In one of the Indiana Jones movies Indiana is getting ready to take off in a plane and one of his side kicks, at the end of the movie stands on the dock, a big bearded hulk of a man, almost in tears and says “I am missing you already.” I know how he felt. My kids went back to school this weekend.
It’s at times like this that I remember all of those times when I was asked to play ball out in the yard and I had to work on a sermon or a paper; when I was asked to take one or both of them to the movies and I had to read some two-thousand year old book in a dead language; when they wanted to play a board game and I had to go to bed early so that I could get up for an early morning meeting.
Don’t get me wrong, we played plenty of ball in the yard, watched a lot of movies, and played a lot of games, but now it seems like I could have done more. Now it seems like I am the one saying “Hey, you guys want to go to the movies?” and sometimes I hear “We can’t go right now, we have a test tomorrow or a paper due.” Turnabout is fair play I suppose and I am thankful that they still come to me for help on their Bible papers (even if the profs sometimes question them about the depth of their insights). I feel that kind of help is the least payback I can give them for the hours I spent working on some obscure Greek grammar issue instead of playing ball.
It’s all about balance and many times I am not sure that I achieved it. So I offer the only advice that I can to all of you who have young children. Spend all of the time that you can with them because they will be gone before you know it and you will wonder where all that time went. It seems like only a few years ago we had a great big wooden stork in our yard that said “It’s a Gril” (the guy who made it for us wasn’t from this country). Now the gril has moved out and is about to graduate from college and maybe even get a grilling license of her own. My boy is studying Bible and thinks he may be called to the ministry ( I am trying to talk him out of it, showing him some of the mail I get at Coral Ridge seems to help a little). I guess I fear how poor a job I have done raising them and I am really selfish. I want them around forever. Alas that just doesn’t happen. At least, God willing, I will get to be in their lives longer than my parents were in my life.
So they are back in school. And me, me; I am missing them already,
DSL