As children start school and learn to adjust to their new teachers, I am reminded of my own children and their early school situations. In encouraging parents to pray for their children and with their children, I often share this story.
Kelsey, our lively daughter who brought great joy to our lives, was also quite the independent thinker. She frequently got into trouble by doing things that I would never have thought of, such as walking the length of a seesaw or cutting the pictures out of a book to paste into her own book.
Thus I worried about how she would do in school. I could imagine that instead of writing her name on her paper, she would draw vines and flowers down the sides and it would be the prettiest but not necessarily what the teacher wanted. As a teacher in the school she attended, I walked the halls warily the first week of first grade, wondering if her teacher and my friend Barb Yaksic would indicate that a little talk was necessary. But Barb simply smiled and said, “That Kelsey is a doll!” so I gathered all was well.
Friends and relatives asked Kelsey how she liked school. “It’s OK,” she answered. I assumed her lack of enthusiasm came from being more restricted than she liked to be.
Toward the end of the third week of school, we assembled as usual for family prayers before bedtime. She and her brother Josh, age 14, were willing participants. Sometimes their prayers were more obligatory than thoughtful, and occasionally we were astonished at their depth.
When it was Kelsey’s turn to pray, she mentioned the relatives she always prayed for, and then softly added, “And please makeMrs. Yaksic like me.” The catch in her voice kept her from going further, and I went ahead with my part of the praying.
After Kelsey was in bed, her dad and I went in to kiss her and tuck her in, another nightly ritual. I sat on the side of the bed and asked, “What’s going on with you andMrs. Yaksic?”
That was all that was needed. Between gasping sobs, she told how miserable she had been in her first grade class. Mrs. Yaksic hugged everyone else but not Kelsey—at least not often. Mrs. Yaksic was always giving special help to some children, but never to Kelsey. “She’s not mean to me. She just doesn’t seem to like me,” Kelsey ended.
As a teacher, I thought I understood what had happened. I had been totally wrong in my expectations of Kelsey. Perhaps she was such a good and reliable student that Barb was leaving her on her own while she dealt with the new first graders who had greater problems.
Gently, I told Kelsey that that was the way I saw it. “I’m sure that she’ll pay more attention to you when she gets some of the problem children settled,” I assured her. “Remember to keep praying about it. That’s always a good move.”
Her situation pestered my thoughts as we rushed to get ready for school the next morning. I kept praying for something to happen that day that would reassure Kelsey and establish a more comfortable place for her in the classroom.
“Lord,” I prayed, “please help Kelsey to adjust to the situation. Help Barb to sense her needs and meet them as much as possible.” Immediately I felt a sense of peace. I knew that somehow God would work it out.
As I opened my plan book at school, my eyes fell on the school-wide schedule of special classes and I knew what I had to do. I checked it to find out when Barb would be in the classroom while her students were out.
After she had had time to walk her class to the gym and return, I quietly eased into her room. As I silently prayed that I would use the right words, we chatted for a minute. Finally I said, “What kind of problems are you having with Kelsey?”
“Problems?” she repeated. “Absolutely none! She’s well-behaved and does her work beautifully. Why do you ask?”
I told her. Shaking her head, she slowly sank into her chair.
“I am so glad you told me this!” she responded. “I had no idea that I’d been ignoring her. Well, that’s a problem easily remedied. Thank you so much for telling me.”
After school Kelsey burst into my classroom. “Mom! Guess what! I got to be Mrs. Yaksic’s special helper today! She asked me to put books on the shelf for her and she said I did a great job. I loveMrs. Yaksic!”
“Great!” I answered, hugging her. “I guess those prayers paid off pretty quickly.”
She stopped short. “Oh, yeah! I forgot all about that. I guess it was those prayers. I didn’t quit praying last night until I went to sleep. I prayed all the way to school, too.”
“So did I,” I answered. “It’s a good thing God doesn’t forget children’s prayers.” And that He prods mothers in the right direction, I thought. Keep prodding me, Lord, to be the mother you want me to be. Help me to ask the right questions and to depend on you for the answers.
Have you ever learned something from your children’s prayers?
