The Most Beautiful Thing

Last Friday evening, my wife and I were on a flight back from a week-long vacation in Boston, when I noticed the shape of a large man walking down the aisle.  As I looked up from my book, I was surprised, and captivated, by the scene I saw.

Securely cradled in this man’s arms was a 1-year-old baby boy (I talked to the man later, and he told me the boy’s age) who was sound asleep.  This dad was walking up and down the aisle of the airplane gently bouncing and rocking his sleeping son, in an effort to keep him soothed and comfortably asleep.  From the baby’s contentedly limp posture, I’d say this dad was doing an excellent job!

After watching this scene for several minutes, I nudged my wife and pointed out the scene to her.  After she saw it, I leaned over and said, “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all week.”

I’m always impressed by dads that are engaged in the lives of their young children.  We all hear stories of dead-beat dads or absentee fathers, so I’m especially awestruck when I see a dad who is shattering these aforementioned sub-par pictures of fatherhood. 

Here’s to all you dads out there who are actively and positively engaged in raising your kids.  Your children are blessed call you dad.

Trust

Have you ever heard anyone say, “I don’t trust anyone!”?  Have you ever said that yourself?  That comment makes me laugh, because each one of us puts our trust into others more than we realize.

For example, we trust that:

  • Cooks and staff at the restaurants we eat in are observing the proper health and safety procedures related to food storage, handling, and preparation
  • Letter carriers will deliver a correspondence you drop in the mail in an accurate and timely fashion
  • Gas pumps actually pump the type and grade of gasoline listed on the pump, versus diesel, water, or some liquid other that what the pump says.
  • Other drivers will stop when a traffic light is red, go when it’s green, and drive the proper direction in traffic, rather than just going whichever direction in whichever lane they feel like.

In all these examples, and hundreds of other daily scenarios, we are counting on others to be trustworthy.  This thought reminds me that others are expecting us to be trustworthy as well.  Let’s live in a way that the trust others have in us is well-placed.

On Apologizes

This week, I had an interaction with someone where I could have behaved better than I did. What I knew I needed to do was offer an apology. Here’s the thing, when we know we need to make an apology: we can come up with all sorts of reasons not to.

It’s no different for me either. In fact, I was running through several reasons why I didn’t need to make the apology. My lame excused ranged from, “They probably don’t even remember the incident” to “I’ve got other things I need to be doing” to every other excuse in between. I told you they were lame.

In the end, I made the apology before my workday started. I decided it was, indeed, important and needed to be done. The person who I apologized to was gracious and said that they appreciated it.

All that to say, if you owe someone an apology, make it. Don’t wait, or put it off, or think of reasons to keep from doing it, because the person you owe the apology to deserves it.

Gratitude For The Skill Of Others

We just had the opener for our garage door replaced, and I’m so grateful to the person who came out and installed it for us.

I’m not the handiest guy in the world.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some things I’m really good at, but installing stuff, like a garage door opener, is not one of them.  That’s why I’m grateful for the skills of others, and their willingness to offer those skills, be it in the market place, or out of their own generosity.

It reminds me that each of us have skills that we can offer others.  The skills we have may not seem like much to us, but to those who don’t have those skills, they’re valuable.  Therefore, since we all rely on the skills of others (when our skill level falls short) we should be willing to offer the skills we have to others. 

It’s a great way to thank those who have offered their skills to help us.

Doubling Down

This week’s post has a bent toward those of us who are Jesus followers.  Be forewarned.  😊

My family has been facing some challenging days recently with the passing of a significant family member.  Without going into details, a common question my siblings and I have been asking is, “How should we respond to some of the challenging behaviors of others?”. 

For me, the answer has been, “Double down on Jesus”. 

As a Christian, my goal is to follow Jesus’ teachings as laid out in Scripture, and align my life as closely as I can with Him.  That’s easy to do when things are going well, but it can be a different story when life gets challenging, and Jesus’ teaching feel totally contrary to how the world tells us we should respond or behave. 

When I find myself at this intersection with Jesus and the world, I pose some form of the following question to myself: “Jesus gives us very clear instruction on how we’re to behave as followers of His.  I either believe what Jesus says, or I don’t.  So, which is it?” 

This is the point where I double down on Jesus.

I decide that yes, I DO believe what He says, and, yes, I WILL align myself and my actions with His teaching.  Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t always easy. To the contrary, it’s often very difficult.  However, Jesus never promised that we wouldn’t have difficulty or troubles.  He did promise that He’d be with us when we face them.  I have also found Him faithful in carrying us through difficult times, when we choose to follow Him and be obedient to His teaching, event when it’s difficult.

I’ve also realized that I don’t just need to double down on Jesus when times are tough.  I need to double down on Jesus every single day by spending time with Him, reading my Bible, and applying what I learn. 

Because I either believe what He says, or I don’t… and I do!

A Pleasantly Unexpected Perspective

This week I was at an equipment rental place renting a couple carpet blowers.  The need for the carpet blowers involved a bathroom remodel, a piece of less-than-adequate piece of cardboard, and a cat.  That’s a story for another day.  Rest assured; everything ended well.

While I was at the rental shop the employee (James) took me in back to show me the carpet blowers they had.  They looked good to me, so I said, “I’ll take 2 of them”.  James proceeded to take clean off the carpet blowers and carry both of them to the checkout stand.  I asked if I could carry one of them for him, but he said he had them, so we proceeded to the front to check out. 

As we headed toward the front, there was a door we had to go through that was closed.  I told James, “Here, let me get the door for you.  I might as well make myself useful”.  To which James replied, “You’re a customer.  I consider that itself being useful.”

I was pleasantly shocked.  From that statement, it’s clear that James doesn’t see customers to his shop as a burden or an annoyance, but rather as the reason he’s in business in the first place.  His comment seemed so contrary to other places we’ve all visited where, as a customer, we feel like an interruption or an irritation to the employees.  Based on James comment, I can guarantee that his is the only shop I’ll ever go to in the future when I need an equipment rental.

May we all take a page from James’s playbook and be mindful of the importance of the customers we may serve.

Smile Because It Happened

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”  ~Dr. Seuss

I came across this quote last week and it’s such a great reminder about perspective and also about how to handle ending. Since endings are a part of every life, it feels that this quote from Dr. Seuss is applicable for all of us.

There are a number of things that come to an end:

  • A season of life
  • An event
  • A place we enjoy visiting
  • A business we enjoy frequenting
  • A friendship
  • A life

To be clear, some of the endings on this list are more impactful than others, and deserve tears as part of the healing process.  That said, I think that remembering the experience or the person lost with smile, and gratitude for the experience, helps us move forward in away that allows us to remain open to new people and experiences yet to come.  What a shame it would be to close ourselves off to trying new things or getting close to people because we are afraid of the tears that may come with loss.

Dr. Seuss’s quote also reminds me that I don’t have to wait until something is over to smile about it.  I can do so even while it’s happening.  😊

Saying Yes

As I was sitting down to write my weekly blog post, I got a text asking if I’d like to come over to someone’s house for dinner.  Initially, I thought about all the stuff that I wanted to get done that night, and that I should say, “No”. However, I then pondered just how important, really, were the things I’d be doing if I said, “No” to the invitation.  I replied to the text with, “I’ll be there!”

Sometimes when we get opportunities to do things, we think about reasons that would keep us from saying, “Yes”.  I’m going to challenge that line of thinking and start looking for reasons to accept.  This is just another reminder for me to be intentional with my choices versus defaulting to getting stuff done.

Sorry for the short post this week, but I’ve got a dinner engagement to get to!

Reminder To Enjoy It

On Wednesday, my wife informed me that the place we board our cats when we travel will be closing down.  This is a bummer for us, because we really enjoyed this place.  Whenever we dropped our cats off, we never worried about them because they received excellent care, and were always in great shape when we returned.  We will miss this place.

Again, I’m reminded of the importance of appreciating those things (and people) we enjoy while we have them, because so often things change, and they’re gone.

Be on the look out for those things you currently enjoy and look upon them with gratitude and thanksgiving, while you still have them.  And remember, while change can be sad or frustrating, it is also the vehicle by which exciting new things come into our lives.

A Quick Thought On Choice

There are plenty of things in life that we have no control over.  For example, the weather, the economy, genetics, and most every other person on the planet, just to name a few.  However, there are a number of variables in life that we do have control over.

Of those variables, the lever of control we have is choice.  We can choose our responses, our behavior, our outlook, the words we use, the course we chart for our life.

This knowledge should be a constant reminder to us to make wise choices.  The choices we make today impacts the quality of our tomorrows.