So one day just shortly before Christmas, he entered the car trying to contain the smile on his face. He was waiting for me to ask, "How was your day? Name one great thing."
"Today we had a geography quiz & guess who is a finalist in the school geography bee?"
He was grinning from ear to ear... To have good news to share. To be encouraged.
He spent the month that followed parousing all the back issues of National Geographic, the subscription a gift to satisfy his keenness for the Earth & it's history. He practiced US geography on a new iPad app, "Stack the States."
When the day of the school geography bee came, he was cool as a cucumber. He had prepared his whole life for this. Each class grades 4th-8th had two class finalists. He and his fellow 4th grader were the youngest by almost half a decade!
The cool thing about fourth graders, is they don't get nervous. At least not our son. He was excited, maybe even goofy, but not scared of the task ahead.
His classmate was given a question in which the answer was Kansas (where the grandmas & grandpas live... cake). My son was given a question about Massachusetts. He had advanced into the next round. He continued on, holding his own until his fourth question. Then fear set in. He looked at my husband and I with a look of fear, as though he had let us down. We gave him a thumbs up as he couldn't leave the stage until the end of the round. His classmate was still in the competition. Upon answering his next question correct, our son looked eagerly at his peer & clapped loudly with a proud grin on his face...
He was encouraging his neighbor.
This was the proudest moment for me. To see my son enthusiastically encouraging another... even after his own defeat.
At the end of the round our eldest was permitted to leave the stage. He sat between my husband and I and melted into our embrace. We continued rooting for his fellow fourth grader.... Who ended up placing 3rd! Amazing for a boy 4 years younger than the competition, in his first ever geography bee!
The lesson I took away from this tale is....
We are on this Earth to encourage... to build each other up!
In the New Testament the apostle Paul tells of encouragement....
1Thesselonians 5:11 NIV
"11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up..."
At what age did I loose that childlike ability? To encourage and build one another up with egar enthusiasm.
This was a lesson from the Lord.
That I need to be an encourager to my hubs & sons, to build them up with positive words... positive tone & inflection. For this is what the Lord is calling us to, just as my son modeled for me.
When our son left the stage, his first geography bee concluded he looked at my hubs and whispered in his ear, "There's always next year."
Always the encourager...
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