Max and Dad

Max, Dad, and Dog
Originally uploaded by leyendecker2004.

It is hard to believe sometimes the goodness of God. It is often hardest in times of trial, but I find myself, underneath the noise and bussle,completely overwhelmed by His goodness. Max has definitely taught me alot, mostly about God, His love, and His faithfulness. This is not to say that Lisa and Ana have lacked in their teaching, because they haven't, but there is something about a father and a son. There is something about a daughter and her father, but Max is blazing the trail of breaking me in as a Dad, but even more as one who desires to follow Christ. We have had some teaching moments lately. These are moments when he and I both have a chance to teach one another something. Just this past Saturday we all were walking into the YMCA as a family. Max is usually ecstatic to go to the Y, except when he finds out he is going into the play room, instead of traveling to the pool. Max is definitely in that stage of life (2yrs) where he does not understand why he cannot do something he wants to do. And I am confronted with a toddler tantrum of grand proportion, but Max is growing. He and I have had the opportunity to talk thru a couple of tantrums and take some deep breaths. You should see me in action, it is quite amusing: Max is about to break down, Dad scrambles to explain the situation in words he can understand. Its like trying to communicate to someone who speaks spanish with my broken spanish, except Max knows english, but doesn't grasp it all, so I keep throwing out words he understands. In this particular case I was promising him that he and I would go swimming after Lisa and I worked out. So I was excited because he totally understood and when to the play room happily enough. Yet, when I was about to spring him from there, I saw the pool was occupied by the swim club. So I inquired when they would be done: Not for 3hrs! AHHHHH! So here I am about to confront the fact that I lied to my son. So I bail him out and the first words out of his mouth are Wa-Wa and Sweeem (Translation: Water and Swim). So I explain to him what happened(He doesn't understand) and we go hit the showers together. Its at least some water, not exactly swimming though. When we walk out, he is pretty content, but I get an idea. He had been pretty excited about watching football on Thanksgiving and kept saying "Futball" and "Tutdown". So I do what any Dad would do. We hit KMART on the way home and I let him pick out a football. Man, you should have seen his face when I handed him the box! He lit up like a bonfire started to exclaim "Futball",Futball! As we walked the aisles to the cash register. It felt amazing to be able to give him that joy, especially after I couldn't give him the original gift, but I think he was much happier with this. It is like what the Father did for us after Adam dropped the ball, He gave His Son. Something far greater than His first gift. I know Jesus wasn't a back up plan like the football was for me, but what a teaching moment. Max learns that Dad will come through, maybe not the way he would have liked initially, but with something better. I learned that God follows through in more amazing ways than I could plan. I hope my attempts to imitate God let max know how much He loves him, because if I can love him like this, Christ can do so much more. Let me be a father as You are a Father! Come Lord!