Cave of wonders

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

My son has been in the same bedroom for the majority of his life. What used to seem like a perfectly good room has grown smaller as the little boy grew into a 6’2” tall man. Since he is out of high school, we are trying to find ways to encourage independence. So, we kicked Korbin out of his room this week. We moved him to the biggest bedroom in the house, so he now has a bed that he fits on AND he has room for his movies. He has a lot of movies.

Whenever we moved one of our daughters to a new room, they would be excited. Aly in particular, looked at it as new territory to personalize. She has had some crazy room colors. Korbin does not look forward to such movement. If you looked at his room at any given time it would look messy, but he knew exactly where everything was to within about a quarter of an inch. I would have bet anyone that if they tried to move anything, even a little, that he would notice. A case in point is a clock he got for Christmas a couple of years ago. He put it on the floor in the middle of his room on Christmas day. If you moved it, he put it back in its exact location, for two years. It was one of the last things I moved and he followed me like I was holding a bomb. Everything was slow and steady. It is now hanging on the wall in his new room.

You can imagine what his last week has been. We explained everything to him. We told him he would have more room, but he still protested at first. He tried locking his door. He tried holding my hands so I could not lift anything. He tried just standing in the way. None of it worked so he actually started negotiating a return to his old room with my wife. They ended up settling on June 14, 2028. Seriously, he gave us a five year trial period.

Mary used a similar negotiation when he started collecting movies. He really wanted “Con air” but it was rated R. So, he offered up December 16, 2021 – his 18th birthday. He did this when he was around 12 years old. By the time we got to that date, however, we realized that he had been watching it on u-tube the entire time. He also took his newfound legal age limit and ordered it in I think three different languages. Our son is a unique human.

Once the room was complete, we realized he had been taking pictures to document the move. He had pictures of everything, not for reminiscing – he took a pictorial inventory to make sure we didn’t “lose” anything. In particular, he had pictures of his movies so he could make sure that I put them back in the same order he had them. I had not. He rearranged them.

Some transitions are hard for everyone, I understand that. Taking our son and literally reorganizing every physical thing in his life kind of multiplied his reaction. The transition from his pre-school to his grade school had Mary and I freaked out. A few years later, leaving the school we once were reluctant to attend seemed crazy. Why couldn’t we just stay? Even worse, once we got over our fear of that great big middle school, we had to take him to high school. Without fail every time he has been challenged, he has exceeded what we had grown to understand him to be capable of. We have now grown comfortable having no idea what he is capable of.

This all got me thinking about my own reluctance to change. Claiborn men are not known for being flexible. I wonder how many times I missed the chance to grow or to learn or to have faith that things will work out. I wonder how many times I start to bargain with God or try to change what He already knows is going to happen.

Why is change hard, even when we have seen it work in the past?

Why do I assume the results will be the worst possible scenario even when the results are almost never the worst possible scenario?

Challenge: I want our son to trust me. I want him to believe that we have the best plans for him – always, even if it does not look that way. I do not make him jump through hoops just because I like to torment him. Usually there is a reason, even if he does not understand it. I wonder how many times God could have this same conversation about my trust in Him.

Rick Claiborn