Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word

A few days ago I was having a discussion with Mom about my job. I am a special education middle school teacher with seventeen wonderful sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students who combine a wide range of physical, emotional, and learning disabilities into a LINC (Learning In Natural Communities) class I affectionately refer to as, “my kids.”

I am blessed, you see. I have never fathered a child of my own, although I have had a major role in raising a few. That void of not having any biological offspring could have come with many regrets. But the way I look at it, between the constant flow of children in the public school system and the kids I work with at church, I have many wonderful children all around me all the time. They are children I can enjoy being around, but at the same time, send them home to their parents when they get tired, sick, or cranky.

Talk about being blessed!

Sometimes people ask me how I relate to kids so well; they cannot help but notice that I have a natural ability and a gift that is pretty unusual – I must admit – for a guy without any kids of his own.

I was just about to make this point when Mom unleashed her wisdom on me and let loose this observation, “Well, you’ve always felt sorry for those kids.”

Huh? Those... kids? I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t. Because if there’s one emotion I have never felt around any of the special needs kids, it is sorry. Yuk! This has never crossed my mind.

I’m not sure where Mom was coming from, but I am amazed at the certainty of her observation. After all, she never even asked if I indeed felt (Gulp!) sorry for the kids. She just assumed.

I am blessed for knowing each and every child that I have had the opportunity to learn, play, fish, grow, explore, sing, dance, read, laugh, and pray with. Never more so than when I am surrounded by my special needs kids. They are a joy; they are gifts from God each and every one of them. When I look at their faces, I see Jesus looking back at me. I love them. And if anyone tries to say otherwise, they’ll have to answer to me.

I do feel sorry sometimes. Sometimes I see a student outside my realm behaving a certain way and recognize that he or she should have extra help, but the parents are too poor or too proud to get it.

Other times I feel sorry when I see a perfectly normal child, in a perfectly normal classroom setting, purposely throwing away an opportunity to learn by behaving badly, or by just plain not putting any effort into their day. I see them sleep. I see them fight. I see them bully. I see them deface school property. I see them steal. I hear them curse. I feel their disrespect. And I have even been part of the bloody aftermath of one student who murdered another over a girlfriend.

There’s plenty to be sorry for in our schools. But my kids are not among the pitiful. They are gifts from God. They may never reach half of the potential of some of those other so-called “normal” kids, but they give 100% every day without exception. This is what fills me up. I leave work smiling, not because I felt sorry for someone, but because I helped a child reach a new goal. I helped them climb a new mountain they never thought they’d ever be able to climb.

Far cry from the implied act of charity that comes to mind when the word “sorry” is used to describe my intentions. I can’t help wonder how it is that I got here to this point of being with – longing to be with – children with special needs. After all, if you’d have told me five years ago that I’d be working with deaf kids, autistic kids, MR kids, and kids in wheel chairs, I’d have told you to lay-off the caffeine.

I love it here, because God put me on this path. That’s right! You heard me. God’s will is my work. But all it took for me to reach this crossroad was to stop trying to control it all myself. Like I know the first thing about what God’s plan is for me.

I let go of it three  years ago and this is where He has led me. I may not be making the big paychecks that life in television put into my bank account, but what have I got to show for all of that now?

So, if you talk to Mom and she says she’s proud of what I am doing now, believe it. She is. But if she goes on to say that I’m doing it because I feel sorry for those kids, you now know that I could never feel sorry for those with whom I have come to love so deeply in my spiritual journey towards God’s Glory.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/article_0060.shtml