Book of Colt, Chapter 5, Verse 6.

Theological debate held over lunch today, while doling out lunch.

Colt: "Mom! Mom!"

Me: "Colt, just let me give you your lunch."

Colt: "But I want to tell you something."

(I do NOT agree to listen, but, undetered in his evangelism, Colt forges on anyway).

Colt: "It's like we are the food, and if God eats us, then we are with Him always."

Me: "Um ..."

Colt: "But if Satan eats us, then we belong to Satan."

Me (emphatically): "No. No, Colt, that's not how it works."

Colt (equally emphatically): "Yes it is, mom."

Who is theologically correct? Colt, or me? Has Satan eaten you, or has God? Discuss.

Son of a Preacher Man (Book of Colt 16:42)

I nuzzled Katie good night and tucked in her covers. "Good night! I love you!" I whispered.

"Mom! Mom!" Colt shouted from the other room. I sighed a deep sigh (Colt has a LOT of questions about life and the world).

"When I grow up I want to be two things: a pastor AND a police officer."

At first, I blew his pronouncement off. But then, I was suddenly struck to the core. What if my son was destined to be a preacher man like his father and his grandfather (and his great-grandfather and his great-great grandfather and even his GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDFATHER)? The inquisitive mind, the care and concern for others, the obsession with the great theological questions of life (even if often times heretical in conclusion). Might God be calling my little boy into the ministry?

I rushed to his side and sunk to my knees. I poured out a prayer of blessing over him, and prayed with all my heart that if God were calling Colt to become a pastor, that He would give us wisdom.

"Dear God," Colt sweetly prayed. "If you want me to be a pastor, just show me who to tell about Jesus, and I'll go and tell them." (Katherine's heart melts).

Beautiful. Pure. True. And yet ... there was just ONE tiny detail I was forgetting/omitting. You know, that whole pastor AND a police officer thing. But did Colt forget? NooOOOOoo. Colt doesn't forget ANYTHING.

Fast-forward to day two, three boys and one mom packed in a minivan on a Costco run.

"Mom!" Colt piped up excitedly. "When I grow up and am a pastor and a police officer, maybe whenever I see bad guys, I can put them in my police car. And then, on the way to jail, I can tell them about Jesus."

So far so good. But then, Colt just couldn't resist quoting from Chapter 16, verse 42 of the Book of Colt:

"And then, if they ask Jesus into their hearts, and PINKIE-SWEAR to never do bad things again, I'll let them go!"

Sigh.

Grounded

My two oldest children sprinted forward along the breathtaking sandstone cliffs of La Jolla, my husband walking briskly behind them. But me? I trailed far behind at a painfully slow pace, dragging my reluctant two-year-old by the hand. “Come on, Christian!” I growled. “Hurry, hurry!”

Why did I get stuck in the back? I grumbled. I always end up with the caboose.

But as I matched my steps with his painfully slow baby totters, I started to notice things. The salty breeze. The cries of the gulls. The crash of the waves against the coast. The tiny flowers nestled in cactus leaves.

Before I had kids, I lived life at full throttle. Always pushing, always achieving. Straight As? Check. College done in 3 years? Check. Engaged at 20, married by 21, homeowner by 23. Surging forward to what was next.

During that time I asked my grandmother – now happily married for over 67 years (and counting!) – when she stopped living in the future. “When I had my second child,” she replied.

It is now, happily weighed down with four young children, that I know why. Little hands, pulling us back, anchor us to the present and remind us to savor the now. Because what my stumbling two year old knew that I did not, was that moment, walking on the beach at La Jolla, his little fingers clasped in mine, will never come again. And I almost missed it.