She was ten when the cars lined up. It was mid-COVID, and my oldest daughter stood with socked feet on our chipped rock driveway in a small, southern-Illinois town. She watched her childhood unfold in a parade of minivans, balloons, and masked classmates. Her friends — nearly the whole Montessori school — drove by honking, waving signs, and delivering curbside gifts for her tenth birthday. For a little girl, it felt like the entire town showed up. Because, in a way, they did.

Her mom — my wife — was the beloved kindergarten teacher, the “Primary Guide” in a rural Montessori school. At this beautiful school, official titles didn’t matter as much as tenderness. And our daughter — the oldest of four — was everyone’s big sister. She grew up walking the halls of that school like it was her home.

She was known. Loved. Safe.

Those brightly lit classrooms shaped her curious and creative soul, full of bead chains, sandpaper letters, terrariums, and toddlers. The small school went through twelfth grade, yet they were all children here. Many learned to clean up their messes with a basin and washcloth when they were 3 years old here. The only requirement for age in the school was that the child was mostly potty trained because the school was against diapers. As a dad of four, the cost of diapers you could throw away was the best thing I bought at the neighborhood Walmart each weekend.

Montessori has a way of making philosophers out of preschoolers — and my daughter was — and still is — no exception. At the age of ten, she had grown up in the school to be eclectic, inquisitive, and bold. That day, we captured the joy on video. I remember thinking — even during COVID — this is the magic of childhood.

Now, nearly five years later, she watches that video with tears in her eyes as a ball on her bed. She’s about to turn fifteen. And we’re not in southern Illinois anymore.

Since moving to Dallas at the tail end of COVID, our family has tried to recreate the warmth of that rural, small-town Montessori life. But the soil here has been challenging.

My wife — who poured her heart into her teaching — has faced one closed door after another. When we first arrived, Montessori schools struggled to stay afloat, barely able to pay the staff they already had, let alone hire a new teacher. We considered public but decided to spare them a difficult transition, so we tried homeschooling. While that was basically what COVID was for most families across the world, we were attending one of those crazy schools that mostly kept its doors open. They made it work. But yes, kids got sick, and classrooms were closed for weeks sometimes. When it was warm enough, tables and chairs were set up outside all around the school. Kindergartners didn’t understand being “socially distant” from each other, and many of the teachers constantly wiped down everything with disinfecting wipes… and the kids mostly kept their masks on.

Homeschooling our children for the first few months when we moved to Dallas was difficult because our kids — like most — are social creatures. Watching other kids in our new neighborhood walk to school each morning was difficult while they stayed home, considering the joy of learning that was left behind.

So we tried something crazy and enrolled our children in a farm school! Only in Texas, right? A school where the kids milked cows, rode horses and played with baby goats. Some teachers even fried fresh eggs from the chickens that roamed free on the property with about 80-ish students for lunch. It was so magical.

But the commute from Dallas to Greenville each morning for school — not so much. Waking up at 6 am to drive over an hour in Dallas traffic to be there by 7:30 am wasn’t sustainable. Plus the cost of gas… So, we said goodbye to goats and green pastures after the first year.

Next, we tried a small private Christian school. But as the year unfolded, so did the school’s secrets. The administrator, draped in Christian language, was actually funneling tuition funds into a private campaign to run for superintendent of a local public school district. No one knew until it broke in the news. We were stunned. Over time, the school seemed like a Christian school in name only, using the Cross as cover.

So we changed our children’s school again. Another small Christian school. This one had a heart — a deep heart. But when families didn’t pay, teachers went unpaid for months. The school clung to hope with whispered promises of a secret investor. But they never came. In October, the board taped a sign to the front door — this week would be the last. Teachers had known only a month. Parents heard that day. The school collapsed with a whisper and a wound, all over the Dallas news.

So we did the inevitable that we resisted for so long. We turned to public school. Just down the street. No more traffic. Local kids. We prayed, and now tried a fourth “new beginning.”

But starting public middle school in October meant walking into a tidal wave. No history. No shared stories. No one to sit with. My oldest had the most challenging experience joining 8th grade this way. We hoped she would be welcomed as a new girl in school. In large schools, there are new kids every week. But then, slowly but surely, it did seem like she made 2 or 3 friends from different classes. But it took a while.

Then, one day, a friend shared a Google Doc on her school Chromebook with my daughters. It looked harmless. Hundreds of links to free movies. But behind those links were things darker — illegal content, some even sinister. The other girl who shared likely didn’t know much about what was linked to that document, but the foxes were lurking that spoiled the vineyards. (paraphrased from Song of Solomon 2:15)

She clicked a few links before realizing something was wrong. Watching Netflix shows when we didn’t pay for Netflix was wrong. She came to us, confessed, and we told her to delete it. She didn’t bat an eye for erasing it from her Google Account. I was proud of her. I still am.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

We told her it would be best to also confess to the school. It took her a day or two to gain the courage to admit to an intimidating principal.

She would go and tell the truth, even if it cost her. But the day she planned to speak up, the principal announced they had discovered the file. Not just the one she had, but over 100 students had it too. They understandably all lost their school Chromebooks that day.

Her moment was gone. She was swept up in the discipline despite her ability to confess. And now, the fragile friendships she had begun to build began to slip away.

She had obeyed. She had told the truth when questioned. But she was — and still is — suffering from doing what was right.

As a dad, I ask: What do I do when my child does the right thing and still suffers? The book of Hebrews whispers the following to me:

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8)

We like to think that obedience brings rewards. That the good kids win. That’s what my kids grew up reading from the Random House Little Golden hardcover books from the 80s. They were mine from when I was younger, and children in these were wrapped up with hugs and redemption for confessing.

But the real Gospel shows us a bloodied cross. A perfect Son. A suffering Savior.

Spurgeon once wrote:

“Shall the head be crowned with thorns while the other parts of the body enjoy only comfort and ease?… No; our Master’s experience teaches us that suffering is necessary, and the true-born child of God must not, would not, escape it if he could.” — Spurgeon, The Wounds of Jesus, 1866

Jesus knows what it means to be misunderstood, mistreated, and maligned even when innocent. The same goes for the martyrs who followed Him to their own deaths. He also does not look at my daughter’s ache with indifference. He shares it. He warned His disciples about it.

But He also dignifies it. But He also walks with her in it.

Her grief is real. This story — simple by some standards — is her war. Her natural disaster. Her pandemic of the heart. And I pray that it will also become a story in the foundation for her faith. These tears will one day be kerosene for the fire for the Gospel within her.

She’s not the same girl she was in that driveway without shoes. Her white socks always turned black from the chipped rock in our eroding driveway. She is also not the same big sister of three-year-olds in my wife’s Montessori kindergarten classroom. While she may be maturing, Jesus and I still get glimmers of her same radiant and quirky soul. Actually… He rightfully gets to see it all the time.

Public school is loud. It’s crowded. It’s full of worksheets, standardized tests, and “new math,” making me question everything I — and the rest of the world — learned from the Greeks (it was the Greeks that made math, right?).

But even in that place — even there — God is shaping her. She is learning obedience through suffering in a way that’s shaping her soon-to-be fifteen-year-old self, states away from her best friends and first home.

And sometimes, the reward for obedience is not peace or popularity — but Christ.

“If we endure, we will also reign with him…” (2 Timothy 2:12)

That’s the story I cling to. That’s the Gospel I’m trying to live tonight, praying for the next week leading up to her fifteenth birthday.

Join the Conversation

Where in your life is obedience costing you something? Where are your children learning hard lessons, and how are you shepherding them through it?

The sin of this world has clever ways of slipping in. As parents, we do what we can — but only Christ can redeem us. Only He can walk our children through the dark.

He did not skip the pain. He did not shield Himself from suffering. And when our kids suffer — even from doing what’s right — He stands with them.

That, dear friend, is the road we walk. Not in glass slippers, but in the sandals of our Savior.

References

Spurgeon, C. H. (1866, March 18). The Wounds of Jesus. The Spurgeon Center.

The opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect the views or positions of my employer.