Talking Point Tuesday

God Never Blinks: Lesson 19

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD. BUT THE SECOND ONE IS UP TO YOU AND NO ONE ELSE.

Quotable Quote: "It's up to me to look back at my childhood and find the joy that was. To look into my life and see the joy that is. To look into my future and build the joy that can be."

When thinking about what to write for this lesson, I was stumped at first. Why? Because I HAD a happy childhood. A really happy childhood. I am lucky. But then my thoughts turned to people who embody this lesson. People like my father.

My dad was born in Mississippi into a poverty-stricken family of 5 older sisters, a mother, and an abusive father. After his father left the family, he and his sisters were separated from their mother and placed in a children's home. He was seven years old as he ran down the road chasing after his mother as she drove away. My father would spend the next 10 years growing up with an ever-rotating set of "house parents" amongst a makeshift family of a hundred other orphans. He would celebrate every birthday, lost tooth, and good report card without the enthusiastic joy only a parent can provide. He would suffer every skinned knee, school-yard bully, and disappointment without the comfort best found in a mother's arms. At age 17, he would leave the Baptist Children's Village. He had become a man, but inside there would always be the six year old who was robbed of some of childhood's best experiences.

He could have become bitter and used his past as an excuse to play the victim of a crummy roll of the dice. But he embodied the words of today's lesson: "It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else."

He never had a relationship with his father. But he made sure he had a strong and loving bond with his own children.

He never witnessed a marriage built on trust and commitment. But he worked to make his own marriage one that was stable and loving, providing his own children with the security he had lacked.

He never observed his father's anger without the accompanying physical threat or the added fuel of alcohol. But he disciplined his own children with patience, and refrained from using alcohol to fill any empty places inside.

His parents were unable to provide financially for him. But he developed a strong work ethic and provided for all of his own family's needs without complaint, even in jobs that didn't provide much personal joy.

He never had parents who trained him up spiritually. But he taught his own children to love and serve the God who always provides.

He never got to go on any vacations. But even though he didn't have a lot of money to spare, he always made sure his own children got to experience the joy of family vacations once a year.

He never got to go swimming in the backyard pool, play on a playground, buy a candybar, have a dog, or have his parents cheer him on at a soccer game. But he swims in his grandkid's backyard pool with them, he swings on their swings, he eats jellybeans whenever he wants, he has a dog named Finnley, and he goes to every single grandchild's soccer game (and cheers the loudest).

No, he may not have had the childhood we all dream of. But he had the audacity to create his own....to "look into the future and build the joy that can be."