At dinner a couple of weeks ago, we joined hands and began the prayer as we normally do:

God is good. God is great. Thank you for this food.

Please help us make good choices and guide us down the right path.

Please watch over our friends & family and keep them safe.

Please help those that are less fortunate than we are…

At this point, we say a prayer for each person on our prayer list. For example, please watch over Poppy, Sammy, the Frost Family, baby Ryan, Andre, Thomas, Emmy, and many others. But this time was shaping up to be different…

First, some context…

When Megan was 3, we started saying the above prayer at dinner. We used simple and easy language for her to understand: “God is good. God is great. Thank you for this food.” Overtime, it evolved to include other easy reminders that we felt were important like making good choices, asking God for guidance, watching over others, and helping those in need. To this day, we say it at dinner, taking turns, including Matthew.

Next, as many of you know I like gardening. Flowers, bushes, vegetables…I love it all. Matthew has acquired this love from me and likes to go to Home Depot and buy little packets of seeds. His choices are always linked to odd shaped vegetables that resonate with him…multi-color carrots, pumpkins, gourds and watermelons. Some get planted, others don’t, but we always have fun picking them out.

Back to the story…

So, I had had a lousy day at work, the kids had been teasing one another and we were all tired from being up late the night before. Needless to say, I was a little on edge and grumpy. So that night, I offered to say the prayer but when it was time for the prayer list, I added…

God, please help daddy with his “impatience”

I paused, took a deep breath and finished with the prayer list. No one said anything (except Amen), but it was clear that daddy needed some space and “help”. We had dinner and continued with our nightly routine. To me, I thought little of my “request” and was just happy the day was over.

A week or so later, we joined hands again at dinner and I asked “who wants to say the prayer?” Quickly Matthew volunteered and said “I will, but first I have something for you”. He got up, and grabbed a Home Depot bag. Inside it was a packet of seeds. This time it wasn’t a multi-colored vegetable, in fact it was a flower….a packet of “impatiens”. I was speechless. Matthew, unaware of how God had just worked through him to “help daddy”, said the prayer, started eating and then asked with a mouth full of food “Do you like them?”

As parents, our words and actions are seeds planted in our children. Some germinate and grow as intended, some never take hold, and some become more then we could have imagined like the “impatiens”.

What matters isn’t always the result, but that we take the time to see what we are sowing, the time to enjoy what we are reaping and the patience in between.

God is all around us, planting seeds that can grow into beautiful “flowers”. All we need to do is look and listen like a child and not be “impatien-t”.

“As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” – Luke 8:15