What’s Wrong With Being So Right?
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2012
I have three children. The first two are strong and perfect in every way that our society measures worth. My oldest son is a gifted musician and athlete. He has thrown out 8 base runners in a baseball game, hit 7 3-pointers in a high school basketball game and had his football runs replayed on the news. He plays the bass, lead and rhythm guitar on our church worship team and is currently getting near straight A's. He is funny and handsome with a bright and sensitive mind that continually surprises me. My daughter, born second, is a tremendous athlete and scholar. Steadfast and secure in her talents and abilities, she is beautiful and possesses a mind of which her 6th grade teacher said is fortunate for a teacher to see once in a career. She has been a nationally ranked sprinter, scored 21 of her teams 21 points in a basketball game, thrown out 3 runners at 1st base from right field in a softball game and never gotten less than an A in her academic career. I am often the target of her biting humor....
My youngest son is little where his siblings are both muscular. He struggles with keeping up with his classmates in academics where his siblings excel. Whereas his brother and sister have strong and pleasant singing voices, he has speech issues and didn't speak until he was nearly 6 years old. They both entered the world strong and robust, loudly announcing their arrival. He entered sick and dying, enduring surgeries early in his life.
This past week, someone again asked me the question that I have learned to respond to without the irritation I have always felt upon hearing it. "What’s wrong with Caden?"....
I answered with my well rehearsed response giving a brief outline of his medical journey but I was left with a vague sense that the question was somehow not the right one. So after having some time to consider it, I have a better response...
Whats wrong with seeing the best in everyone? Making friends immediately with someone you've never met but has a smile that matches your own?
Whats wrong with being so filled with joy that everyone who meets you is drawn in and feels the warmth of the experience?
Whats wrong with loving a sport you'll never play so much that you grab a jersey, get out of school on gamedays and ride the bus with the team so you can be the ballboy?
Whats wrong with practicing for hours and days and months on end so that you can throw the perfect spiral, kick it deep from a tee and hit jump shots from deep in your driveway?
Whats wrong with having a smile that never leaves your face ( except when the day must end )?
Whats wrong with loving music so much that you sing loudly to the words you know and mumble through the rest until that chorus comes around again?
Whats wrong with dancing uninhibitedly, hitting your goofy poses until people erupt in laughter in response?
Whats wrong with having a personality so big that everyone at the football game, the basketball game and every practice field knows your name and keeps an eye out for the ball which will inevitably come their way as you unleash a perfect touchdown pass?
Whats wrong with idolizing your strong and perfect siblings?
Whats wrong with you being their hero?...Whats wrong with that?
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.