Sunday, March 22, 2015

Good Kids

Yesterday was the Aiken Steeplechase. We decked ourselves in our brightest togs and hats and celebrated a beautiful day of horse racing. Under our tent, we sat sipping cocktails and eating delicious food. We bet on the horses and had a marvelous time. 

My husband and I 

Our teenage children checked in every once in a while and then went off to visit friends and "see and be seen". Sumter spent most of the day at the Young Life spot, so I was only able to catch Jackson for a picture.

We are lucky. Our kids don't drink.

I say this because social events such as Steeplechase are havens for pretty girls in Lilly dresses and boys in seersucker pants and Vineyard Vines ties to get completely fall down drunk. Most of these are college students, but you may see a high schooler as well. And it's never really bothered me as much as it did this year. I guess it's because we - and all our friends - have teenagers.

But by the end of the afternoon, we saw a precious girl trip and fall down on the ground.  She just lay there for a few seconds until one of the boys she was with pulled her up.  We saw a young man with an almost empty handle of Jack Daniels just standing there, staring off in space. Later, another girl saw her date storm off and immediately burst into tears. She stumbled around with her girlfriends as if lost.

And this year also provided us with an event we have never experienced before. Towards the end of the day, our pastor and his family stopped by to visit us. It was not ten minutes later, and not fifty feet away, that we saw around ten uniformed police and sheriff deputies bust up a party and arrest seven people. It was quite a spectacle. Some of them were underage, some legal - but all were incredibly drunk and physically confrontational.

We all stood, watching and commenting among ourselves at the stupidity and blatantly belligerent behavior. And then, our pastor said something that - at the time - I thought was almost a little too saccarine and optimistic.  He said, "How sad. They're good kids." I looked at him next to me and smiled at his kind remark. But what I was really thinking was, "Really??? No, they're not. Our kids are good kids. Those guys are punks with no respect for themselves or anyone else."

It was not until today at church that I got a deeper understanding of what he meant. I don't know whether it was the songs we sang, his message, or God's voice. But I was drawn back to what our pastor had said the day before: "They're good kids." Maybe not to me. But they are to God. Because He created them. He brought them into life. He loves them. And we know that God loves what is good.

So it was then and there that I prayed for those who were loaded into those paddy wagons the day before. I prayed for His precious children who I don't even know. I prayed that if they didn't know God, that they would open their hearts to Him. I prayed that if they did know God, they would come to Him and listen to Him lovingly tell them to turn away from behavior that could destroy them.

Because just like you and me, they're good kids. They're God's kids.

4 comments:

  1. Wow! What a revelation. Isn't that how God works? Thanks for sharing. I have two daughters, and they were among the few in their high school who didn't drink. It's tough raising kids these days. Friends tell me what an awesome job I did raising my girls, and I tell them it was God and me. I can't take all the credit.

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  2. Sadly, "good kids"make bad decisions. Let's pray those kids learned valuable, life-lasting lessons and they grown up to be "good parents". Love you girl, preach on.

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  3. What a great post, Bevy. Our teenagers and college students face incredible temptations in so many ways. Our sons managed to avoid the rampant drinking at our high school among their crowd. The older is "of age" now, but the younger is still holding fast. In fact, he texted us one morning during his spring break, which he spent with his brother, visiting grandparents in Florida and cousins and friends at three different universities, saying that he'd attended his cousin's sorority social and one of the "bros" kept trying to get him a drink. Finally, Middle said, "Man, I'm 12 weeks sober, I just joined AA on New Year's." He said the whole room got quiet, and then everyone came up, congratulating him and saying, "Respect, man. Respect!" It just makes me wonder what might happen if more "good kids" just said, "No, thanks, I'm good."

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  4. Thank you for this. I loved reading. It's hard to remember sometimes that "they're all good kids."

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Thanks for your sweet comments... They make my day just that more Golden!