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It's interesting when your kids become parents they start to tell you how you parented. You get a review whether you solicited it or not. Sometimes Karen and I found it hilarious. Sometimes convicting. Sometimes affirming. Sometimes even touching.
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It was a 2004 American League Championship Series. I remember it because my Yankees were in it. One big reason the Boston Red Sox triumphed over my New York Yankees (Boo!) was a veteran pitcher named Curt Schilling. He was selected to pitch the opening game in the New York series, and although he had torn an ankle tendon in his previous start, he thought he could gut it out. He was wrong. Losing that game actually started the Red Sox into a 3-0 deficit in the best of seven series. They started to come back, and amazingly, Curt Schilling had a chance to try again. Later he would tell the press that the first game showed what he could do. He said the second outing showed what God can do. Although Curt had been named "Good Guy of the Year" by Sporting News, he had never talked publicly about the commitment to Jesus Christ that he'd made several years before.
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Oh sure, Mom and Dad thought it was just another excuse to stay awake longer. Adults don't believe what kids know to be the awful truth - that there are monsters in your closet at night. And they expect you to close your eyes and just start having sweet dreams? Come on!
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The passenger across the aisle from me wasn't very happy. He was complaining to his seatmate on the plane about everything and complaining with a lot of profanity inserted, oh I'd say maybe like every third word. The man next to him was mostly listening as this, shall we say, colorfully spoken speaker cussed out his favorite baseball team, then the service on the plane and the clients he was working with.
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I was about halfway through my hamburger at a cookout when a friend of our son asked me a provocative question. She worked with a group of junior high kids and she asked them what they thought the purpose of life was. They said, "To die." She continued to probe and then she started to talk to them about hope. But she said, "Ron, they have no concept of hope. They're like concrete people. Hope is too abstract. How can I explain hope to them?"
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Wow! For once, the United States Congress was totally united. No partisan torpedoes. No verbal dueling. Even tears of compassion from some usually tough opponents.
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He was this intriguing guy. He was a recently retired Marine who had the great privilege of working security for George W. Bush when he was President of the United States. He even worked as President Bush's spotter when he was in the weight room working out! On a couple of occasions, my friend had the opportunity to tell the President something that was very much on his heart. He said, "Mr. President, the folks from my church wanted me to tell you that we're praying for you all the time." At that point, the President turned to my friend, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "Then, would you please give them a message for me? Tell them the President is deeply grateful. There's nothing greater they could do for me."
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Over the years, when our kids were growing up and at home, they didn't carry a wallet full of money. And they did need some money along the way. They had to buy their lunch at school. They had to buy clothes when they outgrew them or wore them out; which happened frequently. They had to pay admission prices when they went to special attractions. They needed spending money for trips and vacations, and for cards and gifts.
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There's nothing in nature I love to see more than an eagle soaring majestically through the sky. That's why I enjoy the story of the farmer who once found a little eaglet all alone in the woods. And since the little bird was struggling to survive, the farmer decided to take the eaglet back to his farm to raise him. The problem was the only birds he had on his farm were chickens, and that's who the eaglet was raised with. So, as the chickens walked around looking down and pecking on the ground for chicken feed, the eaglet learned to live the same way. Now poking around for chicken feed looks okay on a chicken – no way for an eagle to live.
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I've ridden with a lot of people on a lot of elevators, but none quite as unusual as the young man that I met on an elevator a while back. Actually, he wasn't unusual; but what he carried was. He had his arms full of a wadded up tuxedo and a wadded up wedding gown. So here's this fellow, marching down the hall with a wedding gown and a tuxedo in his arms.
