Stops and Steps

I sat with a young mom this morning. She shared about her three kids, in their teens and early twenties, who were all showing signs of distinterest in academics, disillusionment with their current plight and disinclination to take affirmative action. As a hands-on, homeschooling, committed mom she was quick to conclude that the current struggles, as well as every other malady visited on her children, must be her doing. Not an uncommon misperception.  

       

The steps of a good man are ordered by The Lord and he delighteth in his way. Psalm 37:23

Somewhere I read that George Mueller had written in the margin of his Bible near this verse "and his stops, also". Likewise, I penciled his quote on the page of my Bible. Many times over the years, when it feels like someone has pushed the pause button and a child is stuck in neutral, I have been reminded that God is not asleep, disinterested, confused or frustrated. He is at work behind the scenes ordering the next step.

Our thirty year old son has just completed a series of seven exams on his journey to become a registered  architect. He can now sign his name on drawings. He is authorized to put those AIA letters behind his signature. He has reached a goal. But there were pauses. We sometimes laugh now remembering the interludes that seemed, at the time, to be the long way around the block. 

                                  

This young man, not quite ready for rigors of college fresh out of high school, took a gap year and went off to a one year Bible school in Sweden. Back at the ranch, after playing ball for the school team and possibly putting some Bible study under his belt, he ventured onto the college scene.  The school, the major, the relationships...none of it went well. This son was in for a pause.

During this time-out, our boy worked nights at Home Depot, built swimming pools in the daytime, and bought clothes. I remember peering into his closet where every week beautiful new shirts were added to those already hung in a perfect row, one inch from each other. I wondered where he was going to wear them because he was always working. The pregnant pause produced lots of stuff money could buy and plenty of debt, too. 

At some point, with lessons learned in the school of hard knocks, next steps became clear and this young man with a passion, poured himself into the study of architecture. Faith grew in the God who had been with him in every standstill. There was no free lunch at our house, so he worked tenaciously on both the academics and the resources to attend school. He made stellar marks, graduated, and won himself a full scholarship to an Ivy League school for graduate work. Now, in his element and exhilarated by the hard work, he earned his Master's degree.

                                   

Not long ago, I ran into an old acquaintance who inquired about this particular son. "He's doing great," I responded. "He is an architect and living in New York City." The gentleman smiled and nodded his head in a that-makes-sense kind of way. "Your son and I were working together building swimming pools when he decided to go back to school. When I asked him why he had decided on architecture, he just responded, in a matter-of-fact manner, 'Well, my mom said she thought I would be good at architecture.'"

I truly do not remember the remark. Instead, it seems like I was prone to chastening him for doodling over cartoons when he should have been memorizing vocabulary words...or reminding him to put his dad's tools away when he was finished with his project...or cautioning that the amazing bike jump was dangerous. Still, his gifting did not go unnoticed. He was meticulous about organization and detail. He loved construction and would beg to watch big machines doing their roadwork. On his fifth birthday, his heart's desire was to have a truck come to his party...with a driver in it! He drew fantastic cartoons, printed his schoolwork in penmanship that looked like it was computer-generated and displayed creativity, ala the pet cemetery across the creek in our  backyard, the treehouse built with his dad when he was thirteen, and the brick-bordered herb garden designed outside my kitchen. 

                  

There is so much our kids do not seem to hear. "Take out the trash....reduce your speed on a rainy day....remember your homework." We must sound like a broken record at times. But God is at work in spite of us.  He is with our kids in the standstill, the recess, the lull. In the stillness of the stops, He is at work ordering their next steps. And sometimes, He even allows a mother to speak a word that opens a window....or a door...and invites a child into the future.