The Silver Lining

So I got a call from Megan's teacher yesterday afternoon. It was not a social call. Without going into details, I'll just say that I was mortified by what I heard. I hung up the phone and thought, "What next? How in the world will I survive a lifetime of phone calls like this? How big of an ulcer will I end up with anyway?"

Yeah ... NOT a happy afternoon.

I picked Meg up from school, and she was obviously upset. She knew she was in trouble. Do you remember that feeling? It's terrible, isn't it? Making a poor choice as a kid, then your parents find out, THEN you have to wait until "the talk" and THEN the punishment. Ugh! Why does life have to be so dang hard?

When we got back to my office, I told Meg that I was not going to talk to her about what happened right then (because I knew someone might walk in on us, and I didn't want her to be embarrassed.) She looked at me, almost pleading. I said, "Unless you want to talk about it now?" She nodded her head. I completely understood. Rip the bandaid off already!

I said what I needed to say, and she was more receptive than any other time I've had to "talk" to her about bad behavior. As it turned out, I was actually able to tell her something that I've been meaning to tell her, but hadn't yet and that was this: That no matter what she does in this lifetime, no matter how bad or terrible it is, I will always love her. Sure I might be mad or disappointed in her behavior, but there is absolutely nothing she could ever do that would make me not love her.

Based on her expression, I don't think she'd ever realized that before. Somehow I think she thought my love was conditional, which is so sad to me. Perhaps this is what it took to finally make her understand that a mother's love is forever.

So, what started as a nightmarish afternoon, turned out to be a gift for both of us. Thank You, Lord!