No Smiles

Father, thank You for a relatively calm, uneventful day. Karen and I had a nice lunch together, ran some errands, and arrived home safe and sound. Life is a little crazy right now, so some downtime was great. Father, there is no one like You. We are blessed beyond measure.

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Today as we ate lunch a family sat behind us. It consisted of a mom and a dad and four children. The oldest, a girl, who may have been in 1^st or 2^nd grade, then there was a boy – a kindergarten maybe? – and two younger girls. Beautiful wife, overall well-behaved children, but the thing that became most obvious to me was that the dad, to my knowledge, did not smile once the entire time they were there.

He wasn’t hateful or overly mean but he was stern. A couple of times he told the boy to get back in his seat – nothing over the top but, at least from my perspective, there just never seemed to be the least bit of joy. There was no conversation with his children, though he did hold the youngest for a bit before their food arrived. He spoke with his wife, but he seemed to ignore his children. At one point, the next to the youngest girl, held up her remaining pizza crust in front of her face as a “smile” and when she got his attention, no smile, no chatter, just a stern comment that sounded something like “don’t play with your food.”

I don’t know if this disposition was how he responded to them a majority of the time. He may have been having an off day, but as I said, no smiles, no joy, and though he was by no means hateful, love seemed to be in extremely short supply.

All in all, the children didn’t seem overly impacted by the rebuff they received from him…but I just can’t get out of my head the fact that he is missing so much. His kids are missing so much.

Maybe that was how he was treated by his father but what a tragedy, both for him and his children, as well.

Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Ephesians 4:2 NLT

May we all take a moment and think of the relationships we have. May the Lord help us to closely examine them and seek His direction on how we should live and interact with each other. As we have learned from His example, may we realize that loving those around us is not a sign of weakness but shows the utmost of strength! Time is fleeting. Love shown should be embraced and returned. Oh, Lord Jesus, help us, we pray.

Sept 5^th, 2021, Sun, 9:16 pm