Deb and I just returned from a long weekend trip to San Antonio. We decided to take a trip for our 30th anniversary 6 months early. We usually have bad weather around our anniversary on Dec. 30th, so thought this would be a good idea. On Friday morning, we had to laugh, because The River City was in the midst of receiving 12 inches of rain in 24 hours and experienced major flooding. Hey, we wouldn't expect anything less. It turned out nice though, and we had a great trip and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and time away.
On Wednesday, June 5th, (AJ's 23rd birthday) we will leave for a family trip to Santa Maria, California. All of our kids and grandsons will be together for the first time since last August. We are going for my niece's wedding, and will have several other family members there from Deb's side. It should be a great trip filled with many special memories.
So what's my lesson? It came to me from little Parker. When we are out in a store, or he is outside playing, whenever he sees another child he gets so excited and acts like it's his long lost friend. He might scream, and even run up to his little new found friend. Now, sometimes this is shocking to the unexpecting child, but Parker is just so friendly and is excited to see them. It got me thinking....as we grow older we become so much more guarded. We've had so many relationships that have been hurtful, that we even develop a mistrust of others and our human nature is always worried about what somebody might want from us, or be using us for.
I'm not saying we need to rush up to eveyone, scream, and try to hug them, that would be a little creepy and might get security called at the mall, but what if we let ourselves trust people a little bit more and just acted like we were happy to see them a bit more often? What if we treated strangers with a bit more respect? A smile? What if we "paid it forward" a little bit more?
I think I'm going to try and take this little lesson from my 20 month old grandson and see if I can show Christ to others more than I do now? Thanks Parker, keep teaching me. (See, I told you he was smart)
