Growing up I always went with my father every time he asked me to go. I did this because I was afraid to tell him no. It wasn’t that he made me go, I just felt an obligation to say yes when he asked me. I have made it a point to make sure my children knew that they were not obligated to come with me when asked. I was especially pleased that my son said yes when I woke him this morning asking him, “Instead of going into our man cave, how about we take a walk?” We live in a very health conscience area that provides a great many places to walk, run, or ride bikes. As we headed out, I began going over our list of things to do to complete phase one of our journey. I am thrilled at how well he is responding to the tasks before him. He is fully entrenched in schoolwork, which is requiring huge amounts of memorization of everything from maps, rivers—both US and Europe—to Latin declensions. It would be easy for him to slack off with his memorization of scripture because of his school load. However he hasn’t. While we were
going through our list, it happened! My 12-year old son asked me how I was doing with an issue that I am currently facing. I beamed with pride on the inside as we spent the next few minutes talking about it. Once we resumed our conversation about this last leg of this first rite of passage—leading a bible lesson—it happened again! It began by my asking him if he has selected a topic to work with. He said he had. I began offering suggestions on how to develop his idea. After listening for a few moments, he asked without hesitation, “Will you help me?” “Of course I will,” I said with a broad smile on my face. My son is growing up. He certainly has lapses of the “child” he has been his entire life; but there are moments that excite my heart!