School Bus Redemption: Allergies, Bullies and Opportunities

Does God really work all things together for our good? Even the paltry stuff of school bus drama?

He doesn’t always let us see how He’s doing so, but His Word says He will, indeed, redeem all of life’s events for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28). I revel in it when He gives me a small glimpse of this kind of redemption.

My son suffers from a list of food allergies so long even an Iron Chef would get his spatula in a twist to cook for him. Thankfully, none of his allergies are the anaphylactic variety, so we don’t go through life armed with Epi-pens. Instead, his allergies result in a perforated gut, an inability to absorb nutrients, impaired growth and visits to a pediatric endocrinologist to check his hormone levels. Once the food allergies were diagnosed and those foods removed from his diet, the kid laid down five inches of bone in less than a year — five times more than the previous year’s one inch total. That mark on the doorframe made my self-awarded PhD in nutrition and meal planning worthwhile.

Due largely to his birth history, genetics and time in a Russian orphanage, this same child struggles to inhibit his impulses around food. Despite his earnest efforts to govern his desires and resist temptations to eat foods that impair his growth, he quite simply cannot help himself. Pop Tarts, potato chips and cheese sticks are edible kryptonite to his will power. He routinely partakes of such forbidden goodies and, in the process, is making himself sick. He endures some immediate physical symptoms in his gut, but more crippling than anything is the shame he feels for not withstanding the temptations. I’m a bad boy.

Our school bus driver was gracious and helpful once alerted to the situation. We agreed to move my son to the front of the bus, in a seat by himself right next to the driver. In front of the kindergartners. It pained me to make this decision. He feels ‘different’ because of his strange dietary restrictions and this just put a flashing neon sign over his head. Still, we felt it was the only way to prevent him from hurting himself. I have a pang in my heart every morning when I wave the bus off.

And then… an email from a friend whose kindergarten daughter rides the same bus:

I just thought I’d pass on what a little hero your son was today on the bus; he overheard my daughter being bullied and stuck up for her, telling the bullies to “bug off” multiple times until they left her alone. Please tell him we said “thanks”.

Perhaps only a mother would cry over this, but that’s exactly what I did. I cried not only because I was proud of him; I cried because I was profoundly moved by the way God had redeemed all the parts of this situation:

My son’s sin and shortcomings landed him in the front of the bus where he could advocate for and defend another child. His shame and embarrassment at needing the accountability of proximity were erased by the sense of God’s pleasure for doing right.

In the confines of my human thinking, I saw his need for seating up front as measures of correction and protection. As only the Sovereign Lord can do, both were woven sweetly into a garment of redemption.

On a school bus.