Today's passage is Nehemiah 3:14-32. Starting at the Dung Gate, various people are recorded repairing sections of the wall and the gates. Everyone is involved. Priests, goldsmiths, perfumers, merchants, rulers, their names all recorded.
Today I met with the expelled boy and his parents and told then their son could return to school on probation. The father was initially hostile. He was angry at the whole episode of his son's misbehaviour and my response to it.
When I told him what the conditions were--the main ones being regular psychological counselling and his teachers recording his son's emotion in their classes--he was angry and raised objections. Even though I explained that we would do this to report to the psychologist to help monitor the boy's mood swings, the father remained angry.
No matter what I said he was angry.
Finally, he asked me why I had changed my mind about expelling his son. I told him the story of my prayer, my daily Bible readings, my fasting, my repentance.
I told him had acted out of anger, without any objectivity or love or genuine concern for the positive development of his son.
I told him I had diligently sought God's mind so that God's mind could become my mind in this situation. I told him the situation was an important event in my life because I had learned a big lesson that I prayed I would continue to learn in order to be a better principal and help his son as well as other students.
When the father heard that and learned I was a Christian, he changed. He calmed down and began to ask questions that would help his son get through the probation and grow better.
He sought help from me.
He asked me to recommend a psychologist and an English tutor for the summer.
He wanted to be part of the process.
He talked to his son and asked him what he thought about the probation and the conditions.
The son changed too. He didn't look depressed.
He sat up straighter.
He asked appropriate questions about the probation.
For the first time all year, we began to act as a team working for a common goal.
We were repairing walls.
In the coming year, it is my plan to do QT with the boy. That is my bigger application.
We need to keep repairing the walls.
