Everybody has their SAT story and this is En's.

We've been intending the SAT's for years and years. From birth, we start talking into the children's ears about the perfect score that we intend for them to have. Everytime one of mine has an SAT scheduled, I cry about not having been able to discuss the test taking tips that I have learned over the years. We have baby mobile's with SAT questions and multiple choice ditdots for the baby to bop around with. We ask them vocabulary questions here and there with words that we are sure will be on the test. We've had some false starts. SAT discussions seem a Bodden delight. ie. children who got perfect scores, here and there dotted around us. Where, oh where is the smart "Bodden child" who will verify our teaching skills, by getting a great grade on the SAT's, so we can brag about it? None of our children are there, yet. {we are saving some accomplishments for Stoney to show all the rest of the grandchildren up in,LOL}

It amazes me that other families don't even talk about the SAT's till after they are over. Those are the ones who score the best, I think. Ours are all duds, we lament. They are beautiful children with no ambition for a perfect score. We will have to pay their way through college, or live working at Walmart forever. No shame in that. My children, I have found have very little test taking ability. They are smart in their sphere and test takers they are not. Me, my adrenaline lives for testtaking opportunities, none of them have inherited my lust for the perfect score.

The last time we tried for the SAT's Enoch had forgotten is i-d card. We were soooo disappointed and discouraged. How can we get this elusive test behind us? The wall seemed to grow and grow for the SAT's. The reschedule of the SAT's for us was postponed, on account of snow in January and today was the reschedule. We were holding our breath and crossing our fingers. Will he be able to take the SAT's. I tried to give him every trick that I had thought of for good test-taking. We've been talking about the SAT's from birth. He is not one of the children who takes the SAT's at 12 years old, but he is a good young man, who has dreams that seem always to grow a wall around them and the SAT's began to represent a wall around our dreams for this young man. Last year's scare and emotional time included. I simply cannot go into the cataclysm of events that nearly kept us from being able to transport him to the SAT's because of auto misfortunes. We had a blocker for that tackle and it was Ben who was in charge of the transportation dilemma. Now, we had transportation, identification...what else is coming at us, to try to keep my student from being assessed? We could only guess.

We woke this morning as we had the time before. We got ready and we could feel all of the cumulating SAT stories swirling around in our heads; with the knowledge that this day would be history in the making as all of the other's have become.

I let him make his own breakfast.{maybe my doting on him had jinxed the times before, I thought} We are not going to make a big hullabaloo about this. It will come and go. We drove out the door at 7 to be there by 7:45, making sure that he had the necessary Identification for himself and whatnots. A lunch, a mother's kiss, talking to's. Snow started falling as we got to the school. Students from around were also taking their SAT's. I don't know why I felt like crying. I didn't cry when Emily took hers or Elyse. They had their stories, but not so emotional.

The school that we go to for the SAT's has a nice little campus and darting around in the snow were a community of sundry birds who were playing in the snow. Amazing that they had no care of the SAT's and what they can mean for a person's future. They seemed to tell me not to worry. I listened. God will take care of En. With or without the SAT's he will get along, I know and I giggled to think that God is reminding us not to worry, even about our life situation and the dilemma's that we live under, in this shadow time.

I do wonder if it will stop snowing. It did stop and we left my boy, as if in the kindergarten, although he's a man. I care about him and he knows it. A humble resignation to the inevitable, seems to be the emotions that he exudes. He is really so introverted, that we really can't guess if he's nervous or not. He never wants to bother anybody, in any way. He's got this and we are here for him, either way.

My heart was in my stomach for him all day. This is not easy for a Walker fellow. They are great at design, but tests take them all to their limits. I've seen my children squirm at the thought of a vocabulary or mathematical assessment. I would spare them, but I live in the light of their difficulty in this. All day, I cast my care on Jesus, for my dear boy. I walked and prayed and hollared at anybody I could, namely Ben. He's so patient with me in these days. He must wonder why I care so much about these little things. I do.

He called and I heard the dropping of a weight in his voice. "Is someone coming to pick me up?" He's a man now. 18 and finished the SAT's applications for college need the score for him. He is definitely a hardworking student, but with no SAT score, there is little hope of any future at all, in this world, they say. We know God is in control, regardless. The heavens seemed to applaud the Walker's accomplishment of this high hurdle. The snow came down in drodes to mark the day and we are all in the excitement of a day well spent in the focus on the most unassuming and dearly delighted in, "boy of my dreams", doing the natural next thing. Taking the SAT's.