Sandy and I have been on pins and needles wondering about our son. Nearly three weeks ago we sent him to a school for boys in a state far away and part of the school’s policy for new arrivals is a ‘black-out’ period for a couple weeks. No calls. No correspondence. It’s been as though he was shot to the far side of the moon and we’ve held our breath through a vacuum of uncertainty. This morning, however, we awakened to the knowledge that today was the day. Our first call; our first news of how he fared.
We were given a window of three hours in which to make a ten-minute call to our boy. I repeatedly held my watch up to the morning light, waiting for the exact minute we could call. Sandy and I both agreed that we would call the first tick of the allowable time because we wanted our son to know we were living for this moment. And indeed we were. With ten minutes to go, we snuggled close, held hands and prayed. I asked the Lord a question. I wanted to know how the tone and tenor of the conversation might go as we had been warned by the headmaster that the first call is often quite horrible. Everything from begging to come home, wanting to know why they had to be sent away, questioning the parents’ love, threatenings to sabotage everything, calling out hateful diatribes and calling down curses. The works. Continue reading »
