Replacing Responsibility

Yesterday was letter 'T' day for Caleb at his preschool.  He took careful preparation in collecting his train tracks and placing them in a ziploc.  I was hurriedly trying to finish chores so we could be halfway on time and told him to get his things and get in the van.  Halfway to the church, I ask him about his train tracks.  Immediate emotional shutdown-Caleb remembered the backpack but forgot the train tracks.

I am hurled into a moment of truth.  Do I turn around and get his train tracks or is this a life lesson of facing responsibility?  For Caleb, it is my fault, and he tells me so.  Is it my responsibility, or has he tried to replace the responsibility onto my shoulders because he doesn't want to face it on his own?

This reminds me of a close friend of ours.  Anytime my husband tries to talk to him about coming to church, any church, trying to get him to develop a relationship with our Savior, his argument is he's just as good as all those judgmental hypocrites who go to church and try to pretend they're better than everyone else.  And the sad reality is he has a point.  But he's missing the bigger issue.  He is replacing personal responsibility for his salvation with finger-pointing competitions, judging others for judging him.  Hmmm, maybe that's not such a comical irony.

Maybe it's time we all quit making excuses for why we are the way we are and own up to the fact that we are responsible.  The choices we make are our own decisions, regardless of some of the very real, very hard events that have occured in our pasts.  And the future we carve out is in our hands, until we make THE right decision-placing it in His hands.

I kept driving.  And when we got to preschool, a fellow mom expressed her concern for Caleb.  So I explained to her, and his teachers, the events that had transpired since leaving our home.  And the whole way back home I battled whether I should step in and save the day and return to an elated Caleb with his train tracks.  But I knew in my heart the answer.  It is my place as his mom to replace responsibility back onto his shoulders, because if he never holds the key to his own future, if I am always stepping in to fix life for him, he will never hold the key to Heaven, because he will still be expecting me to obtain it for him.  And I certainly hope to see him there with me someday, so I am choosing to think big as I start small.