One of the amazing things in all of this, was my best friend came back home for a while and after seeing hi, sporadically over the last 8-10 years, I have seen him on mulitple ocassions over the last week.
Last Sunday, he suprised me at church, by popping in to say hello and an added bonus of going to church with us. We reminesced a little out in the parking lot for a while after the service and made some tentaive plans to get together again.
This morning, there he was again, at church....but this time he had extra special surprises for me. I got to see his daughters again. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen them. They had to have been 4 and 7 years old...now they are in 11th and 8th grade, wonderful young ladies!
I remember, the first baby I ever held was his first baby girl. I always told people I was afraid of babies, so I was off the hook every single time. It wasn't that I was actually afraid of them....I was afraid of me, dropping them. If you ask me to hold a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, I might balk for a minute, but I will eventually hold that treasure. Kids, well that's a whole different type of treasure and I didn't want to be the one to break anyone's treasure. How do you tell your best friend, "hey, your baby is cute but I ain't touching that little monster!"....I guess the possibility of getting thrown up or pooped on wasn't exactly something I wanted to experience either.
I became a God parent that day and here we are, 16 years removed and I still don't know what that means, Ha! I didn't grow up in that atmopshere of God parents and stuff. The only glimpse of what a Godfather was came from the movie "The Godfather" and I knew that wasn't what I was supposed to be, and when we lived in Kentucky, when I was a child, there was a pizza chain called Godfather's (that didn't help me any either).
So, today, when I saw them trailing behind him, they were probably just as frightened as I was. What was I gonna say? So, I deal with that age group every day as a Youth Pastor, so I just did what comes natural to me. It was awesome, because they are the spitting image of my friend, yet they are entirely different. It's funny, because I have 3 of my own and for some reason, that had never hit me until that moment.
After the service, we sat in the youth building, getting a chance to talk...I asked questions, listened to each one and how different they are from one another and heard about life down in south Georgia. We talked about school systems, grades, boys, teachers, parents, racism, etc....and then they asked my friend, "dad, were you bad growing up?" That is a loaded question and I just laughed out loud because, man...I could tell some stories. Of coarse I wouldn't, only some embarrasing stories, if they ask again, haha! So I had to ask, "what do you mean by bad?" Whew, I was off the hook...their idea of bad was not the same as my definition, whew!
We started to tell a few, innocent stories...you know the one's....Nothing incriminating, just fun!
On the way home, I recalled the time, when I spent the night at his house and in full disclosure, as I let my guard down, I revealed to him that I was petrified of dummies...the one's that sit on your lap and move around with strings in the back...a ventriloquist dummy. Little did I know, that he actually owned one...I think his name was Dexter...so guess who I saw when I opened my eyes that morning after a nice sleep...DEXTER! Staring me right in the face! It must have been a sight from the bottom bunk, where he was sleeping...to hear a muted scream and then see a dummy go flying across the room and nail the wall. All I remember him doing was laughing...hysterically!
What was truly amazing about this whole moment, was letting them talk, like I do every teen I get into a conversation with...to hear their heart, their passions, their ticking clock that makes them who they are. I just soaked it all up and when we were finished talking 3 hours later, I had a smile on my face the whole way home, because I was impressed by how his daughters have turned out.
Not that we were entirely bad kids, but we had some things in our lives and upbringings that set us apart from many of the other kids at our schools. We did some stupid stuff, a lot of stupid stuff and most of it stays concealed and hidden, between the 2 of us. So, it's no wonder that I had a smile on my face, just to see them, well...being typical kids, in a normal, healthy way.
I don't know where I heard this statement first, but I have remembered it and used it time and time again when talking about children..."they are our echo in to the future." I love that and am frightened by it at the same time. I looked at my kids this past Saturday, as we were gathered together for a cul-de-sac party for Audrey's 3rd birthday, and thought...what will their echo be, of me, us....
Time, and a whole lot of prayer, can only tell, but that statement is very true and should make us all pause and think about what and where we have our children, what we are teaching them, what we allow them to see and hear....Each child is different but the foundations we lay for them will be the sound of the echo, in the future, from what we are saying, teaching and leading today.
Proverbs 22:6 says, "train a child up in the way he should go and when older, he not leave (stray) from that path (way)."
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise"
What will the sound of our echo be....look back at your own life and think about what your parents taught you, the foundation (or lack their of for some) that was laid for you and think, what has your echo been? Do we want that same echo for our children? When I stare into the eyes of my baby girl, I know what echo I hope to hear and see from her...have you given it much thought...or prayer?
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