My Most Humbling Experience To Date As a Parent

The morning started off wonderfully.  I looked to my side at my beautiful wife - and she was just that - stunning.  Then, as always, the kids, one by one, bombarded us with their cheerful shouts and demands for juice, the potty, and a snack.  We played for a while.

Then we moved to the kitchen table for breakfast.  Everything was going really well there too.  It was a great morning.  Then it happened.  Out of nowhere, one little comment was thrown out.  It led to a deeper one, which led to a deeper one.  Before I knew it an argument began.  This one dug deep.  I stood up and I lost it.

When I acted up as a kid, I got a whoopen.

When I acted up in grade school, I got a "white slip."  Then when I got home, I got a whoopen (or the disciplinary equivalent).

When I acted up in college, I'm not really sure what I got.  But it was something.

When I acted up in the first years of marriage, I got the disciplinary equivalent of a whoopen!

Now, as a dad, when I act up, I get this:

In case you didn't get it, Emma wrote: "I love you dad.  You don't have to slam the refrigerator and drop your coffee mug and slam the door.  From Emma."

Simply put, I'm all jacked up.  I spent the next hour wrestling heavily with my sin.  Then we had a family meeting where I repented to everyone of my wicked pride.  As my wife and little girl forgave me, the heavens opened.  I haven't cried like that in a long time.

This was a difficult post to write.  But I think its important that you know who you are reading.  In all the books I have read, I have never read something that humbled me more than what my five-year-old wrote that day - the day that Christ brought this pastor to his knees with the clumsy words of a child.