"Is progress halted when acceptance into a chosen field of study is denied, when a desired job doesn't materialize, when marriage or children are unfulfilled dreams, when health limitations present unforeseen obstacles, or when money hoped for isn't there?"
When
our daughter Stephanie was five years old, I took her to register for
kindergarten. When we arrived, she was invited to go into a classroom to
participate in some games with the teachers and other children. As a
former elementary school teacher, I knew the games were designed as
tests for placement purposes.
A
teacher was sitting just outside the room with a box of crayons and
several sheets of blank paper, and I smiled confidently as Stephanie was
asked to choose her favorite color and write her name. She can write all the names in our family, I thought. She is so well prepared, there isn’t anything in that room she can’t handle!
But Stephanie just stood there. The teacher repeated the instructions,
and again my daughter stood still, staring blankly at the box of
crayons, with her knees locked and hands behind her back.
In
the sweet, patient voice that teachers use when they are beginning to
feel slightly impatient, the teacher asked once more, “Stephanie, choose
your favorite color, dear, and write your name on this paper.” I was
about to come to my daughter’s aid when the teacher kindly said, “That’s
okay. We will help you learn to write your name when you come to school
in the fall.” With all the restraint I could gather, I watched
Stephanie move into the classroom with a teacher who believed my
daughter did not know how to write her name.
On
the way home, I tried to ask as nonchalantly as possible why she had
not written her name. “I couldn’t,” she replied. “The teacher said to
choose my favorite color, and there wasn’t a pink crayon in the box!”
I
have reflected on this incident many times over the years as I watch my
children grow and as I observe life in general. How many times are we,
as Heavenly Father’s children, immobilized because the choice we had in
mind for ourselves just isn’t available to us, at least not at the time
we want it?
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