"I put your bears to bed"

My son (Cade) went to a basket ball game with his grandpa this evening. He left right before dinner time and didn’t get back home until 10:00pm at night. We don’t make it a normal habit of allowing our 8 year old to stay out til 10pm but this evening was acceptable because he was with grandpa. He left for the game without saying goodbye to his younger sister, Claire. When we called her to come upstairs for dinner she realized that there was one person missing, her brother. Her countenance is usually jovial, but after realizing that her brother had left without saying good bye, her smile quickly turned to sadness. All throughout dinner and during our evening activities she couldn’t hold back the tears. She kept saying, “I miss Cade.” “Goodness,” I thought, “he’s only gonna be gone for a few hours.” But in her mind it was lifetime. She went to bed tonight in tears. Cade came home at 10pm, after a while I went to his room to tuck him in. He pulled out a note that was on his bed and said, “Daddy look, it’s a note from Claire.” It said, “Dear Cade, I miss you so much, I hope you had a great time at the basketball game. Love Claire.” However, the line that brought tears to my eyes was the P.S. It read, “P.S. I put your bears to bed for you.”

As I rehearsed this scene over and over in my mind, my heart rejoiced in God’s goodness. LaNae and I pray often that our children would not just tolerate one another but that they would grow to love have genuine affections for one another. Parents are often not pro-active in their children’s relationship with one another. They often excuse bickering, rivalries, or unkind words among brothers and sisters as normal behavior among siblings. They neglect to teach their children the joy of serving one another. They don’t teach their children to enjoy being around one another. Often time children enjoy being around their friends in school more than they do with their own brother and sister. As parents we must cultivate in our children’s heart that their best friends in life should be their own sibling. If they can’t genuinely love those whom they live with now, how can they begin to love others in the church or in our community? It has to start in the home.