He has an imagination like one I've never seen. I've heard stories of things I don't think my brain could have even come up with. Stories with dragons, swords, haunted woods, knights, people I've never heard of, and dinosaurs he's defeated when he was just a mere three years old.
I often think I'd like to see how his brain works, how he thinks up these things, it must be such an interesting world to think up at just the age of ten. The tender age of ten.
A seemingly innocent age. An age of exaggeration because his concept of measurement really hasn't developed yet. He doesn't really know how long three hours is, he doesn't really know how much money it takes to buy something, how many miles it takes to get somewhere, and he doesn't really know how many chicken nuggets fill him up.
It is too often that I dismiss his stories or his measurements of something because I think "he doesn't really know."
But SHE heard him. She listened to his story and she heard what he wasn't saying. WHAT. HE. WAS. NOT. SAYING.
He told her that there were icicles hanging from the bed frames. There was no heat. And she heard him loud and clear. Something that seems so outrageous that I probably would have dismissed for another silly exaggeration, but she did not. She took him seriously and she was right, and he was not exaggerating.
Icicles mean it must be really cold in his new house. Something that can be fixed. Maybe it's not so bad.
But they looked and what they found wasn't just icicles. Icicles would have been easy - something that can be fixed, moved on from. What they found was much worse than that. Something that won't be easily recovered from - there was drug use in the home and there was physical abuse and there was neglect. My heart sinks as I see the words written across this page. Not just for the boy one, but for the girl ones and the kids that I don't know who have this in their homes, too.
How did we not know? How could we live with them and we didn't know that the time that they weren't with us they were so unsafe? That they were in danger, put in harm's way by the one who claims to love them most?
The boy one. The protector. He protected the one who claims to love him most when he was told not to tell.
So when he told someone he trusted that there were icicles, she listened, and she took him seriously, and she saved his life. And ours. We will forever be indebted to someone who heard what the boy one was not saying.
If you have children in your life - children, grandchildren, stepchildren, students, kids in your youth group, in your sunday school class, in your dance class, on your softball team, on your football team, on your ACE team, kids you DON'T EVEN KNOW, listen to them - don't just listen with your ears, listen with your heart. You could save them from something they don't even know they need saving from.
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