Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.

When Max was quite little we had the 'obedience' talk. Actually we had this talk often - with each of the kids. But this time it had a twist.

The talk went like this:

Me: Why do you think it is important to be obedient?

Max: I don't want to be obedient.

Me: Yes but why do you think obedience matters?

Max: So I do what you say.

Me: That's only part of the reason. When you are older you will have to make all your own decisions and the only person you will have to ask is Heavenly Father. What are some of the decisions you will have to make?

Max: What job to have, where to live. (Like I said - we had this discussion more than once.)

Me: (This is the long part of the talk.) Now, while you are young you have parents who Heavenly Father gave to you to look after you and to help you learn to make decisions and to be obedient. If you learn to be obedient to your parents you will learn to be obedient to Heavenly Father then you when you are not much older you will make all your own decisions and you will only have to be obedient to Heavenly Father. There are only a few things that Heavenly Father wants you to do - most things you can choose for yourself. But while you are young you need to practice being obedient so it is easy to be obedient to Heavenly Father.

Max: When I am a grown up I am so going rock climbing - Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.

Since then we have often said 'Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.' Or 'This is something we need to do because Heavenly Father wants us to do it - and we can go rock climbing too.'

Because being obedient to Heavenly Father leaves us plenty of time to do other things but being obedient to the any clamouring voices of the world leaves us very little free time.

Beware of Pookie Moments

Joan and I were having a lovely day with all my kids until we irretrievably ruined another person’s day.

It was a few years ago, summer, perfect – a whole day spent on the Noosa foreshore running back and forth from the beach, napping under the trees and eating now extinct $1 hamburgers.

Then a cute little girl walked towards us – she had tufts of pigtails, a hot pink and purple all-in-one swimsuit, a matching hat and a 1 or 2 year old toddle. I whispered to Joan to look. And she did. And we both grinned and pointed! Then my kids grinned and pointed!

The father glared and the mother said pointedly ‘Come on Pookie, lets go’, picked up Pookie and stalked off.

That’s when I noticed that Pookie had no arms.

I could hardly breathe. There are no words at that stage – I couldn’t very well say ‘Oh sorry, we thought she was cute before we saw that she had no arms!’

Pookie’s parents – who really had quite enough to deal with already – now thought that people were pointing at their little girl. And we were – but for all the right reasons.

Although I’d take back that day in a heartbeat, we talk about it all the time. Now we try to remember Pookie’s parents – who could have had a great day if they’d only given us the benefit of the doubt and assumed that we were pointing because Pookie was just so darn cute. And we try to give each other the benefit of the doubt– and the rest of the world too.