zackary

Zackary is his name. He has all the familiar symptoms of an awkward and fumbling 6th grader, lost in a new school, scrambling to find his niche in the sea of faces or perhaps to disappear in the walls altogether. His greasy unwashed hair hangs in his eyes, beautiful blue eyes, rarely seen, constantly shifting or glued to his scuffed hand-me-down Nikes. Zackary is precocious, to say the very least. A brilliant and talented child. Yet, he is plagued by this sense of inferiority. He is self-punishing and self-deprecating. You can reprimand him for the smallest thing, and he will completely lose all emotional control, burst into tears, and accept this manifested failure with the most distressing heartbreak. It is as if he believes, to his very core, that he is such a monumental disappointment to others that he should quit trying altogether. He has loving hippie-parents, who never punish him, so this self-belittling attitude is such an inexplicable mystery to me. And yet, Zackary reminds me so much of myself. How often do I come to God with something, and I am struck by such a sense of hopeless unworthiness that I would like no better than to climb under a desk, and wallow in a pool of my own wretched, pathetic tears? Such is the great enigmatic mystery of grace.