A Modern Parable
Bang when the door, as a girl comes home from school with tears
in her eyes and throws her backpack to the ground. Her mother comes over to
her, puts her arm around her and asks what is wrong. The other children also
come in, and look at the little girl and shake their heads.
Lifting her daughter’s chin with her finger, the mother asks
again, what is wrong. Between her sobs, the little girl says she never wants to
go back to school again. When asked why, she says that everyone is mean to her
and bullies her.
As they walk into another room, the mother gives her daughter a
hug, and they sit down on the couch, her arm still cradling the little girl.
She asks her daughter for specifics, exactly what happened to her. The little
girl said everyone picks on her.
Cautiously, the girl begins her story. When she walks down the
hall, people move away from her, like they are afraid. When she passes by, they
whisper and talk about her behind her back. Some made noises.
Knowing the worst part of the day, the girl sniffled before
continuing. In class, she turned in her homework, but she had made a mistake.
She had skipped a question, so all of her answers were for the following
problem. When the teacher realized the girl’s mistake, she pointed it out to
the whole class and made fun of her. She went back to her desk and cried
through the rest of class.
Lunch was approaching, and the girl hoped for a calm in the
storm. But when the bell rang, the teacher told her to get at the back of the
line, because she had been making a disturbance.
In the lunch room, the little girl couldn’t find a place to sit.
There were no seats available, or those that were empty, were being “saved.”
She had to sit by herself at a table that was lopsided, and tilted and clanked
whenever she pushed her fork into her food.
Various other events happened through the rest of the day. The
girl was tripped as she went to the board. When she turned her back, her
pencils were taken. Nothing malicious, just constant reminders that she was
different.
Excited for the end of the day, when the bell rang to dismiss
classes, she ran down the hall, wanting to get out of school as fast as she
could. One of the student hall monitors stopped her and pushed her against the
wall, yelling at her that she shouldn’t be running in the halls. The monitor
kept yelling at her, and she tried to push by so she could get to her bus.
Suddenly, other hall monitors saw this and came, beginning to
push her and shove her into the lockers. They said that she assaulted the other
hall monitor and should be expelled. As they were doing this, they continuously
called her names and insulted her.
Meanwhile, her siblings come into the room. The mother asked why
they didn’t help their sister, and they say that nobody helped them with their
problems, and that she needs to stand on her own two feet.
Angry and hurt by the reaction of her brothers and sisters, the
young girl began to cry again.
The mother gave her daughter a deep and strong hug, the type of
hug that only a mother can give. Then she took her daughter’s tear stained
face, held it in both of her hands, and looked deep into her eyes.
The mother said, “My dear, I am so sorry that you had to deal
with all of that. But know that I love you.”
Erupting from their seat, the other children were angry. They
wondered why their mother told only the daughter that she was loved. Surely,
the mother loves all her children.
Responding calmly, the mother said, “Yes, I love all my children.
But right now, your sister is hurting, and I want to reassure her that she is
loved. While I love you, I am disappointed that none of you helped your sister.
I thought I had raised you to help those in need, those in peril, whether it
was your sister or not. Right now, she needs to know she is loved; that is what
matters.”
God loves all of God’s children, but especially those who need to
know they are loved.
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