Life lesson from my son…

I have always let Quentin adventure… a lot.

When he was just a toddler, there were other moms at the playground big-eyed and gaping as he adventured across the top of the monkey bars and other similar, creative scenarios.

I would often suggest they turn their backs on him because his antics terrified them and I didn’t want their relaxing, park time ruined…I also didn’t want to squash my son’s need to test the limits of his strength and bravery.

If his adventuring wouldn’t kill him or someone else, I let him do it and even encouraged it…

When Quentin was five years old, we took a family trip to the New River Gorge.  Though we often went hiking, this was the first time we had taken him adventuring in a scenario where it was truly dangerous, where a fall meant death and not merely a broken bone.

It was the first time I ever felt true fear watching him move about so near a cliff’s edge completely oblivious to the danger.   Little Quentin just couldn’t understand why we’d hike all the way out to this cliff so he could just sit beside me and take in the view. He, of course, wanted to be at the very edge of the sheer drop.

In this picture, I’m educating him on the dangers of being on a cliff and it was at this point I learned why he felt so confident.

He was certain that if he started to fall, I would reach out and catch him and that was a little lesson on faith for me.

“I cried out, ‘I am slipping!’ but your unfailing love, O LORD, supported me.” -Psalm 94:18