Thursday this week my Uncle with his wife and 4 year old daughter came down to our place from Sudbury. We all packed up and headed down to Niagara Falls to visit www.marineland.ca and of course, the falls. Normally these sort of places I avoid like the plague, it's not that I hate theme parks, it's just that I hate crowds (specifically waiting in lines) and sometimes I just don't like people.....is that weird considering that I have a "Pastoral" heart and love meeting people and networking?
Anyways... we got there and had a picnic before going in to the park, the weather brought us off and on showers which pleased me because there was a greater chance that people might not have decided to show up and therefore lesser lineups for Mr Impatient here.
That's exactly what happened, I really enjoyed myself, the kids were great, company was great. It was throughly a great day. However, I had two things happen that caused me to reflect for a couple days after returning home.
The first happened halfway through the day while we as a group were walking to check out the killer whale show. I was pushing the infant stroller and the rest of my clan were beside me and right behind me, when I started to hear a rather obnoxious voice behind me yelling (apparently the person on the other end of this cell phone call is deaf). This 17-18ish youngman and his two person posse proceeding to walk by us, as he was passing us, his conversation turned to some rather colorful language including the infamous F-Bomb drop. As soon as I heard this in the presence of my children my blood began to boil and I had to say something. So after screaming at him trying to break into his 100 decibel conversation I got his attention and just said "Dude C'mon" while motioning at the kids. He knew what he did wrong and said sorry but didn't stop, just kept yelling in his phone.
The second occurrence happened as we were leaving the park, three young maintenance members of Marineland were playing the rock game (traditionally a game played by males in their youth, whereas rocks and other projectiles are thrown into your friends genital area).
These guys were hitting each other with brooms instead of throwing rocks, one of the young lads got really Nailed and went down like a tonne of bricks. First words out of his mouth....well...lets say that mother was in there and another F-Bomb was dropped. My blood boiled again and verbally went after him, to which I didn't get a sorry, just a "yeah" and he and his buddies keep walking (Marineland is getting a letter).
In my youth I was know to have a "slight temper", growing up playing hockey I had a "slight temper". I have been able to get this under control and is no longer an issue for me....or I thought......the moment these guys were cussing in front on my children I was ready to go for their jugulars. Something inside of me snapped and my heartrate increased, my bloodpressure went up, I started to get the twitching eyelid and I was ready to pounce.
I don't know.... is it just me, but are there times you need to let your kids learn certain things on their own? and other times that you need to protect them?
What caused me to ponder and reflect on this over the past few days, is how God looks at us and protects us. I was picturing my Father God pushing me around in a stroller (big stroller and soother) and all of a sudden Satan, or a situation came up that I didn't need to be part of yet in my fragile life and God lashes out and puts up His fists and says "not on my watch".
Any thoughts on this?
Coincedence, I dunno.....Anger Management was on TV the other night.
Recent Comments