One of our boys...

is a rebel, occasionally with a cause. He always has been, well...different. I'm frequently annoyed by this child and frustrated by his outlandish ideas and behaviors. He's controlling, manipulative, selfish, persistent, tenacious, and headstrong. He's willing to speak out when others aren't. Often I think God dropped him in the wrong family. Chuck and I are such the 'don't make waves' kinda people. It has been a real struggle parenting a child who goes against the flow so often. (Secretly, I wish I had his guts.)

When he was young I believed him to be defiant. Then I thought he had Hitler like potential. Now I believe with prayer and guidance he is going to do something awesome for God. He's gonna be a David though. You know love hard, fall hard kinda' man. He's going to have his fair share of public sin because he enjoys being in the public eye so much. In his heart of hearts, God resides. (Like I said I secretly wish I had his guts, add to that, his heart that is contrite when convicted.)

Wesley is like my mom everything is black or white. Of course, I see in all the shades of gray. Wesley isn't sure grace should exist, except for him. I believe grace lives in all the extremes and everywhere in between. Also like his Grammy, he's honest (usually) to a fault. "Did you hit your brother over the head with that bat?" "Yes, and if you don't remove the bat from my hand, I'm gonna do it again." Of course I didn't react correctly to this kind of honesty at first, now I know how to react. I'm not saying I always react appropriately, but I know how to.

Tonight on the way home from church Wesley asked me to e-mail his assistant principle and request him to pull Wesley out of class so they can have a meeting. According to Wesley, most of the sixth grade class is unhappy about having to miss one recess per week in order to fit in a Spanish lesson. Wesley wants to discuss with his assistant principle the possibilities of getting a petition going to protest this loss of recess. As the conservative mom I want to say "It's only one recess. Spanish is good for you. Don't make waves no one will listen. Don't you know I work for the district!" Then there is the side of me that has learned to listen to my children and allow them to take the lead. What can it hurt by asking permission to send around a petition? He'll learn something from the process. He'll learn politics just by attempting it. He'll also find out what our educational system is truly made of by seeing how they handle it. If they squelch his idea, rather than seize the opportunity to educate him on the purpose, then they are missing their own purpose--"EDUCATION." Wesley is the perfect candidate for such an up taking, he's already had experience.

At age seven he'd to run to the end of the driveway for the paper to read the sports page before school. He became annoyed by the ads in the sports section for sexual drug enhancements. He was flabbergasted by these ads. He commented on them everyday for several weeks. (I believe he was as intrigued by them as he was annoyed, you know that David thing.) Finally I said Wesley "You have a voice, use it. Write the paper a letter." He did! It was a bit of a set up on my part. I wanted to see how much it really bothered him and what length he was willing to go to do something about it. Also part of the set up was the fact that his basketball coach was the CEO of the paper. Wesley didn't know. I figured it was a good test to see how far his letter would reach and if anything would be done.

In his letter he asked them to "remove the ads because he was offended by them and other young boys who read the sports section shouldn't have to see those kind of things in the paper." We just addressed it as a letter to the editor. The chief editor received the letter and said to the CEO "You have to read this letter from a seven year old boy." When coach realized who had written the letter he was impressed. He made a point to tell Wesley he was proud of him and that he went about the process the right way. As a result, they removed the ads from the sports section and relocated them to another section. Not bad for seven years old.

As for his request to reclaim recess from Spanish, I'm proud of him for taking on the responsibility. He's one of his grades student council representatives he believes he owes his fellow classmates a voice for something they believe passionately about. He's radical, so were Fredrick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Florence Nightingale. Thank goodness they were. They've changed our world for the better.

What is God preparing Wesley to do?