It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and I need to be more diligent with this task.  But something happened this week that I had to write about.  It was a simple question asked by my 11-year-old son.  But in an instant, this one line changed my thought process, my attitude, and my heart.

This particular day hadn’t been one of my better ones.  I followed up on a few business leads that led to very abrupt dead ends.  I found out that the formatting process of converting one of my latest books to a Kindle version was going to take much longer than I had been promised.  And I was nowhere close to meeting my deadline for my latest book.  But this is just a recap of the ‘work’ portion of my day.

One of the brake lights on my wife’s van stopped working, so I had to take time to fix that.  By the time I was finished showing off my mechanical prowess, two of the lights were out.  I’m scared to find out how much this will cost to fix.  I went to the gym to blow off some steam and was immediately reminded that I’m not in my 20’s anymore.  I don’t know what gave me away more…my terrycloth headband or the fact that I got winded from just adding and removing the weight plates from their bars.

Then there’s the ‘family’ aspect of the day.  Angie was nice enough to remind me that I hadn’t finished (or even started) any of the chores she had given me a month ago.  In my defense, they’ll get done.  She doesn’t have to badger me every couple of weeks.  And my teenage daughter was annoyed with me for…I can’t even remember now.  Take your pick.  She’s a teenager.  She once got angry with me for breathing too loud.  True story!

So, needless to say, this was not one of my finest days.  I was ready to eat dinner and go to bed early just to be done with it.  Then, about ten minutes before we sat down to eat, my son asked me the question that changed everything.

“Dad, can we pray for my friend during grace tonight?  His mom has cancer and has to have surgery tomorrow.”

“Sure, buddy,” I said.  And we did.  And we prayed for them before we went to bed that night too.

Tyler’s one innocent question put everything into perspective for me.  That day I was so quick to get offended and aggravated and annoyed.  Offended that business was taking longer than I thought it should.  Aggravated that I had to spend hard-earned money to fix our minivan.  Annoyed that I’m now the creepy old guy in the gym.

And each one of these first world pains came from a selfish place.  I find myself too concerned with money, appearance and pride.  All three are important when put into proper perspective, but I hadn’t been doing that.  Tyler’s question that night reminded me of what truly matters in our lives.  Most of my family and friends are happy and healthy.  And the ones that aren’t, well, I can make it more of a priority in my life to make them more of a priority in my life.