Dear Lord, before I was the size of a dot, you were thinking about the wonderful things you were going to do in my life and all the gifts that were to be bestowed upon me.
When I opened my mouth for the very first time, you were there to breathe air into my tiny lungs.
So, on my very first day at school, when my teacher threw my bag of “Salt and Vinegar Chipsticks” in the bin and decided she would hate me forever, you were there, protecting my little spirit from the evil that was spewing out of her heart.
I did not know what hatred was at that age and it is only as I grew older and heard the stories of how on “Parents Evening”, my humiliated mum and dad had to stand in a classroom and listen to a crazy woman’s insults, that I realised that this world is sometimes not a very nice place.
Mother: Er…can you please tell us why there are pictures on the wall drawn by all the other children except ours? Why have you not put any of her drawings on display?
Teacher: Because your child is educationally sub-normal.
Mother: Pardon? Excuse me?
Teacher: Your child is backward, retarded.
Father: What?
Teacher: She draws people with no necks. Humans have necks but she puts their heads right on top their bodies. I’m not putting pictures up like that.
Mother: But she’s five years old!
Father: Yes, and that boy has drawn a man with 6 fingers and there’s one over there who has a mouth that reaches up to its eyes. Because they are infants!
Teacher: Well, she’s not normal. And I don’t like the fact that she is holding back little Karen. I don’t want them playing together.
Karen’s Mum: Er, Miss Blinko, I am Karen’s mother and I have no problem with my daughter playing with this couple’s child. How can you say she is holding my daughter back? She is four and their child is five – how much hindering can she do?
I am told that, later on, the mother of this pretty blonde girl pulled my parents aside and explained how embarrassed she was that this ridiculous incident had taken place.
My mother had then promptly booked an appointment to see the headmistress the next day and after painfully relating the story, the head teacher could not believe what she was hearing. She summonsed the teacher to her office.
Headmistress: “Is this true? Did you really say these things to Sharon’s parents? Do you really think those things about her? Did you really say all that in public?”
Teacher: “Yes.”
Headmistress: “What?! Why on earth…?”
Teacher: “Well, I have never taught a black child before. She’s different and I don’t know how to relate to black kids.”
The story I was told was that the head teacher held her breath and for a moment both her and my mother thought they would faint in shock. The face of the head mistress turned a bright purple as a tirade of words were hurled at the arrogant woman.
“Just get my child out of that class at once.” My mother had said.
Naturally, if something like that had happened in this day, the I guess teacher would have been sacked on the spot. And there would have been a national outcry because most parents would have had the sense to take it to the newspapers. Well, I certainly would have done, if I had been the parent, but I think THAT my dear mum and dad just wanted to forget about the whole thing. It was too painful for them.
Thankfully, I do not remember much about this teacher, only that she allowed a horrible girl called Sandra to constantly spit in my face.
So, as I sit here many years later, I think of all the disappointments, insults, bullying, name-calling, missed opportunities, snobbery (some from Christians), pains, sicknesses, accidents, fears, anxieties, and I thank you God for all my experiences, good or bad.
You have been with me the entire time and you have not played a quiet role in the background but been very active in ensuring I am at peace, guided, given wisdom, comforted, loved, cherished and made into the happy soul that I am today.
I don’t deserve your love and many times I have acted so bad that it would have been right for you to have called me retarded. Why do we make the same mistakes repeatedly?
There is absolutely nothing I would change if I had the chance to live my life over again. Yes, I would change the sins I committed, but I would not change any hurts done to me. No insults, no blame, no hypocrisy, no betrayal, no rejection.
Through all my hard times I have discovered that Jesus, you really are who you say you are.
Thank you so much for being there for me when my mum and dad could not, and for,
cherishing me when others thought ill of me.
You see all adults as mother and father figures to children and so your promise in Psalm 27 also relates to Miss Blinko. She did not ‘mother’ me the way a primary school teacher is supposed to, but you cared for me instead, so much so, that I can happily declare that I never bore any trauma from the season I was in her class.
Looking back, I can clearly see that you truly have been and still are, my best friend.
Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close. (Psalm 27:10)
