National Take Your Son/Daughter to Work Day

(Every fourth Thursday in April)

Going to work with Daddy was no small thing. Excitement levels were running in dangerous proportions a day in advance which is when he packed his 'work bag.'  He had several hours of coloring, his favorite Flight magazine to look at, and a multi-colored ink pad to make fingerprint pictures for Mommy.  

On Thursday morning he came downstairs in a new-to-him shirt with as many buttons as Daddy's.  He had tucked it in carefully and critiqued the combing job I gave to his hair.   He asked for cologne.  And then he was ready and felt like a million bucks.   

I loved it.  

While waiting to leave, he perched carefully on the edge of the recliner in order not to mess up his hair.  I sat across from him and smiled.  This was a big day for all of us.

In his best effort to sound as grown-up as possible, he struck up a conversation, "So, how was your time with dad in the dark?"  

I stifled the great belly laugh that welled up in me, straightened my face to an appropriate sobriety and said, "It was great!  I slept well and then came downstairs to read my Bible and pray.  I prayed that you would have a really good time with Daddy at work today."

That was all it took.  He flung his head back, all grown-up facades cast away, and laughed with the abandon of a five-year-old who is sitting on extreme but suppressed excitement.  Then he sobered up again and nodded politely and said, "That's good."

And then John came down.  Tyler had waited to eat until Daddy did.  He zipped his jacket only partially like Daddy had his.  He smiled, satisfied that his button-down shirt and tan trousers looked man-enough to be appropriate for an office.  

When I kissed both of my guys good-bye I wasn't sure which one of them was enjoying this the most:  the shiny-eyed one with his bag or the smiling-eyed one with his boy.  And then they left.

An hour into their day at the office, I sent John a text asking how it was going.  His reply was to send this picture:  

We only live a few minutes from the office, so I told John that I could easily pick Tyler up any time things go downhill.  But what grown-up five-year-old wants to have his mom pick him up from the office?  That is like, so schoolboy-ish.  John understood that.  So mid-morning when his coloring and artwork were done and his scrap paper properly disposed of by the paper shredder, Tyler grew restless and John, still grinning broadly, brought him home. 

Tyler had a brown paper bag in his hand.  "Hey, what it is in your bag?" I asked.

And then came the heart-warming story of how George, the CEO, called Tyler into his office.  "He asked if I could step into his office for a minute, so I stepped into his office and he said 'Thank you for coming to work with your dad.'  He gave me this bag and then he told me 'Thank you for coming with your dad' the second time."

Tyler emptied his treasures onto the table.  There were business cards, a logo-embellished, leather-bound tablet with a calculator inside the cover (this doubles beautifully as an iPhone when you are five), a pen with a matching key chain/flashlight, a pack of gum, a bookmark, and a card thanking him for coming to work with his dad.  

I could have cried.  Going to work with John would have been fantastic without the bag from George, but that element changed Tyler's experience from fantastic to Never Ever Will Be Forgotten.  

John was grinning. "On the way to work Tyler told me 'Dad, this is melting my heart.'"  

Yeah, it melts mine, too. 

I say three cheers for the National Holiday People for hitting on a great idea.  And three cheers for Dads like John and workplaces like Westfield and executives like George.  And, of course, three cheers for five-year-old boys with their shiny eyes and bags of treasures.

The combination is unbeatable on the fourth Thursday in April.  You might want to mark your calendar for next year. 

The Art of Receiving Compliments

I have no idea what my younger sister told me anymore, but she complimented me on something.  And I, the Master Compliment Deflector, brushed it aside with some dark comment about myself, totally negating the good she had spoken and changing a bright moment to a negative one.  Oh, I was laughing.  Sort of, at least.  

That night in the privacy of our room, John had a wise word to give me.  "I don't like to hear you say negative things about yourself.  Especially when someone gives you a compliment, you tend to turn it around by saying something negative.  You are my dearest treasure and I hate to hear you spoken of like that."

It was one of those rare moments --you know the kind?  The kind that without a wrestle or even a twinge of emotion, I looked at his words logically, knew all he said was true, and knew that, from that very moment, I had forever changed.  

"You are right," I told him seriously.  "I have been doing that, and I'm sorry.  I won't do it anymore."

And the matter was settled. 

The next morning, I went to my sister and apologized, "Hey, yesterday when you gave me a compliment, I said 'this' and I'm sorry.  I'm done with being negative about myself."

That was when things changed, at least 98% of the time anyway.  I often catch myself now when I start to say something negative, recognize the wrong in doing that, and can correct (or avoid) the error.  Changing my ways in this was one more step towards becoming a positive person and one more step away from discouragement (after all, how a person thinks about himself is what he becomes). 

So, how do you accept a compliment when you don't want to appear proud and sucking up the praise given to you?  Here are some ideas to consider when responding to a compliment:

1. Make it your goal to leave a positive feeling surrounding each interaction you have with others--including when they give you a compliment.
With my husband, it was easy.  I still might not always agree with his husbandly admiration, but I have learned to sincerely  and cheerfully say, "I'm so glad you think so."  Or I can smother him with affection and say, "You think so?  Thank you!"  My change in response has helped keep the moment positive.  Love and affection grow much better in that environment than they do in a negative one.  

Learning to accept a compliment from other people proved to be a little harder, but a sincere "Thank you" spoken with a genuine smile usually works jolly well.  At other times, especially if it is a blessing spoken about seeing God at work in or through me, a "Praise God" often answers the blessing and fits the moment.  It leaves a much better "feel" than saying, "Oh, I've got so far to go..."   No one is fooled; we all have areas that need a lot of growth.  But at the moment God gives you an encouraging word, let it be the blessing it was meant to be.  

2. Accepting a compliment validates the person who gives it.  
By forever trying to deny what they are saying, you are forever telling them that they don't have good taste.  Which isn't exactly a nice thing to tell your friends.  

3. Pride isn't squelched by deflecting a compliment.
If you deflect compliments in order to not appear prideful, be aware that pride is just as alive and well in denial or the sarcastic answers as it would be if you sucked up the moment with a haughty, "You are right.  I'm the best cook in the country."  Far better, then, to graciously tell them "Thank you" and let it go at that rather than have them try to convince you by reinforcing their original statement by another barrage of words.

4. Compliments are rare animals.  Accept them when they do come to you.
Maturity and grace meet when you can accept a compliment cheerfully, tuck it away in your mental file of "Blessings that Came to Me", and go on your way rejoicing.  There is no pride in that.  And the Giver goes away with a warm smile themselves for having passed along a blessing.  

Go on, then.  Accept the next compliment that comes to you.  Both you and the Giver will be blessed.  

Construction Birthday Party

I love themed parties.  Like, really love them.  So when I found out I was going to be babysitting a Birthday Boy while his mom was gone, I volunteered to have a party for him.  You can't turn six, have your parents gone and have no birthday party all on your birthday, can you?  Thanks to ideas I found online, we had a great party.  I had every bit as much fun as the children. 

The cake was definitely the highlight. I am no cake decorator
but this one was one even I could handle.

This is Cream Soda, by the way. 

I'm not Racing

I don't know how many times my two perpetually slow eaters have decided to turn lunch into a race.  Ironically, they sit there empty-mouthed as they argue their case about who will finish first.

"Listen, guys," I remind them. "This is not a race.  It doesn't matter who finishes first.  All that matters is that you eat your food."

Life isn't a competition.  And the sooner they learn that, the better.

I'm done with the racing business myself.  For much too long, I've been racing, mentally comparing myself with other people and wondering how I matched up.  I felt insecure when someone excelled and I failed.  Or when someone was continually accomplished and I was completely ordinary.

And then God began to show me the pride in that kind of race which broke my own sense of inferiority.  Suddenly I could live without racing all the time.  I didn't have to wear myself out trying to keep up with the best of them out there. I don't have to be the best.

I don't have to be the best if I am secure in who God created me to be. The entire riches in the Warehouse of Heaven are available to me because I am an heir of God's.  He doesn't withhold good gifts from his children.  One of those gifts is love.  He loves me with the same love that he loves Jesus (John 17:23) and basking in that love changes my life.

"Perfect love casteth out all fear," the Bible says.  To me that reads, "Perfect love for God casts out the fear that I don't match up or the fear that I'm not good enough."  And, "Perfect love for others casts out the fear that they are better than me."

Perfect love frees me to rejoice with those who are rejoicing.  It allows me to "esteem others better than myself" without getting despondent because I'm the guy in the dust.

I'm free to do that because I'm no longer tied down to racing.   

Life isn't a competition.  

I don't need to finish first. 

I only need to finish well.

The Ministry of Validation

I stood by the counter watching my pizza roll out of the commercial oven. A restaurant employee took it from the oven, cut it, and had it in its box all in three seconds flat.  I was impressed.  When she handed my pizza to me, I said, "Wow.  This isn't your first day doing this, is it?"

She leaned forward confidentially and said, "I started yesterday."

We both laughed, knowing that wasn't true, but I said, "In that case, you're a genius."

We were laughing as I walked out.

On the way home, I started thinking about my brief exchange with the Pizza Genius.  Even though much of it had been in jest, I knew I had stumbled upon something I should have been consciously engaging in for years: validating people.

This old world could use it.  Its people are so full of sorrow and pain that world news can be overwhelming, not to mention personal pain that never reaches the headlines. Being so entrenched in it, negativity leaks out all over until you hear hurtful things spoken friend to friend in the name of a jest.

But I have a positive God Who feeds me with positive things.  He tells me I am an heir of His.  He tells me I am accepted.  That I have worth and value.  He tells me he is preparing a place for me so I can live with him someday.

Being fed with that kind of positivity, I want to become one of those who continually pays it forward. I want to join the ranks of people who pass along words of happiness to perfect strangers, leaving them with a sense of cheer and warmth.

I'm encouraged by people who have done that to me.  Or by people like my brother-in-law who works as an intensive care nurse and says his goal is to leave each room he works in with a little taste of heaven.  I find those kind of people inspiring.

So, join me.  Let's bask in the joy of being one of God's children, then step out, confident in Whose child we are, and pay it forward.

The world needs it.

I need a window, God.

The future stretches out before me but I can't see what it holds.  My vision is limited by the knothole view I have of today. I can see a few facts; a few tentative opportunities.  But I can't see much.  I see pain associated with change.  My knothole doesn't let me see much beyond that.  It is too earthly of a perspective to reveal much more than today.

Even voices are distorted by the tiny opening. I can't hear what they are saying.  Are they calling me?

I crouch,peering out of my tiny knothole, squinting to see beyond my narrowed view.  A child presses in against me, her grasping hand satisfied with my skirt.  Ain't nothing gonna hurt her if Mama is here.

I feel her there. And my knothole view reveals tears.  Her tears.  Her world is easily shattered and I don't know that I can put it back together again if I allow change to break it apart.

I need a window, God.

Fling back the shutters to reveal Your perfect will.

Let me gaze through the window of heavenly perspective where change is loaded with blessing.  Tears when revealed through His open window aren't tears at all, but jewels that glitter on her cheeks and shape her, strengthening her beauty-- my own beauty, because my cheeks are wet, too.

The opened window doesn't give miraculous revelations detailing my future, but my vision is no longer the hazy shapes as seen from the knothole.  Those shapes are revealed to be glory moments and times when He was there.  I press into Him.  Ain't nothing gonna hurt me if I'm with Him.

I hear the voices clearly now.  They are fellow Window People, calling out words of faith and praise. Their world has come alive.   They tell of triumph and victory.  They speak of life that springs from death and joy beyond the Cross.  They encourage each other on.

They inspire me until I'm through with the Knotholer's view of Your will.

The knothole reveals the pain of change; the un-shuttered window shows glory and reward.  The knothole tunnels my vision onto myself and my immediate surroundings; the window give me the ability to look beyond, to see Your will is the only place in the world I want to be.  The knothole only shows the dying required of me; the window shows life that is to come, for out of death springs life.

I need a window, God, so I can truly see.