I've mentioned in several previous posts how I've been riddled with fear my entire life to the point of being agoraphobic. So it should come as no surprise to you that my first day of school, going into grade one, was a very scary thing for me.
I had attended Kindergarten the previous year, but it seemed to me to consist of a bunch of young ladies visiting and chatting throughout the day, while the kids ran around out of control. Many times there were battles over toys that ended with violence and bloodshed. And the little boys were no better.
Mom volunteered in the kitchen of the kindergarten, which was actually the gymnasium in the town hall, but after a few days of having to run out of the kitchen to break up fights between 5 year olds, she agreed it wasn't the place for me to be. And since attendance wasn't mandatory at that time, she pulled me out.
So as grade one approached I was not just regularly frightened but scared it would be a repeat of kindergarten, only with bigger kids.
The only thing that motivated me and helped me to suck down my fears was that school was where you went to learn how to read. And I just HAD to know how to read. I had to know what was in all those books.
So bright and early in the morning, the day after Labour Day, I picked up my little lunch box and walked the one block up the hill to the elementary school.
It was very different to Kindergarten. There was an actual classroom and greeting each of us as we walked in the doorway was a kindly, grandmotherly lady named, Mrs. Long. There seemed to be sunlight everywhere in this clean and orderly room.
After we began the day by bowing our heads in prayer, Mrs. Long said a few words of welcome, picked up a long, skinny stick she called her "pointer" and started pointing at pictures lined up at the front of the classroom, above what she called the "blackboard" (even though it was green).
She introduced me to 26 pictures of what would become my 26 "friends" from that day forward: the Alphabet!
When I got home that day, over a plate of cookies and milk, I told Mom all about this great invention.
How these 26 letters each made a different sound which always stayed the same and every word in the "entire world" was made up of these 26 letters just jumbled up in different ways according to what sound you needed them to make. Once I had them and their sounds memorized I could read any word I wanted to. I'd never been so thrilled by a discovery in my life.
By the end of the second day at school I had the alphabet and it's sounds memorized and the world was mine!
By the time Friday of that first, short week at school was approaching we had already read several pages in our first grade "Reader". The only problem was that we were not allowed to bring the Reader home and had to leave it at school at the end of each day.
But through the week I had devised a plan to be allowed to take the Reader home for the entire weekend. So that Friday afternoon, after all the other kids had raced out, I was still lingering at my desk. Mrs. Long asked in her kindly way if I had a problem. I told her that I was not understanding the Reader and was thinking I might "fall behind" the other kids and could I get "special permission" to bring the Reader home for the weekend. I've never been so afraid of doing anything in my life. I was so shy with people and here I had to talk to "Teacher" one on one AND try to convince her to let me take the Reader home. But something inside was driving me and I just had to try.
After asking me a few questions and getting me to promise to take good care of it, she said I could have my "special permission" to bring the Reader home. On my way home, with the Reader tucked inside my coat, I may have been only 6 years old and in my mind was referring to the story I had told Mrs. Long as "fibs", I still knew I was doing wrong. Especially when I made up my mind to keep the book and the entire situation a "secret from Mom".
However, Mom "caught" me with the Reader late Sunday afternoon and started questioning me about it. I had been lamenting the fact that I had to leave the Reader at school, so how had I gotten Mrs. Long to let me have it for the entire weekend?
Mom wanted to know if I taken it without permission?
I was shocked that she would even think I had done that. As if I was a "thief".
But she persisted with her questions. If I didn't take it, how did I come to have it?
When the whole story came out and all the things I had told Mrs. Long Mom had just one more question for me. When I told Mrs. Long I needed the Reader because I was having trouble and didn't want to fall behind the other kids, was it the truth or a lie?
Oh. I wasn't a "thief". I was a "liar".
Of course, this was unacceptable to Mom. She was not harsh, but she was absolutely firm about what I had to do. It was expected that by the end of Monday I was to have confessed the entire truth to Mrs. Long, apologized to her and ask for her forgiveness for lying to her. If I was frightened by the first "one on one" conversation I had with her, I was terrified by having to confess my lies to her.
But as scared as I was, I did it. To tell you the truth, the lies were not sitting well with me. Not just the lies to Mrs. Long, but the ones to Mom too. It seemed that one lie led to another and then the actions of sneaking and hiding were added too. It was all so unsavory and I felt "dirty" inside.
When Monday was over I lingered at my desk again. Mrs. Long came to my desk, sat in the one next to it and jumped right into the subject. She wanted to know if it had "helped" me to take the Reader home and did I think I could "keep up with the other kids" now.
So I told her the truth. The whole dirty story came out and I waited for my "judgement". Just like Mom, she didn't make light of it in any way. But in the end she accepted my apology, forgave me completely and together we asked our Heavenly Father for forgiveness too, because, as she explained, when people did wrong to one another it hurt God too. So I needed to confess to Him and ask for His forgiveness as well.
Then she let me go and told me to hurry home so that my mother wasn't worried about me. Just as I was going to walk out the door Mrs. Long asked me how far I had made it through the book. I told her I had finished it. She called me back in for a few more minutes and had me read out loud a little from near the end of the book before she sent me home again. Apparently that Reader was suppose to be used by the class until past Christmas and well into the next year and I had completed it by the end of the first week of school.
During that week a reader and writer was born. But even as valuable as knowing how to read and write is, it's the other things I learned that week that matter more.
The Bible says it this way, "Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom." Psalm 51:6
It may have been amazing that I learned to read so quickly, but as I walked home that day feeling clean inside again, I knew that being able to read all the books in the world would be useless if I couldn't do something as basic as telling the truth.
What good is reading if I can't discern the truth? What good is it to write (even if I became the greatest writer in the world) if I used my abilities to spread lies or for my selfish gain?
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36
Laura-Lee ... Was Here
