The Plaid Shirt

He held it up for me to see, pride all over his face.  “How do you like my new shirt?”

It was still on the hanger, freshly pulled from a Walmart bag.

It was a good shirt, green and blue plaid that brought out his eyes. One he would look handsome in.

“It cost seventeen dollars,” he told me. “I only had twenty, but it was worth it. There were others on clearance, but they didn’t look as nice as this one.”

My son bought that shirt for one reason: church.  Years of online schooling, followed by the year he spent sidelined for cancer surgery, meant his closet was no longer stocked with dress clothes. Mostly T-shirts, hoodies or sweatpants.

None of those, he decided, were right for church.

So with his last twenty dollars, he asked his grandpa to take him to Walmart on a Friday afternoon. Together, grandfather and grandson searched for a button-down plaid shirt. He bought it just in time to wear it to church that weekend.

The night before, he realized he’d left the shirt spread out on his bed and one of the dogs had curled up on it. Worried it might be dirty, he washed and dried it. The next morning, he was near tears when it came out of the dryer a wrinkled mess.

We were already running late. I asked his sister to help and she came to the rescue, ironing carefully until it looked good as new.

Still, between the ironing and the last-minute scramble, we ended up late for church. And I hate being late. I’m a type-A, on-time kind of person. An accountant. Debits equal credits. Schedules matter. Punctuality matters.

So when we stepped out of the car into the cold February air and he complained about being cold, my patience was thin.

“Son,” I said, exasperated, “we’ve talked about this. Wear a coat. I don’t feel sorry for you if you refuse to wear one.”

We hurried inside and sat through the service.

On the way out, he mentioned the cold again, and I doubled down, something about God helping those who help themselves and the many coats he owns at home.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said quietly.

Sometime early the next morning, the Holy Spirit gently woke me up.

He didn’t wear a coat because he didn't want to wrinkle his shirt before church.

Bam.

The realization undid me.

I think what broke my heart wasn’t the coat, it was that I was in such a hurry to be on time for church that I missed seeing my son’s heart. He wanted to look nice. He didn’t want to wrinkle the shirt he had carefully chosen. He didn’t buy it to impress anyone, he bought it out of reverence. Out of respect for God.

He was willing to brave the cold for that.

And I missed it.

As soon as I heard him stirring in his room that morning, I went in to apologize.

“Mom,” he smiled, “please don’t worry about it.”

But I do.

Later, flipping through an old journal, my eyes landed on these words I'd recorded from Ann Voskamp:

“Doesn’t all the hurry make us hurt? Slow never killed time. It’s the rushing and racing, the trying to catch up, that kills time… and ourselves.”

And another:

“You can only hear your life sing when you’re still.”

I don’t want to miss a blessing because I’m in a hurry.  I know my son will likely wear that plaid shirt every Sunday for the foreseeable future. For him, it’s an offering, his way of honoring God.

For me, it will always be a reminder to slow down, to look again, to see the heart.