The sermon in church today was about God watching us and His love being never ending. Our pastor talked about Him seeing what’s inside of us and she used a geode as one example. On the outside it looks like a rock, but on the inside it is full of beautiful crystals, but you have to know to open it up.

This got me to thinking about our kids. What’s on the inside? Many of our kids present a very and sometimes downright ugly (attitude wise) behavior. The old defense mechanism of acting like a porcupine so that no one gets too close. But what if we take the time to “open” the child up and see inside? What will we find?



Inside of Sammy I see some very beautiful things. He has a kind heart with younger kids. He has as long as we have known him. He is protective and somewhat parental. One of the rewards the school used to use for him was that if he had good behavior, he could go down and help the kindergarteners and first graders learn to read. He loved it and it was a great motivator for him.

I also see the potential to be an amazing scientist. Sammy is incredibly brilliant. I wish I had half the brain that he does. He has always been interested in science and I have no doubt he could achieve great things if he tried. One of his goals in life was to design an artificial eye that actually gave sight so the he could give Mackenzie the gift of sight.

Inside he is an amazing kid. The trouble is that when our kids present such an ugly outside, many times people don’t want to take the time to find out what’s on the inside. They get dismissed as bad kids, problem children, trouble makers and so on. We all know a kid like this. I have one girl in my Sunday school class that drives me insane, but I’m working with her. I am attempting to get her to settle down and show some of the goodness.

Do your kids have someone who automatically discounts them? Do they have a teacher that labels them the troublemakers? What would they see if they look deep inside your child?

How do we get to the beautiful crystals inside of our children? I don’t know. There is no clear cut way to reach each child. Each child is different and may take years (we’ve been working with Sammy for nine years). Other children come around quickly. Hannah has been with us for fourteen months and we have few issues outside of typical age related issues. When we had Sammy’s annual IEP meeting, the school asked what would motivate him to strive for good grades and behavior. It was a question with no answer at this point. I don’t know how to get the beautiful crystals out of my child, but I do know that they’re in there. Maybe one day I will see them.

Photo credit 1 - Outside of a geode

Photo credit 2 - Inside of a geode