Gresham

What can be said about Gresham as he approaches seven years old? Or, more appropriately, what can't be said about Gresham? He's Jim Carrey and Maurice Chevalier in one. He's the believer of the best in everyone--so trusting of others despite the many times we've burned him that sometimes he makes me want to cry for shame. He has never met a stranger yet strangely is the most reserved in our branch of the Bergeron family--yet strangely is capable of the most unexpected and very loud noises at any given moment. If you can't find Gresham, he is most likely in some "scuddly" (his word, not mine) corner of the house talking to . . . his shadow. You'd think that two brothers and a sister might be enough, yet Gresham never seems to have enough friends. "Shadow" apparently makes the fifth child in the Bergeron household.

Gresham is the first child who made me understand why most parents like to send their children away to school; yet he is also the child who would fare the worst in a school environment. Either that or it's his teacher who would fare poorly. It's not that he doesn't like school and it's not that he's a troublemaker. Correction: it's not that he means to start trouble. He just has a knack for drawing himself and everyone else into whatever spontaneous version of a party that he has invented for the moment. As his parents, it's a huge challenge for us to both train him toward self-control and yet still enjoy him as the amazingly creative blessing that he is. Gresham is a child who revels in being enjoyed. Despite his aversion to books and lined paper, he loves learning. Science experiments, sculpture, drawing and painting, inventing poems, memorizing extremely long verses, inventing complicated stories--these are all Gresham's strengths. Yes, we still require that he sit still during Latin and during family worship and that he write out his spelling words and participate in the reading; but we also try to give him ample time for less "bookish" stuff. Gresham's learning theme: "If you can build it, I will come!" Nevertheless, he is slowly acquiring a love of reading, thanks in part to the Hardy Boys. Being a girl myself, I'd have never guessed that's what it would take. We tried Ramona books. We even tried Nate the Great--but it was The Bears on Hemlock Mountain that did the trick during the week that Daddy was the teacher . . . "because that's a REAL book, Mom (i.e. like what my big brother is reading)." Gresham really enjoys soccer, football, rollerblading, street hockey--but he only seems to understand one speed . . . FAST. We're cringing a little as we contemplate what that may mean on the slopes this winter!

Gresham is one of those children with a tender conscience who, I think, will never have a "crisis of conversion." He is being raised in a covenant home. He knows the promises and capacities and characteristics of the Lord and still he chooses simple trust. He is sad about his sin--sometimes even deeply sorry--but it's never expressed in the passionate way that we sometimes project upon repentance. There is obstinacy in him and, of course, ample evidence of his sin nature, but he is one of those children who always desires the nearness of Jesus. It doesn't ever sit well for him to stand outside "the city of blessing" (Revelation 21)--even for a little while. He is constantly seeking restoration with his God and never doubts the power of Jesus to keep him in that relationship of blessing. He forgives readily and, I trust, is therefore forgiven much (Matthew 6:14-15).