For the past almost seven years I have spent nearly every Saturday morning across the table from my son, sometimes at Panera, but usually Chick-fil-a. We talked about school, college plans, music and Facebook or Twitter news over coffee, chicken and waffles and scrambled egg whites.
They started when he was 12 and I was 45, the beginning of a plan to prepare him for manhood. We would spend 52 Saturdays together, talking about God, the Bible, spiritual maturity and such. It didn't go as I had planned. Forcing conversations about the 10 Commandments or the Proverbs with a 12-year-old is not the way to engage or impart wisdom, I discovered. Instead, we covered real life: teachers, guitar, work, role models and hypocrites.
On the weekend of his 13th birthday, me and 12 or so of my buddies celebrated him with a cookout and a shotgun. Each man read to him a letter he had written, challenging him to be a good friend, to use his talents, to do his best, to be sexually pure, to follow God in all things. Mission complete, I planned to sleep in the following Saturday, but E woke me up, "We going to breakfast?"
It was a highlight of my life. He WANTED to spend this time with me. And, we did–for the next six years, with rare misses when he broke his leg, the three weeks he spent in South Korea with Operation Mobilization and the occasional sleep-deprived morning. Sometimes we were joined by other friends, sometimes two, three or four of them. But, usually, it was just me and E. Time well spent.
He'll turn 19 a month from now, and there's a good possibility he'll celebrate that birthday on a college campus in Nashville. That's what we talked about today, at this last breakfast. Paying for college has been a challenge, and not all the details are worked out. We talked about that, and about his plan B. We talked about goals and money and God's faithfulness.
"I've decided that if this doesn't work out, I can be sad and mad about it, or I can be excited about what God is doing. I'm excited," he told me. I could not have been more proud of that boy, scratch that, man. Where did this wisdom come from?
I didn't realize it then, but I did later, after I had finished mowing patterns in the lawn: I guess these 300+ breakfasts have accomplished what I hoped they would do. He's a man, soon to be 19, a college freshman, firm in his faith and wise beyond his years.
I'm not sure what will happen next Saturday. If you happen to be at Chick-fil-a and you see me sipping a cup of coffee by myself, my eyes wet and red, it's OK to join me. It's a habit now, and I'm not ready to give it up.
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