Hair-cut Day

It is amazing how easy it is for your child to break your heart. I realized this cruel fact the other day at the barber shop. On every other normal hair- cut Saturday this is what happens: I get in one chair and start getting my hair cut while Riley gets in another chair and gets his hair cut and just to ensure that there is no catastrophic incident Bridget stands with Riley.

This system worked perfectly fine until just a few weeks ago when Bridget decided to send me and Riley alone to get our hair cuts. Now I am a big boy and I can handle standing there with him while he gets his hair cut (he is actually very good because he wants a sucker), but something happened on this Saturday that I almost could not handle. Riley sat in the chair and I took my position by the counter talking to the lady cutting his hair, he looked at me, and said, “What are you doing?” I told him I was standing there like Momma does and he politely told me that he did not need me to stand there and I could go read a magazine or something. I’m sure that I looked like a scolded dog walking to the waiting area with my eyes swelling and my heart breaking. My little boy is growing up.

What Riley did not know was that I never took my eyes off of him, at the first sign of trouble I would have been there. I couldn’t read a magazine (I had read that issue of Women’s Day anyway) because all of my attention was on him as he bravely did what we have been training him to do. I guess we never know if our parenting is working until we let go.

As I thought about this sad hair-cut day I realized that once again God was using my son to show me something about Him. God loves us more than we could ever love someone and His complete attention is constantly on us, not because He wants to punish us when we fail, but He wants to witness it when we succeed. God enjoys seeing His children do what is right, He wants us to do good, that is why He takes the time to mold us and correct us.

So the next time you feel like you are all alone, when you start to worry because you can’t feel God right there with you, just look around He is watching and He is never too far away.