The card game

Yesterday I wrote about a life - changing moment in the life of my family which revolved mostly around my daughter. She was just a little girl at the time. Today I want to visit a moment in time which happened with my son. Stephen was little at the time - I don't know how old he was exactly, but I'm pretty sure that Kristen didn't exist yet so he had to be less than six years old.

Stephen and I were playing a card game. It's not important to the story, but we were driving along in an RV at the time - Hope was driving - and we were sitting at the dinette just behind her. I was losing the game, big time. I wanted to grab something from the kitchen, or use the restroom or something - don't recall exactly what, but it took me away from the game for a moment. Stephen offered to shuffle, and I though that would be fine. But as I was only a few feet away, I glanced over his shoulder and noticed that he was stacking the deck. Yup. Pure, innocent little lad was setting me up! His little cute hands and his little cute head were so focused on the task that I stood and watched until he had it all set. Then I came back to the table and he smiled.

Well, what happened next is one of those 'moments.' I don't know if it defined anything, but I have used it as a sermon illustration, and told it so many times now that poor Stephen wishes it had never happened. But it did. We began to play the hand. But as soon as the cards were dealt out, I pointed out the window and got Stephen to look away for just long enough for me to swap hands with him. I was all proud of myself, I thought I was going to teach him a lesson here.

But to my amazement, he began to win again. This was funny, I thought. It didn't take a mind-reader to see that Stephen was truly puzzled at the fact that he was winning as well, something was 'up.'

Well, we finished the hand and he had absolutely beaten me by a bunch. It was coming to the moment of truth - and as he looked at me and confessed that yes, he had in fact stacked the deck, a warm feeling of love began to come over me for this kid. This large, fuzzy, warm, loving, hug-machine of a boy which God blessed us with:

When I switched hands, I had indeed blown it. Because...

He had stacked the deck so daddy would win.