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Topic: Exams (07/26/04)
TITLE: Mom and Pop Quizzes By LINDA GERMAIN 08/01/04 |
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“Go back to your castle,” the village doctor advised, “and enjoy being a pair. Travel or something.” Good advice, but she felt too sick to be gallivanting. Must be the flu. What a dimwit.
There was great rejoicing at this miracle. Jokingly, some called her “Sarah.” Her mother almost fainted, her brother danced a jig, and her father sent her a stuffed bear .The prince just smiled.
Christmas morning, her labor day, a present began arriving, special delivery. He was deemed the most adorable and beautiful baby ever born. Well, at least SHE deemed it.
Sensing the great joy generated by his arrival, he was no trouble at all. The twos were terrific; in fact all of his little boyhood was a blessing.
As a toddler, he loved to hear about “Baby Jee-Juice” in the manger. His character was forming as he learned about his Father in Heaven. Desiring to wrap him in a cloak of honesty and integrity, she tried to make it clear that God’s word was a lamp unto his feet.
She prayed for him to understand how life’s smorgasbord of behavior choices may feed the body and soul but can leave a starving spirit; that there is a way which seems right to man, but to test our mettle and to teach us how to stay on the path to HIM, the Lord is known to give what she called“pop quizzes”. The divine message, all in God’s book, was on the required reading list.
Righteous responses to tough questions point us to the final test, but the price is too high to ever take it. The good news is, Jesus has already paid for us. That makes passing painless.
He understood about correct answers, even humming the Jeopardy song when he was playing. But, she pondered, could he, WOULD he, rise to the standard if she were not prodding or hinting?
Then, one day when he was ten, they were in the library. A voracious reader, she preferred good writing to pandering trash, so she always did a brief book scan for contents. Opening one at random, she saw something green between the pages.
“Son,” she gasped, trying not to alarm him, “look what I found!”
This serendipitous moment stunned him. “Wow, what a bookmark!”
It was $180. Without batting either blue eye, or missing one beat, his immediate reaction catapulted him to the head of class.
“Mom, you know you can’t keep it, don’t you?”
Sweeter words were never spoken. She was so delighted she hugged him right then and there, but quickly apologized for breaching the kid-code in public. There is some bizarre restriction on acknowledging your parents until they learn how to behave in front of others. How embarrassing.
He made an A+ on his pop-quiz, and with no coaching. Incredibly, no one claimed the small windfall, so it was theirs, and none too soon.
The Prince was overjoyed that his offspring had aced the honesty challenge. The launching pad seemed to be sturdy and holding. But, sadly, this is LIFE, and it is not always prudent to get too comfortable in its unpredictable schoolroom.
In a very serious curriculum change, some unexpected and painful testing took place. There were times of grading on the curve, barely making it, then a catching hold and hanging on until fragile plantings in his behalf, watered with prayer and faith, began to sprout and grow. The truth, she insisted, will set you free.
Barefoot now, since the glass slipper shattered, she trusts that her freshly grown son will navigate the horns of dilemmas as a man after God’s own heart. It is the bravest, smartest, most obedient thing he can do.
That child, who had accepted Jesus so happily, can rely on the fruit of those seeds sown in the nursery. He knows, because she would not lie, that he will be standing on his absolute own when called before the HEAD MASTER for the final exam. Passing is a given.
Then, of course, he will live happily ever after. Truly.
The beginning.