Make the Most of Every Moment

The other night I was sitting in my living room watching a hockey game with my son and it got me thinking about a lot of things. I clearly remember the first time my son watched a hockey game with me. He was about 3 months old and I had him propped up next to me on the couch introducing him to a sport I grew up watching and playing. He seemed fascinated by the action on the tv screen. It was probably the bright light and noisy action that caught his attention, but he was hooked from that time forward. My son turned 21 a couple of days ago. A lot of life has passed since that first hockey game we watched together when he wasn’t even old enough to sit up by himself.

In those intervening years we got to spend a lot of time together playing sports, especially when he was younger, sometimes me coaching teams he played on, other times just hanging out in the yard throwing around a baseball, or playing a pickup game of floor hockey with friends. As he grew up his interests shifted away from sports a little bit to music and writing and reading (he learned how to read very early in his life and it’s still a passion). As he matured into his teen years he didn’t go through the typical rebellious stage that so many kids go through. Instead he turned his focus to his Heavenly Father. So now while we still sit and watch an occasional hockey game together, much of that time we used to spend on sports and just hanging out has been replaced with discussions about more significant things in life.

So last night we went to a “bachelor” party together. Now I’m well past the age where I have friends getting married on a regular basis, but every once in a while I get invited to one of these things. Now in the circles I hang out in, a bachelor party consists of going to a restaurant with a bunch of guys and eating some food and hanging out and talking, or maybe doing something more adventurous like playing paintball or shooting a few games of pool. But the point is my son has grown up. We don’t do kid stuff together anymore (well not too much anyway).

Instead we interact as two adults. We’re well past the point where my ideas are more significant or carry more weight than his do. Three years behind him toward his college degree I know my son has learned things I will never know. We have many discussions about our beliefs and the importance it plays in our lives, knowing it forms who each of us is. Going to a bachelor party naturally gets us talking about friendships and relationships. It gets us talking about marriage and the type of young lady he wants to marry some day-someone who is just as devoted to his Heavenly Father as he is. Someone who will walk by his side in service to the Kingdom.

So my son has grown into a man- a true man of Yahweh. The transitions from childhood, through the teen years, and now into his adult life have been pretty smooth ones between us. As in any life, in any family, there are always a few growing pains and lessons to be learned as we and our children grow together. That’s part of the refining we all go through.

I guess the real point of what I’m writing here though is that life is a continuous time of growing and maturing. Make the most of every moment. 21 years ago, with my baby boy sitting beside me watching a hockey game on tv, I couldn’t have imagined sitting here writing this blog today. :)

To see the kind of stuff he likes to write about check out his blog- Crauhnice.