Unless ye be as little children...

Yesterday's situation has come to a place of peace. A child who observed the abuse against my son came forward, even though this brave little one was in tears last night as he talked with his own father, he was already counting the potential cost he would pay, claiming to be a little scared because he expected that today he'd become the new "target" because he spoke out.

My child went to school today. I don't think I would have. He told his story. Several staff members prayed with me. We talked about how I've had Lazarus as a figure pop up in my personal Bible study, as the topic of a blog that I follow...well, in a variety of settings Lazarus has made an appearance. My observation about it was that the "Lazarus focus" was to prepare me for this situation. The point of the story of Lazarus is that in the tragedy that surrounded him, in Christ's seeming disinterest in the eyes of those who were too wounded by the present moment to have a vision of Christ's purpose in "waiting" to take care of Lazarus' death...the point of the story is that in the end, Christ proved that He would take a circumstance of literal death and make it life, and not just to one but as a testament to many. He would use a grief-ridden moment that even dragged His own reputation into disarray and use that moment to reveal a higher power and glory found in the God He He called Father. It was God's design that we as an interactive community of Christian children and adults, would allow a Lazarus-styled moment to be orchestrated by God through us. So we prayed to see Lazarus come from his tomb today. And we saw him.

When the child who stabbed at my son was confronted by the principal, he confessed. When he returned to the room, he apologized. When he received the apology, my son gave forgiveness. In fact, later in the day, the two boys returned to a degree of interaction that still amazes me. On the one hand, I could be tempted to think the whole thing was a melodramatic blow-up on my son's part, except that I was there to see my son's initial reaction. The truth is that children have a resiliency of confession, forgiveness, acceptance, restoration...that is so swift and complete that we adults often doubt the "realness" of it. From one side or another, we find justification to downplay the reality of it, because such swift Godliness of response is often foreign to our "middle-aged-ness." The truth is that children have this spirit-resiliency as their special witness to the world of who we are to be: trusting, accepting even when defenseless, guileless, receivers of rebuke rather than self-justifiers, and not grudge-bearers, nor weak-hearted slow recoverers. They walk in this brilliant dawn-of-life type witness as long as we, their authority figures, don't intervene and teach them to learn the "new" ways that come from our years of experience aka pain. I almost did this myself. I almost encouraged my son to simply stay home today. I would have ruined his role to play in the Lazarus drama.

So now it is in my heart to say that I am honored to work with people who pray. People who seek God and then stay out of the way while the children themselves seek God and display His glory. People who lead the children in the paths of righteousness, but also allow the children to show the special righteousness that is unique to their very childhood. Thank you, God, that even though we experienced a dying-Lazarus moment, we also saw him leave the tomb. Now I pray that You keep him alive. For as was the case with the real Lazarus, there will be those who seek to kill the message of this day even as there were those who sought to kill Lazarus in his day.