Last night as we did yard work, we broke the news to Boy 1 that he didn’t get chosen for the All Star team. We tried to do it gently, because it was our choice that disqualified him.
After being his mom for eight years, I suddenly feel like a real parent.
The All Star team plays on Sunday mornings. We go to church on Sunday mornings. We had to write on the application that he couldn’t be anywhere until 2:00 on Sunday afternoons.
Some things are more important than baseball.
This kind of conviction is all fine and good when you are looking at a baby who can’t feed himself, and you decide how you want to raise him. Eight years later, while telling that boy the team wanted him, but only if he would skip church, it’s the fear of losing your son’s heart that looms in your mind.
We all know kids who resent God because of choices made by Christian parents. None of us want that for our children. If we put their opinion of us above our reverence for God, though, we risk more than we should.
Nothing should ever be more important than honoring God.
So we choose for our young ones in faith, hoping that when they are older they will see the value of good choices and make wise choices of their own.
We choose schools, movies, activities, books, words, music, and more. We don’t choose because we know what is the absolute best thing for them. We choose in faith.
Faith that our kids are God’s kids first. Faith that He will pick up the slack when we miss the mark. Faith that they will know we chose in love, whether it turns out to be a choice they like or one they disdain.
“You’re a great baseball player, and you were good enough to make the team. You know, I loved baseball more than God for a long time. It makes a cruel master. We want more for you than that, and so does God,” he told our boy as he spread mulch over a flower bed by our driveway.
The three of us, we stand in the shade and talk of God’s favor and blessing. We hold up hope to our oldest son, who seems so little in the middle of all this talk of God. Together, we look heavenward with disappointment in our hands, trusting His choices for us are all grace.
Because that is the most important thing of all.
