people. He’s not a stupid kid, he could see where the kids rights were stamped on at many levels and this angered him, so much so he wanted his future to be as an activist.

By this time he was seventeen and I felt he was old enough for violent video games. I had never allowed them but now at seventeen, he was obviously his own person able to make his own decisions on what he wanted. Video games didn’t shape him but they allowed him to get out some pent up anger.

Did I force him to get all A’s, no. Did I force him to become like everyone else and aim for college, no. Is this a mistake I made? I don’t feel it is. He is his own person and knows what he wants. He don’t want college and while everyone is telling him it is wrong not to go to college, he knows his rights and he knows that college would just force him into doing things he DON’T want to do.

Now it is graduation year. He is eighteen and knows how to be a human being in society. Sure it is going to be hard, who in this world has it easy? Are any of you in the career that your college choice has you doing? Did you go to college and now work at McDonald’s, farming, the job of your choice? So what was your point in college again? I know, I know, many chose astrophysicists, a teacher, a doctor and that is your line of work, but again, it was YOUR choice right? Or did mom and dad make you excel and you went to college and now are NOT working in your chosen field?

Life is hard. I wasn’t given a handbook saying this is the right and wrong way; I had to wing it just like millions of others. Was all my choices right? By no means. Are they wrong? Not at all. But God gave us the freedom of choice and living in a supposed free world where our rights are infringed upon daily, Adam has a choice and he CHOOSES not to go to college. Is it a mistake? I don’t know. But if it is, it is HIS mistake to make not mine.

I do know that sending him to school was the best choice I could make for him as a child and as graduation day approaches I can SEE the choice I made living in him. He wrote me a Mother’s Day card last week. He told me how he loved me and thanked me for allowing him choices; to choose God, to choose his future and to be able to choose anything he wants in life.

To me… that is what parenting is. To realize that the little human being that has been entrusted to you be allowed the freedom of choice. By allowing society to raise and shape them, graduation day will be the results of that product. Sometimes there will be good results and sometimes not so good results but as I see it, my choice has rewarded me with good results.

I thank God every day that He brought us to Nebraska. Adam was formed by God, shaped by poverty and molded by the land and his surroundings. When Adam receives his diploma, I will see God finishing up what He brought us here to do. My baby is no longer mine to do with what I want, he is now a product of God’s and my best advice to him will be, ‘Go with God.’ I don’t often hold pride in my hand, but on this day I will stand proud of the young man that Adam has become. After all, he is Adam Omega, my first and my last. 

Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

 

 

Stressed ~

Pss. 126: 6 He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

I’m Stressed

What? Happy-go-lucky, Joni? The lady that's always thinking positive and lifting people up? Stressed? Really?

Yes, Joni, stressed, one and the same. I am human after all as much as many of you think I’m not. I hurt, I cry, I sin and I get stressed. The only difference in me is, I take it all to God and allow Him to carry my burden, then I pray, pray fervently for an answer, any answer, even if is not the answer I had thought of, I fervently pray.

When I announce to my virtual friends that I’m stressed, I don’t expect them all to come running and offer me comfort but I do expect a little compassion. Sure in my weakened state they will offer me scripture, God this and God that. Yes I know, that is why I fervently pray. I would just like one, any one to say, “What’s wrong?”

When I’m stressed, it isn’t the time to taunt and tease me because I seriously react differently than when I’m not stressed. Sure, I can take a taunt and tease as well as anybody but sometimes I just need to vent and THANK GOD I have my writing for that, because in my flow of words, writing is the only thing that helps me since no other so-called humans even understand. That is why I turn to the Holy Spirit and my spiritual gifts.

It hit me Saturday, when Steven’s mom asked, “So do you have any plans for graduation?” Me? Plans? I hate plans! Like rules, they were made to be broken, right?

“Um, no.” I replied. 

Then for the entire ride, thoughts came in like a wave crashing on the shore. The wave being the thoughts and the crashing being them hitting me like a ton of bricks the wave carried in.

Graduation. I never really thought the day would come since I home-schooled Adam for eight years of his school life but now he’s a senior nearing graduation and thoughts are swirling like a twister in the southern heat!

Okay, a little compassion here. I think I’m feeling a little of what is called ‘empty-nest syndrome’ or something closely related to that. No he hasn’t left the nest, but he plans to. He has also made HIS OWN decision in not entering college. While I hear the scoffers of his decision, I myself think it is a wise decision and am standing behind him, well, since I’m the only one he has.

I notice so many parents and schools put pressure on kids to attend college to ‘better your education’, to ‘get a good job in your future’, to ‘make lots of money, down the line.’ Yes it is a lot of pressure on a kid who just wants to end a harrowing school experience and be done with it all.

Why I think it is a wise decision? Who is going to PAY for college? Will he be indebted for 50 years for a college he was pressured into attending only to drop out and decide to do something else? The boy is thinking of getting a job, saving money, and deciding ON HIS OWN if college is for him. From an adult standpoint he’ll know what HE can and cannot afford. He IS his own person after all!

Now back to the graduation woes. Adam has no family. The only family he has known for eleven years has been Steven’s most awesome family. My family has no cares for him, he has no father, he has no aunts and uncles in my family to even congratulate him or say, “Way to go, kid!” They might when the time comes but I highly doubt it. They’ve had nothing to do with him all these years, why say anything now? On my side of the family all that Adam has had has been my mother and father, but they are too old to travel with all of their health issues, so no, no family for Adam.

Now, Steven’s mom offered us her house for a ‘get together’, for anybody that DOES show. Then she mentioned invitations, pictures and so many things that go into a senior graduation, my mind went into a tailspin and here I am venting into the unknown. Thanks MOM! Haha, I chuckled. She is one of the kindest, sweetest women I know!

In the four years that we’ve been here in Nebraska, we’ve attended 4 graduations for his nieces and nephews. They had the whole pic thing, the invitations and kinda nice parties if I do say so myself. Surrounded by family and friends, food and a good time. Again, Adam only has Steven’s family and if no one shows up, he’ll be alone on one of the biggest days of his life. Okay, okay, I KNOW mom, Bobbi and Mike will show, they’re rocks that way and they love Adam!

And to top off the stress, it falls on a Saturday. Steven works on Saturday’s. Will he take off? Well, he BETTER if he knows what’s good for him. Haha That being ME! I think he is all too eager to see the nest empty but does he really know what that means? HE will have to do all Adam’s chores! Taking the trash out, cans out, drying dishes and putting them away, vacuuming, mowing, etc. etc.  I hope the day turns out important to him since he has been the only man figure IN Adam’s life!

Graduation – coming to a May near you.  *Deep sigh*  …. To be continued…

Mark 11: 23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.