3,248 & Living in a shell

Seth had another laser treatment yesterday. The Dr. did 3,248 laser pulses on his face and arms. It is pretty intense. His face and arms are swollen and a dark grayish purple. Hard for even a parent to look at. I remember the first time I really looked at him after his first treatment. It was heart wrenching.

Duane & I made the difficult decision to go ahead & send him to school today. Usually his treatments are on Friday so he has the weekend for the swelling to go down & for the redness to fade slightly. But since he had missed so much school last month we didn't want him to miss anymore. Thankfully my Dad is the assistant superintendent at the school so he can check up on him during the day. Duane dropped the boys off in the morning and my Dad met them inside. He walked Seth to his class and watched from the door as he put his stuff away. He called to tell me that things went well and that one of the boys from his class came up & put his arm around him. He said the rest of the class was excited that he was back.

Duane called me a short time later. He asked me to call my dad to see if he could eat lunch with Seth. I noticed that he was upset. In seven years Duane has always been the strong one when it comes to Seth's birthmark. I don't ever remember him crying even when I knew he was upset. But this time was different. He was crying. He said when he dropped Seth off he noticed a kid look at him with pure disgust on his face. He then turned to tell a friend & looked again at Seth with disgust. It broke Duane's heart. It was all he could do not to get out of the car to beat the crap out of that kid. He told me he was mad at himself for not walking Seth in just to show everyone that there is nothing wrong with him.

My kids go to a Christian school. While I know there are many great kids there, there are also kids like the one above. Who live in a Christian shell where the world is perfect and there is no need to show or learn compassion because nothing imperfect ever touches their lives. If they only knew of the imperfection that Jesus touched. The compassion that he showed absolutely everyone! It reminds me of this song by Todd Agnew.