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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for April 21, 2010
“You Never Know What Your Kids Are Dealing With”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
I kept my P.E. clothes in a gym bag with the school logo on it.
Why didn’t I just throw them in my locker?
Because I was afraid to go to my locker.
Why was I afraid to go to my locker?
Because I was a skinny freshman in a P.E. class with grown men.
Now I should have been okay, because my last name begins with an A. My P.E. locker should have been right there in the front row, out in the open.
But it wasn’t. For some reason my assigned locker was back in the dark, damp corner, right between two monsters.
Well it didn’t take long to figure out it was going to be a long year.
No, I didn’t get stabbed or shot. It was just a daily dose of cruelty, sometimes for laughs and sometimes just to inflict pain.
So what could I do? Tell the teacher?
Hardly. I don’t know about your P.E. teachers, by mine had little sympathy. I’d seen others report trouble only to be mocked, by the teacher.
And we all know that squealing just makes you a bigger target.
I could fight back, but they were bigger and meaner and I really didn’t see any way to do it and win.
I could run home and tell my parents, but can you imagine that scene? “Doug, your mommy and daddy are here.”
And that’s my point today. I did not tell my parents. There were probably a hundred things just like that that my parents would have been very interested to know, but I didn’t tell them.
So parents, what are your kids not telling you? What are they dealing with that you don’t know about?
Well for whatever reason I decided that I was completely on my own. No one was going to handle my P.E. problem but me.
So what did I do?
One of my friends had a locker out in the main room, so I asked him if I could keep my P.E. bag in his locker. He agreed and the problem was solved. I never went back to my locker in the corner again.
Until the teacher came along one day and caught me putting my stuff in my friend’s locker. I have no idea why, but he suddenly made a big deal out of it. “You are not allowed to put your stuff in someone else’s locker.”
Now what? Should I tell him about the monsters? Yeah, right.
Should I go back to the locker in the corner? Not on your life.
So what did I do?
I just kept doing what I was doing, but tried to keep it under the teacher’s radar. All I wanted to do was dress for P.E. without a bunch of grief, either from the dudes at my real locker, or from the teacher at my friend’s locker. I just did what I thought I had to do to, and I told no one except my sympathetic fellow freshman.
And you know what? I could tell you story after story about things like this that I dealt with as a boy. Now I know we think of freshmen in high school as young men, but my goodness, they are barely teenagers.
And something else. What I went through was mild. I have heard so many horror stories of things kids have gone through in those critical junior high and early high school years. But do you think they ran home and told their parents? Probably not.
And that’s my point today. Parents, your children are probably dealing with a lot of things they aren’t telling you about.
So what can you do?
I think Ephesians 5 has some good advice for parents. It says, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
If there is any job that takes a lot of wisdom, it’s parenting. It’s easy to be a foolish parent and hard to be a wise parent.
But notice that phrase “redeeming the time.” I think that is a parenting key.
It’s important to be there for your children, to spend time with them, because you know what? They aren’t always ready to talk, especially when they are about 13 to 17 years old. For whatever reason they start to clam up.
However, there are rare moments when they are suddenly willing to open up and share with you. The trick is to actually be there when the mood strikes, to be wise enough to recognize it, and to be willing to stop and be a good listener.
So parents, it’s time to wise up and walk circumspectly. We must redeem the time because the days are evil.
And you can start be realizing this important fact. You never really know all the things your kids are dealing with.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2010 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
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