My creative son drew me a cartoon Sunday morning to tape to my study door, already covered with the likes of “Baby Blues”, “Grimm”, “Non Sequitur”, and others.
His cartoon is pretty good, so up it will go.
But the real insight was on the back. He told me that this would be the first in a series of cartoons, and so on the back he drew pictures of each character over a brief description.
Don’t ask me where he learned how to do this stuff.
There are four characters – a mom, a dad, a son, and a daughter. The son is smart and ‘likes all kinds of science.’ Already sounding like a family we know.
The daughter is described as having ‘anger issues’. What 9-year old brother does NOT think his sister has anger issues?
The mom is, appropriately, described as ‘a loving mother sweet and calm’. That’s precious.
The dad? “A work loving dad (& family loving one).”
Uh-oh.
I’m glad for the parentheses, but I can’t escape what has taken top billing.
I took him to Starbucks today for some family loving time!
I’m reminded of Dan Allender’s story in his book Bold Love
“I wonder how often love is truly taught and lived as the central priority of life. I asked one of my children what she thought was the most important lesson I wanted her to learn about life. She replied, ‘Work hard, do your best, and don’t lie.'”
She said nothing, he noticed, about love.
We can learn a lot when we listen to our kids. I pray for God’s grace to enable me to really, really listen.