Your Present: To Be Present

Your Deacs are slogging through Finals Week and they are going to come home tired, weary, maybe a little self-indulgent in wanting to sleep all day and do nothing of import.  Give them the grace to just “be” for a couple of days and settle back in to home life.  Once they are over that, you’ll have a fair amount of time to be with them.  Make the most of it.

I ran across this quote the other day and it reminded me of how people hunger and thirst for the love and affirmation of those closest to them: families, significant others, people they respect.  During the holiday season, it seems that so many of us are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to buy gifts, prepare the house for visitors, attend a ton of social events.  It is a lot of hurry-scurry and not nearly enough sit-and-relax and enjoy-the-moment with the people you love best.

So consider this holiday season giving the gift of your presence to those who matter most to you.  Unplug from your phone, your laptop, your iPad and sit with your Deacs and other children.  Ask them to do the same.

Be present for each other for a conversation.  Listen – maybe even listen more than talk! – to what your sons and daughters have been doing at school all semester.  Ask what matters to them.

And most importantly, say the things that are in your heart to them, the things they might be desperate to hear (but might never tell you):

I love you

I am proud of you

You are a terrific son/daughter

I believe in you

You are going to change the world someday

It has been a joy watching you grow up

You don’t have to be perfect – I love you just as you are

It’s OK to fail sometimes. I fail too.

I would be willing to be that 10 years from now, your Deacs will remember your being present – kind words, time well spent together – more than they will remember the actual present you gave them.