Men,
I hope you are doing well today! I need to apologize for this weekly share
being a day late (and for missing last week too). I was on an anniversary retreat with my wife over
the weekend and didn’t plan ahead for checking in on you all. For that I am sorry…the checking in on you late
that is. Today I want to share with you a
very proud father moment that I experienced on Friday. What I witnessed my oldest daughter do not
only brought joy to my heart, but I think it also applies to what our country
is seeing these past few days as well. Allow
me to explain.
My daughter is part of an educational community that
participates in a mock trial every year.
This is where students from two communities study a past court case,
learn various methods for prosecuting and defending their side in a court of
law, and then come together in a real court room in front of a real judge. My daughter’s team first served as the defense
in the mock trial and then they switched sides and did it again with them as
the prosecution team. They had months to
study the case and prepare with one another.
Last Friday the two teams came together with a judge from Olathe (on Zoom
because of social distancing). I was
blown away by what I witnessed from my 14-year-old daughter when she served on
the prosecution.
My daughter works very hard!
She began studying this court case the day she received it. She immediately grabbed some books from the
library too and soaked in anything she could about operating in a court
setting. She’s an avid reader and very
confident in her knowledge. She’s good speaking
in public and is comfortable questioning the why and the how. I’m not bragging. I am very proud of her and want you to understand
why I was so blown away by her performance Friday. Her role on the prosecution team was to cross
examine the key witness to the defense.
I watched this cross examination like you’d imagine a dad would in any
stands. I was pacing, smiling, and
pumping my hands in the air at how well she was discrediting the witness. She was tough but respectful and stuck to the
facts. I was proud of her. Other parents were texting saying “I wouldn’t
want to be in an argument with her”. She
was executing the role well but with professionalism but mentioned the witness
was about ready to cry. Even the judge
at the end mentioned she tore apart the witness’s testimony. It was done with class and her hard work paid
off. But that didn’t blow me away. When she was finished with her cross examination,
she put her computer on mute and said out loud “I feel so bad”. My heart jumped for joy and to be honest my
eyes are watering as I write this.
Her first response to her own performance was compassion for
a fellow person! After training hard and
then executing her plan, she could have smiled and been proud of her work. She was proud of her work, but I so love that
her heart felt compassion for the other girl she had just cross examined. It took my daughter months to prepare for
this mock trial, but she’s been training for years and years to have compassion. Love won on Friday!
This experience is a good reminder for us that our character
is shaped and molded over the course of our lifetime. We train daily for the tasks we need to do in
our jobs and in even in our roles as husbands, fathers, and community members. As a man it’s easy for us to think task
oriented. It’s harder for us to remember
that our character is being shaped daily by how we do our tasks, by how we speak
to our family, by what we allow our minds to see and read, and by whom we
surround ourselves with. We need to daily
work towards being more like Jesus. We
need to train in His ways, learn from His word, and bask in prayer with Him! Only then can we do just as my daughter did
on Friday…exemplify the character of Christ through our actions. We can’t simply study quickly to be the men of
God we are asked to be. We need to live
daily with Him and then, through us and through our actions, His light will
shine so brightly in darkness that encompasses us! Our world needs more of His love and light today!
Thanks for hearing my heart and in any way possible help me
make sure NO MAN IS LEFT BEHIND today!
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