Being tricked into being a good person

Wow — here I am again…at last! Life seems to have taken over lately, and I can’t believe that I have been away from my blog (and reading the blogs of others) for so long. I’m hoping that this blip in being here will be a one time thing.

So…let me just jump right back in.

I went to this great conference this weekend. It was a one day conference (though perhaps next year, if I go again, I will go for two days). It is run through an organization called Hearts at Home, and it was really great. I will write more about this later, I suspect, as it is on my blog to-do list.

While I was at the conference, I went to a booth from the company Classy Creations. They had great jewelry, and I picked up two different pendants. My favorite was the JOY pendant. It is an acronym for remembering what our priorities should be: Jesus, then Others, then Yourself. I really liked not only the design, but the message.

On Sunday, I wore my new necklace. Jack loved it. He then asked me about it, and I explained that we should put God and Jesus first. Then, it is important for us to do things for other people. And, I told him, last we should worry about ourselves. Jack started to hypothesize about the different things that we could do for others.

He said, “It is good to be kind to others.” I agreed and told him that was very good.

He then went on to say, “Should we play with other people to make them happy?”

“Yeah, Jack, that’s a very nice thing to do.” I said this as I busied myself with the various things on my to-do list.

“Mom…” Jack slowly began.

“Yes, honey?” With, just possibly, some slight annoyance in my voice, since he had been talking to be non-stop for quite a while.

“Do you think that you could play MarioKart with me?” He gently asked.

My heart couldn’t help but soften. While I was trying to teach him to put others first, I had been putting my “to do” list before his needs. He had already asked me a few times before that to play, but I had put him off. My busy afternoon suddenly came to a halt, and while my heart softened, so did my face, I suspect.

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it, Jack?” I said as I smiled at him.

It was as if I could see his heart leap for joy as I saw his five year old frame jump into the air. He quickly ran to the GameCube and switched out the controller he wanted to the second player, wanting to let me be the first player, since he says that I drive better than him in that game. He told me we would make a good team.

It’s funny — all that time that he kept asking me to play, he was probably thinking that he needed me to help him. Who knew that it was really me that needed him to help me.