… put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Colossians 3:14
“How did it go?” my wife asks…
She’s been at work while I babysat our two grandkids…
“The day was perfect.”
No problem with the kids?”
“No. But that baby sure crawls fast.”
I started to tell her how the baby speed-crawled to the bowl of dry cat food…
How he ate a piece or two before I stopped him. But I’d already told her…
The day was perfect.
“Did you change your clothes?” she asks quizzically.
“Well, yes.” I say, and turn away, pretending to be busy with something in the kitchen sink.
I could have told her why I changed clothes…
I could have told her how the baby started blowing bubbles with a mouth full of baby-food blueberries…
Leaving a spray of little blue dots all over himself and the kitchen floor and me.
I could have told her all those things, but I had already told her…
The day was perfect.
“Wow!” she says, “How did you keep the house so clean while you took care of a baby and a three-year-old?”
“Oh, no problem,” I answer vaguely and changed the subject.
I could have told her the house was a complete mess…
With so many toys covering the family room floor I had to look for an open space to put my foot down when I walked.
I could have told her how I hurried to clean up after I gave the kids back to their mom, but I had already told her…
The day was perfect.
Here’s the truth about my perfect day…
It was filled with blueberries and toys and the unexpected.
If you are parents of a young child, I have questions…
How do you survive days like that?
How do you survive day after day after day?
How do you survive the pressure from other people to be perfect parents ?
To be perfect parents with perfect family days?
Perfect days measured by meaningless ideas…
Ideas like perfectly clean houses…
Perfectly followed schedules…
Perfectly mannered children?
Looking back on my day of blueberries, and toys and the unexpected…
Perhaps it was a perfect day after all…
Perfect because I spent it with people I love.
Long to be a perfect parent? Perfect grandparent?
Yearn to have perfect family days?
Maybe the best we can do is to fill the days with love.
Everything else will take care of itself, because…
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Note: This post first appeared in May, 2015
