My husband Geoff was out of town, so the job of afternoon taxi service had fallen to me for the day. As our 8-year-old foster son climbed into the back seat and buckled in I asked how his day had been. He said it was good. He had liked the snack I’d packed for him. He asked about my day and I said it was good. Then he wanted to know what we had planned for the rest of the day and I said that as soon as he was buckled in we were heading over to get the middle schoolers. He was good with that plan. It’s the same plan we have every week day.
I pulled out of the elementary school parking lot and started to make my way across town. I was thinking about what I still needed to get done this afternoon, reminding myself to send an email when I got back.
“Hey Mom,” came his voice from the back.
I responded.
“What’s the most important thing?” he asked.
Interesting question. Without hesitation I said that to me the most important thing is having a relationship with God. That as long as I keep that first it reminds me who I am, and how I should be. And that most everything else seems to kind of fall into place.
Silence.
I waited to see where he was going to go with this. Wondering what he was thinking about, and if my answer had made sense to him. I also wondered what had precipitated that question.
As a foster family we try to be mindful of the spiritual and cultural backgrounds kids bring when they get to our home. We try to be open and respectful of their beliefs, and open about ours. We’ve had a lot of interesting conversations with kids over the years, and we generally try to reinforce mutual respect of beliefs.
I was curious about what he was working on in his thoughts. But after a few minutes of silence my thoughts went back to the email I needed to send when I got back. I checked the clock on the dashboard to make sure I was on time to pick up the other kids.
“Oh,” he said suddenly, after several minutes. “I thought you were gonna say vegetables.”
I chuckled.
“Well, that’s a good thought,” I said. “Vegetables are really important, too.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “You always say we need to eat ‘em every day, and it doesn’t matter if we like ‘em or not.”
“Yep, I do say that,” I agreed. Still smiling.
Silence returned to our car as we waited together for the middle schoolers to come out. And my thoughts wandered. I thought about my life-long relationship with God, and how I stray away from it, still, every once in a while. How I wander off the path that I know I should be on. How I react and behave in manners that don’t reflect what I say I believe, or what matters to me. How frequently I have to find my way back to the path I thought I was on.
I thought about how differently I feel when I know I’m on that path, walking the walk I was made to walk. How that’s where peace is. Yeah, my relationship with God really is the most important thing.
And, it’s true, I am a big proponent of vegetables. But if someone living in our home thinks that vegetables might just be the most important thing to me, it’s possible that I might need to back off on the kale a little bit.
Although I don’t really see that happening.
penniesonmypath 