The Divorcing Series: Coloring Inside the Lines By Cortney Donelson

Image cred: www.quiltershomemag.com

I return to the Divorcing Series for an intimately personal story. I am always hesitant to share anything about my children. In fact, I’m still not sure I will. I may just be writing this for my own internal wrestling match – to see where I land, to find out what victory might look like. So, here we go...

Each of my children is young yet mature in their own little behaviors. They are childish in ways that prevent them from always expressing themselves and their feelings appropriately (aren’t we all?). Yet, they are old enough to experience and understand struggles and perhaps more importantly, shame. Old enough to care what other people think about them. Old enough to feel the temptation to hide and hope their struggles away. Certainly old enough to occasionally wish they were different...

And, that last one is what’s truly tearing me apart. 

I rarely share about my children because the stories are categorically theirs to tell, not mine. Both of my children were adopted. If you ask me about their histories or struggles, I won’t tell you much. I’m not being timid or even difficult. I am protecting my kids. I’m guarding their privacy. It’s ultimately up to each of them what pieces they want to share and what they want to keep between them and the One who created them. So, it is with much prayer, thought, and permission from my child that I share this story. 

At a shockingly young age, my son created a map of the United States by drawing the outline of each state on a full 8 ½ x 11 piece of colored construction paper, cutting it out, and then fitting them all together like a puzzle on his bedroom floor. His final creation exceeded 100 square feet. This venture took him almost four hours to complete. I had no idea this was his afternoon project, so after the first hour, I went to check on him to determine why he had been so quiet. When I walked into his room and discovered this particular mission and how he had already drawn nearly a dozen states using a book he had found, I immediately texted my husband. 

I don’t know how to parent this child. 

My son was three. 

There were signs even before this of what was to come. At 18 months old, while still learning English (he was born in Russia), he started matching car makes and models with their respective logos on the cars we would pass on the road. At age two and a half, he asked me, “Mom, if God is so big, how can He fit in our hearts?” Then at age four, my dad and his golfing buddies stopped by our house, and my son proceeded to have an in depth discussion with one of them about current events and computers. By age five, he had traveled to four continents and experienced various cultures. Finally, I’ll share that at age nine, he wrote a children’s book. 

There were other things we noticed, too. He would cover his ears in restaurants, have trouble falling asleep at night because his brain wouldn’t “shut off,” resist going to movie theatres, and talk incessantly. On one road trip to Philadelphia, he asked me to turn off the radio within the first 15 minutes, and then my son told me stories for the entire eight-and-a-half hour trip. 

It was obvious; our son was a profound thinker, highly sensitive, and wildly creative. I loved it all. However, these wonderful characteristics came with a complicated price. When he entered kindergarten, he found himself forced into a box that he just wouldn’t – couldn’t – fit. He failed to sit still. He doodled and daydreamed throughout the day. Socially, he struggled. He wasn’t coordinated, and he didn’t like sports. Other kids started to notice his quirkiness. He grappled with group activities, lacking any understanding about compromise. His internal “right versus wrong” scale was tipped precariously towards him being always right. Yet, most of the kids were still young enough so they didn’t truly mind. But, the teachers and administrators... They made it clear that my son was not coloring inside the lines. 

The first year of school was not going well. My son was in and out of the principal’s office. My kindergartener had become the usual suspect. His typical crimes? Not following directions. Putting his hands on the walls. Talking during lunch. (No. No, this isn’t military school I’m describing.) Seriously. 

Then one day, I lost all faith in the public school system. The class had celebrated the teacher’s birthday with cupcakes. Every student received one. Well, everyone but one (I tell you this with scorn pouring over my keyboard). The teacher put my son’s cupcake on the countertop at the back of the classroom, and in front of everyone, she told him that he didn’t deserve it and couldn’t eat it. He watched while every other student ate his and her cupcake. I cannot explain the outrage I felt. Administration did nothing.

We yanked him out of kindergarten a week early. The principal’s response: “The public school system works for 80% of the population.” Period. End of story. My son was not in the 80%. “Good-bye and good luck” were her final words.

I wanted to shout from the school rooftop: HE’S A GREAT KID! HE’S DOING HIS VERY BEST! Much later down the education road, it would be proven: he really was doing his best. As one doctor put it, “Multistep, verbal directions become lost in the sea that is his massive brain.” It was a neurobiological matter. Not a defiant personality flaw. I wanted to go back in time and rub the report in the public school teacher and administrators’ faces. Not a very Christian-like response. I know. Unfortunately, I’m not yet sorry. And, for that, I continue my internal wrestle. 

I struggled with all this immensely. My son... the one with the big heart, the one who gave his size 5T jacket to an adult neighbor when he mentioned he was chilly one night, the one who’s vocabulary was off the charts, the one who laughed uncontrollably at the puffins at the zoo when they dipped their heads under the water causing everyone else there to start laughing with him ... my son was wired differently. And, no one seemed to appreciate that but our own close-knit family.

He was wired differently, and he didn’t care. 

That was so significant because his own mom had begun to doubt God’s plan for him. But then... God began to prove to me through watching and raising my son that success is not based on others’ standards and certainly not culture’s benchmarks. He was about to teach me a certain measure of freedom in not just knowing this, but living it out. BELIEVING IT. The Lord wanted me to let go of what other’s thought of my family, my son, our choices, and me. He wanted me to learn that in order for the Holy Spirit to transform me from the inside out, I would have to let go of the outside world and focus inward. God knew in His wise timing that He had to teach me this while my children were young. For soon, they wouldn’t be young anymore. Their whimsical and carefree attitudes would change. Dang it, but the world would start to matter to them. As with us all, the pull of expectations and need for acceptance can cause us to forget who we are in Christ and why we are here on earth if we’re not careful. Aloneness creeps in and settles down. And, very soon, what I had learned from my son when he was five – loving the person God created him to be and shaking off the judgments, criticism, and labels – I would one day have to turn around and teach back to him. 

That one day has come...

Prayer: Lord, thank you for my family, my children. Thank you that they don’t fit in the box. I love how they color outside the lines. But, oh, how I need you near as I parent them in this world. So many don’t appreciate those who are different. I pray You draw near to us and hold us when others lack understanding and compassion. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. 

Influenced by my prayer life, parenting life, 1 Peter 2:9, Psalm 139:13, Romans 12:2, Psalm 91:2, Romans 12:6-8, Ephesians 2:10, and Jeremiah 29:11. 

©2012-2016 Cortney Donelson. All rights reserved.

Cortney's book, Clay Jar, Cracked: When We're Broken But Not Shattered is available now at www.cortneydonelson.com! It will be available world-wide in bookstores and libraries through Morgan James Publishing when publicly released on March 7, 2017. Visit www.cortneydonelson.com for more information and to learn about the "I'm a Clay Jar" Encourager Class for groups! To schedule speaking engagements, please email Cortney directly.