Thanks for Having Me

Thanks is a word everyone likes to hear.  

The “thanks” I got recently sort of shocked me.  It came from my (almost) twelve year old youngest son.  My husband and I were sitting at the dinner table with him, and I’m not sure what sparked the conversation but the subject of abortion came up. 

“Why would anyone do that?”  He asked us with innocent green eyes. 

We took the opportunity to tell him some of the reasons why people feel the need to have an abortion and made it clear where we stand on the issue.  

A few moments after the conversation, he offered, “Thanks for having me.  I’m glad to be alive.” 

I cracked a joke about how he could thank me for that because I couldn’t get over not having a girl and that’s how he came to be conceived but his sweet words touched my heart deeply.   I thought about them for days.  I thought about the gratefulness he expressed when he realized that not everyone gets the chance to be born and have a life.

They touched me for another reason as well.  We have three boys.  He is the youngest and was born nine years after his older brother.  He was an easy pregnancy and birth but once he was born…my, my, my.  He was a wild child in the womb and we had no idea what we were in for once he got out! 

He wouldn’t nurse.  He wouldn’t let me rock him to sleep.  He was the complete opposite of how his older brothers were as babies.  When we took him to Missouri for his first trip home and he cried the entire six hour trip.  When he got older and could get into stuff, he would terrorize the house.  He’d throw everything everywhere.  I was constantly getting onto him.  

It was NOT what I expected when I wanted another child.  He was difficult. 

When he was in Mother’s Day Out, I thought they were going to kick him out.  Preschool was more of the same.  By the time he was in first grade, the principle of the elementary school suggested we home school him. 

It seemed we were getting emails, notes or phone calls about his behavior all the time.  After a while, it wore us down.  I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t behave.  Why was this a constant never ending battle that we couldn’t seem to win?  What was wrong?

Finally, I picked him up from school one day when he was mid-way through first grade and he looked completely downtrodden as he stood outside the school waiting for me.  He seemed sad and disgusted as I sat in the car watching him waiting for my turn to stop and pick up my child. 

As soon as he got into the car, I asked, “What is wrong?”

He buckled in and laid his back pack in the seat and answered, “I’m a bad kid.”

I immediately assumed someone said that to him.  Maybe a teacher or another child.  Anger began to rise inside me as I inquired, “Who said that to you?”

He answered, “I did.”

I realized at that moment that we needed help.  He felt so bad about himself for always being in trouble that he convinced himself that he was just a bad kid.    

Long story short, we discovered that he had ADHD.  After diagnosis, he went on medication and we never looked back.  (Yes, I was one of those people who thought I’d never put my child on medication for something like that.)  But it worked wonders.  He went from scribbling all over his papers at school to making A’s.  He is now almost always on Honor Roll.  Last year he made straight 100’s on his TCAP testing in Math.  He is very smart.  He just couldn’t concentrate or control his impulses. 

The story about my youngest child is a long one.  I could probably write a book. So, to hear him say, “Thanks for having me” the other evening at dinner was so touching.  To know that he is thankful for his life and for us to know he is thankful (when there were times that my husband and I were both brought to tears over his behavior and didn’t think we could deal) is PRICELESS. 

I often think of all of us in God’s sight.  Every one of us has ADHD.  We are impulsive, disobedient children who are unruly and selfish.  We have caused Him stress and pain to the point that He needed to fix the situation and so that’s why He sent Jesus.  He is our medicine.  He is how things are made right. 

When my son took medicine, he became who he was all along (most of the time!).  He was delightful, pleasant, smart, generous, loving and completely wonderful.  Without medicine, he couldn’t control his bad behavior.  He tried to but he was incapable.

We, too, are incapable of controlling our sinful behavior without Jesus.  Even with Him, we will still sin.  But it is much more controlled and the Holy Spirit is within us guiding us to do the right things.  He is our medicine.  He is what we need to be right with God.  We are incapable on our own.  You will not be able to be good enough ever.  It’s not possible. 

The subject of abortion spurred this blog and my son’s realization that had his parents been different people or made different decisions, he might not be here.  He realized that he might not have been born and he was GLAD to be alive. 

Is this not how we should be?

Thankful for what God has done for us?  Thankful that we have the opportunity through Christ to be “born again”?  Thankful that God made a way for us to be right in His sight through Jesus Christ?  Knowing that without Him we are incapable of this on our own? 

Thankful to God “for having us” and thankful to be alive through Jesus Christ.

Yes.