Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

As I write this, my younger son is crying in my ear about why he doesn’t want to go second in swimming lessons today after his brother. It’s a very intense and melodramatic performance.

Trying to keep a train of thought and focus on my work is, challenging, to say the least as he carries on. We arrived at swimming and he began to climb a wall instead of getting ready to swim—so his brother got to go first instead. So I’m having to stop doing what I need to get done so I can help manage him learning to deal with consequences.

We’ve talked about owning our decisions. We talked about how to have a different outcome next week. We also had a little lesson in forgiveness too since even though he didn’t make great choices he’s going to be able to still earn his hot tub time after his lesson.

He’s still going second, because that’s the choice he made with his behavior, but he’s come to terms with it and is committing to do better. Now he’s smiling and in the pool.

I didn’t get to write about what I was going to write about. I got interrupted. But the interruption was important and changed what I thought I was focused on.

How often does God do this in our lives? We get on a track we think is the urgent, important thing only to have God put a moment, a person, or even some little tears in front of us so we will stop and figure out what is really important.

I didn’t quite do the urgent thing today but I did the important thing. You can see some pictures of what the before and after looks like below! May God give you patience for the important this week too even when so much in our lives fees so urgent.

Fr Robert