My Last Best Word

How does it feel to come in last place? 

If you're answer isn't "Pretty darn rotten," then I would like to know your secret.  Finishing last has to be one of the most horrifying, humiliating, and helpless feelings in the entire world.  I know.  I've been there.  When I was in the fifth grade, I signed up for the local track team.  I had been running with my dad for weeks, but when it came time for that first race, I was completely unprepared for the competition.  I'll never forget the image of my cartoon character body, running and running, but somehow not moving.  Throngs of people raced by me.  I even got lapped.  Yes, it's hard to type those words.  I got lapped.  Clearly, I didn't understand pacing, and I never even bothered to evaluate my competition prior to the race.  More than twenty-five years later it's still horrifying and humiliating because in my memory I was helpless to do anything about it.

How did I respond?  Well, it was four long years before I ran again.  I forbid anyone from my family to attend the meets.  Woe to the person who even hinted at coming to one of my races!  On the day of the race, butterflies invaded my stomach and I turned into a ball of nervous energy.  I dreaded every single race.  My biggest fear:   Coming in last.  To this day, I can't tell you why I ran.  Whether it was peer pressure or an innate desire to prove something to myself, I ran, though I never became a super-star.  I did what I was supposed to do.  I attended every practice and weight training session.  I ate right.  I drank lots of water.  Then,  I counted down the weeks until the nightmare was over.  At the end of the season, to my great surprise, I even qualified for regionals.  Accckkkk!!!  Is there no mercy for the weary?

It's one thing to come in last; it's quite another to be picked last.  And believe me, I've had my share of those, too.  As a child, I was shy and soft-spoken.  There was a huge gap between the me I was (shy, soft-spoken, and insecure) and the me I wanted to be (dynamic, chatty, and interesting).  That "me" was buried so deep that no one ever saw it.  And since they could only evaluate what they saw, no one placed much confidence in me.  Except my dad.  The same one who ran with me, who encouraged me to keep running, and who said, "It's OK" when I came in last.  Whenever he could, he also said, "You're good enough.  You're pretty enough.  You're smart enough".   Even if no one wanted me to be on their team.  He did.  And that was enough.

Now I have a daughter who is just like me.  She's twelve, so she's trying like crazy to assure the world that she is nothing like me.  But just yesterday, she too, was picked last.  And my heart broke.  Because I know how that feels.  It's humiliating and horrifying.  Maybe she felt helpless, too, but as her mother I was the one who felt helpless.  I wanted to march up to that school and tell the world, "Look what you're missing!  Look at this beautiful, creative girl!  How could you not want her on your team? You're all a bunch of idiots!" 

Instead, Gavin took her in her arms, and he said, "You are good enough.  God made you, and he loves you, and no matter what happens, girl, don't you ever forget that.  As you get older, you'll find people looking for validation in all kinds of places and from all kinds of people.  But you--you remember that God made you.  He's the only one that matters."

We were all together when she softly admitted her sadness, so I'm glad that I got to say, "If you lined up all the kids in the entire world end to end and I had to choose any one of them as a daughter for myself, guess what?  I would choose you.  I'll always choose you."

I'm not sure what kind of teacher allows Middle Schoolers to pick teams.  Even worse, I'm not sure what kind of a teacher doesn't allow the kid who was picked last the day before to be a team captain on the second day she initiates this nonsense.  But in a weird way I'm kind of thankful that it was my kid.  I'm not winning any Outstanding Parenting Awards, but if there's one thing I understand it's that people matter.  Words matter.  As a mother, I have a unique opportunity to speak truth into my children's lives.  I get to share Jesus with them.  I'm thankful that I have a dad who showed me that I matter even when I came in last.  And I got to share it with the kid who came in last.  My kid.  (Oh, the irony of the whole thing!)  If it had been anyone else's daughter, I wouldn't have been able to tell her that she matters.  That she's important.

Earlier this week, in this same class, my daughter came home with a failing grade on a project/presentation.  She worked for weeks on the project.  She researched her subject and made a beautiful visual aid.  But she bombed the oral presentation.  See?  I told you she was shy like me.  We're working on it, but she doesn't know how to look an audience in the eye and make a compelling presentation.  Fail.  Fail.  Fail.  Last place.

Traditional school boasts many fine qualities, not the least of which is the high value it places on healthy competition.  When a child doesn't perform up to standard, though, does the school also have a responsibility to help that child navigate the disappointment, inspire them to achieve more next time, and validate their personhood, even while condemning their academic performance?  In spite of the separation of church and state, I wish that Christian principles governed the way our schools respond to the kids they're entrusted to teach.  They spout rhetoric about self-esteem and standing up to bullies, but is anyone really listening?  How would our schools be different if everyone just did what Jesus did and considered others better than themselves?  Wouldn't it be easy to say no to drugs if a child understood how much God loves her?  Would the "cool" table even exist?  Would we need it?  Would the lowest performing kids hang their heads and cause trouble at every turn?  Would kids be tempted to give in to the selfishness and greed that comes from comparing themselves to an unattainable standard found in magazines and on TV?

I doubt it because the Christian principle that would address so many of these issues is simply this:  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others (Philippians 2:3-4 NIV).

Problem solved.