Family Barometer

that is what he is

Our own

personal

family barometer

Time as a family is very important to him. We are finding he really keeps us in check and makes sure it happens.  We know things are getting off kilter when it starts to seem like something is bothering him.  The other night I told the boys we were headed to camp in a couple days.  Normally he would be extremely excited but he was very quiet.  I started asking him questions to figure out what was bothering him and he finally told me that he liked it when we took a vacation as "just a family."  He said, "then we all get to play together."  I could have cried because I just love how much he loves family time.  It isn't that he doesn't understand the importance or our ministry or of camp (we talk about that often and he is all about ministry), it is just that he feels it when we have all been spread thin and around people so much that we have lost our connection as a family...so he tells us in his own special way.   This is the very reason, that at the end of every summer, we leave.  We just leave all by ourselves and go on a trip (usually camping).  We need that time to reconnect and get refreshed as a family.

So, I assured him.  We will "all get to play together" after camp when we go on the longest trip we have ever taken.  In the mean time, we will have to work a little harder at making time for our family in the midst of all the craziness of summer ministry.  I am so thankful God gave us this boy to make us stop in the craziness and remember what should come first and what is important.