The Restart Button

Being a teenager in today’s world is not an easy journey! I can hardly wrap my head around all the confusing noise our culture thrust upon them from gender confusion to sexual pressure— not to mention easy access to drugs and alcohol. Sometimes I just want to grab my grands up and whisk them away to a remote part of the Bob Marshall Wilderness and hide them away.

I was aware that the change of schools for my 15-year-old grandson was not an easy one. He missed his friends. He didn’t try out for basketball. He was more withdrawn than before at family events. It was a challenge to draw my usually funny and gregarious boy into conversation after school.

So the day his teacher called me when she couldn’t reach his mom I was not really surprised. What did surprise me was the angry young man I heard in the background. His words came loud and fast. He was livid. He wouldn’t calm down— so he was sent to the principal. I prayed as I drove to his school. They buzzed me in and I signed him out. He lumbered heavy shouldered out of the front door ahead of me. What happened when we got outside the school door will forever be on my heart. My nearly six-foot grandson leaned into me and sobbed. “I don’t know why I said those things to her,” he wept.  Holding him close I said, “It is going to be Ok. You hear me? We will walk through this and it will be ok”. “No, it’s not just this. You don’t understand, Yaya.”

We settled into the car, and I watched him squeeze and wipe his eyes. “What is it then, baby? I promise you it will be ok. I am in your corner. I love you forever no matter,” He just shook his head and to my great honor, my handsome strong grandson began to talk with me.

He felt alone. He felt while his sisters had each other and his parents could share together, but he had no one. He was lonely. His friends were at other schools. His new ones, for the most part, were not who they needed to be. They made fun of him. He didn’t fit in. He is biracial and found black students poked fun because he wasn’t black and white kids mocked him because he wasn’t white. The hurt and anger filled him. “Yaya, I am so angry for no reason,” he lamented.

Thus began our sharing. My encouraging him that the anger was not for “no reason”. We were going to find someone to help him sort it out. That he needed to talk to his sisters and share his feelings because they loved him so much and they would be there for him. He nodded still looking down. I told him that his parents loved him and were there for him, even if they didn’t do everything right.

We talked—about God who had plans for him. Of God’s love for him. I shared how, as a young teen, all my friends for no apparent reason turned on me and left. How God had been there. How instead of a dead end it became a new start. There are always new starts, I could feel our hearts connect. I wanted to take off my shoes because, as surely as Moses stood on holy ground before the burning bush, I was on holy ground. Judah made it so by opening his heart to me—by letting me love him and be a part of his life. Holy ground because Jesus was there in our midst loving my boy.

The school suspended him for the day before spring break which was the next day. Because it was spring break, I got to see more of the grands that week. I loved seeing Judah smile and joke with his family again. I loved his open conversation. I could tell things had significantly shifted. He jumped in to help me in the kitchen and his voice was—well lighter. I learned that he indeed had talked to his mom and dad and sisters. Shared his heart. Heard theirs. And he felt their love and support. Seeing him—hearing him— made my heart dance.

Good Friday rolled around and we feasted and hunted eggs and shared what Jesus meant to us. At the end of the evening, I invited the kids to choose a rock from a pile I had on the porch. Leaning on the wall was a cross they had helped build by strapping two saplings together years before. It was almost falling apart, but was draped with a black cloth as the central part of our Good Friday remembering. I asked each grandchild to paint something on the rock that they were thankful for about Easter.

Judah took his rock and a white paint pen. The others were busy with butterflies and flowers and crosses and doves. I heard Judah’s Dad chiding him. “Put some effort into it. That’s ridiculous.” I lifted my eyebrows when I heard Judah confidently say, “Dad, I am serious. This is the start over symbol. It’s a restart. That’s really what Easter is about. It the chance for a new start because of what Jesus did for us. We can always have a new start.”

My eyes swam. I glanced at his mom and hers were damp too. Jesus didn’t just come for all of mankind. This Easter He came for my Judah. This Easter my Judah’s heart and mind opened up and received Easter’s gift. A start over button. A reset.

He is risen indeed.

P.S.  Judah did read this and with a big smile gave me permission to share,