There are times when my son’s wisdom and maturity just amazes me beyond words and reaches so much further than his eight years. This week was one of those times. A little while ago we learned about The Giving Keys. Together, Noah and I watched the videos on their website and I quickly fell in love with every single detail of the company. As soon as the videos were over, Noah turned to me and said, “That’s so cool that one key could possibly help so many people. I could get a key and then give it to someone and then they could give it to someone and then they could give it to someone…” He got it. And I was proud and made a mental note to buy him one for his birthday or something. Fast forward a few weeks and my poor boy was struggling big time. He will occasionally have “down days” and we’ve worked together to discover some tools to help him get through those days and those moments. They’ve worked well, but the past couple of weeks nothing seemed to be working. As his mother who suffers from “down days” myself, it was heartbreaking knowing how he was feeling but not able to do anything to help him. One morning as I was praying with my sweet boy, the word strength kept coming up. He went off to school and I sat around worrying about him and trying to think of something that would help him. All of a sudden, The Giving Keys popped into my head. I quickly went to their website to see if they had a STRENGTH key and they did! I ordered it and the more I thought about it the more perfect this gift seemed. A few weeks ago Noah’s teacher interviewed him for being student of the week and the last question was “When are you happiest?” and his answer was “When I’m helping people.” This gift would represent the strength he needs at this time, but he would also be on the look out for someone else who might need strength and be able to help them by passing the key along. Perfect.

The necklace came and he liked it, but it’s always hard to tell what he’s feeling because he hold his emotion so close to his heart. Only time, observation, and a little subtle digging will tell. Over the next couple days I watched him wear his strength proudly and only take it off to sleep, but even then he would tuck it safely under his pillow. This weekend he and I went for a little walk and then sat down at some picnic tables to kick back and enjoy the sunshine. We talked about life and weather and pokemon. We sat in silence just enjoying the calm around us. During the silence, I watched him inspect his strength key. He finally broke the silence with, “When I look at my key, I imagine a door with the word strength on it. My key opens the door and when I walk through I get all the strength.” And I had no words of response. All I could do was hug him and thank God that I get to be his mom.