Two Stories About Andrew

My Andrew is a funny boy. He is goofy but shy. Smart but hates the spotlight. Perfectly fine with participation but sincerely loathe to get credit for anything publicly. If I had to categorize him it would be as an introvert. He is a hard nut to crack emotionally and it can be extremely difficult to worm out of him his feelings. Sometimes I think he doesn't know what he feels himself. Or if he does he doesn't seem to know how to express it at all. So he doesn't. He bottles it all up tight as a drum until it comes out. Sometimes as a blast, sometimes as a leak, sometimes not at all.

Wednesday nights we participate in our church's family night programming. The kids attend a class, Eric helps with the youth group and I lead a Precept Upon Precept class. Right now the boys are learning about the fundamentals of faith. Salvation, baptism, communion. Stuff like that. This week, as I was picking them up, one of the teachers Miss Jan stopped me to tell me that Andrew had prayed to ask Jesus to live in him. I was of course excited and asked what happened. Jan said that she didn't really know. Just that last week (as in the previous Wednesday) Robyn had prayed and that Andrew had told Jan tonight that when Robyn prayed he did too. What a boy! He keeps this information in the bag for a whole week before he shares it. But you know what? That is ok. I asked him when we got home about it and he said yes that he had prayed but he always felt like Jesus was living in him and that he had done it before but he thought he should pray just in case. I gave him a big hug and kiss. God has such wonderful things in store for my Andrew.

Thursday Andrew came home from school sobbing. This is not usual. He said to me as he walked in that he was extremely hungry because he didn't get to eat lunch. My immediate thought was "oh crap! I forgot to put his lunch bag in his backpack!" But that was not the case. Apparently he started speech on Thursday and due to a series of unfortunate events he got to lunch right as they were packing up to head out to recess. Well, my sweet Andrew does not generally talk back to adults. So he obediently packed up his lunch and didn't eat it. Then came home sobbing. Today, after talking to his teacher, I think we have a plan. Apparently speech was super late (some problem with the phone) and it should not happen again. But my Andrew does need to learn to be more assertive when stuff like this happens. There is a difference between assertive and defiant and he will learn it. I just really hope the whole lunch thing doesn't happen again. Because I might go bonkers!