10/5/21

 Paul and Silas in Jail

             About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.  Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.  But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”  The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.  Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Acts 16:25-30

            This is a passage about being generous and merciful to people who have made our lives difficult.  Not just any people…these are not family or friends or church members or siblings or insensitive strangers.  These are the people who are employed to interact with us and with our kids and always seem to be the obstacle to our children getting what they need.

            For Paul and Silas, it is their jailor.  The jailor is just doing his job.  He was given two prisoners who were battered and beaten and he was ordered to keep them securely locked away.  So he put them into the deepest part of the prison and bound their feet in shackles.  He is just doing his job, but his job feels malicious and spiteful.

            For us it was the school district autism program representatives.  There was no single person as the position kept being filled and emptied and refilled and re-emptied and refilled.  They were the ones who ran the IEP meetings and got us aides that showed up for some of the days at some of the times and arranged for our son to be pulled out of his classroom over and over again for time with specialists.  The one, however, who sticks in my mind was the one who met with us in the middle of his 6^th grade year and told us that our son would no longer receive services from the district.  He had benefitted long enough and there were other kids to look after.  If that meant that he could not be in a typical classroom and would have to change schools so he could be in a SPED class, so be it.  She was just doing her job, but it felt malicious and spiteful.

            That same program called us up and asked if they could use our son as a teaching tool in order to help instruct the district’s teachers in how to work with kids on the spectrum.  We had the choice to be spiteful or to be gracious.  Like Paul and Silas, we chose gracious for a couple of reasons.  First, we were not there to support the program; we were there to support the children who were just starting their journey through the school district.  The more that we could help the teachers, the more kids would benefit.  Consider it a way of paying it forward to other families. 

            Second, there is just not enough room in my emotional reserves to carry around grudges.  I need every ounce of my energy and attention in order to be able to balance raising our children and managing work and relating with my wife and having some semblance of a prayer life.  If I were to hold on to grudges against people who have done wrong by my son, I would not have room left for any of those things.  We forgive and we serve and we move on because that is the best chance that we have to survive as a family.

            Paul and Silas had the opportunity to escape their tormentor, but they did not and that changed the life of one man and his family.  May our graciousness and faithfulness have the same power in our community.

A moment to reflect:

Who are you holding a grudge against for how they treated your children?  How could you let that go while still keeping your children in a good and safe place?