This photo is a keeper

If your experience is anything like mine, you had occasion during your youth to hear the following: “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.”

I always had trouble with that one. How could it really hurt you more than it does me!?

There was something else my mother used to say, about the power of love: “You’ll understand when you have your own kids.”

This morning I went on a charter fishing trip and never got close to catching a thing – and I cannot imagine being happier. Of course there was a time when joy could not equal a day of sunburns and not one bite. Oh, there were some good days fishing, but the day was never complete when I drove home with an empty cooler. (I have had a lot of incomplete days!)

Today, only 2 fish were caught – but one of them was a 22-pound salmon hauled in by my 13-year-old son. I don’t think that smile is going away anytime soon. (His, or mine).

The day was all he hoped for and had dreamed about – and that made it a complete one for me.

Coming home empty handed would have hurt him, but, quietly, I would have suffered more – with him, for him.

But alas, it was a day for joy!

Does watching God’s children at play make God smile, too? Or even laugh?

I pray that, as long as I have breath, I can look at the photo above and grab onto part of the joy of today – reliving it. I want to keep drinking from the cup.

If you have children – or maybe even if you don’t – then perhaps you understand.