Passing it on

There are days when my children drive me insane. I mean, truly insane! The days I ask my wife if I may close my office door and lock it so I can have 30 minutes without the constant bickering, fighting and whining about what they want next. Then there are the other days. The days when my kids do what I want them to do without me standing over them. Last night was one of the good days.

My oldest boy wanted to talk last night. There were a couple of items that were concerning him. The first was a set of rules that allow him to run our 4-wheeler around the farm since that is a ton of fun for him. The second item he wanted to talk about is returning to church with me on Sunday mornings to get work done. He hasn't been doing that since baseball practice started since he wasn't in the best of shape and practice was wearing him out pretty good...he needed sleep and getting up at 0500 on Sunday morning wasn't helping. Last night my back was a bit tender still so I told him after his homework for the week is complete, he can choose which item is more important to him and we can talk about it. We'll talk about the other later.

Since I already said yesterday was a good one, I'm sure you know he chose to talk about helping on Sunday mornings. I've been thinking about this a lot though. I really want to know why he wants to help out in the mornings. What I come up with is his mother and I model this behavior of a servant. This idea that we are here to serve others is just a part of our lives and he sees it in us since I'm up every Sunday at 0500 he wants to be up as well. So we discussed it with him and starting this Sunday, 20 May, he will be there in the mornings to help out again. It looks like he'll be working with Junior hauling cables for the musicians and stringing them along neatly.

It's gratifying to see them do the right things...especially when it's for the right reasons as well!