How can you stop a dandelion?
In the past couple of weeks I have seen the incredible similarity that dandelions can have to love. My kids love to pick dandelions and blow on them while we watch the
feather-like seeds fly off in every direction. My kids would dance and swirl
through the yard, mimicking the seeds in their flight pattern. Some of the seeds
landed nearby in obvious places while others lifted high into the air, never to be seen again. Whether you run them over with a lawn mower or hit them
with your foot as you walk through the grass there is no stopping them; off they will go
to a new home, a new birth, and create more dandelions.
Our family recently moved to Hawaii for work but quickly found ourselves in
a strange predicament. We had moved into a friend's guest house while we were
looking for our own place, but were told that we had to be moved out by January 28th
because other people would be moving in. The rental market in Hawaii is very tough
at this time due to the high demand that snow-bird season brings, but after four weeks
of searching our family finally found a place. But this new home came with a small catch: it would not be available until February 12th, so we had to figure out what to do for those two
weeks. Our solution: camp on the beach at a state park. My wife and I have four kids between
the ages of one and nine, and we are not really the camping type, and so we admitted from the beginning that this
was going to be quite the adventure for us all. We knew that the following weeks would require much love and unity if we were going to make it work, and before we knew it, we had bought our gear and set up camp.
While living in the state park our family had no ulterior "Christian" motives, and weren't doing anything out of the ordinary for us (except living in a tent). We
weren't having bible studies or pumping worship music through the boom box, we
were simply living our lives in the same way that we might anywhere else.
As we were loading up to leave on the last day, two seemingly obvious bachelors that had been partying pretty hard at the campground asked if they might help me load my stuff. Having my four kids and all the new gear still needing to be packed, I
thankfully accepted. With the extra hands the task went quickly but what happened
next caught me completely off guard: The man that had helped us load looked into my eyes and his whole countenance softened as he said, "You are a really good dad. I've been watching you all week and up to this point
in my life I have always said that I never wanted to have kids. But seeing you and your family
together has caused me to reconsider." I was overwhelmed with countless emotions and could only bring myself to say, "Thank you," as he leaned in for the manly
one-armed shoulder-bump hug. Our family was then off to our new house.
As I reflected on our trip, I realized how much our love is like a dandelion. It goes dancing in every direction, landing in some very
obvious places but also some very unexpected ones. You simply love in all directions, not always knowing or understanding the distance that your love will
sail off to; but the seeds of love will fly and plant and then produce more love.
I could have told you about the family that crashed their
GoPro helicopter camera into a tree above our tent. We became such good friends
with them that they brought our kids gifts the next day. I could have told you
about the Mexican family that invited us to their kid's birthday fiesta because
of our warm smile as they walked by. Or I could have told you about the Canadian
family that grew emotional as we shared a conversation about how we parented our kids with extreme love. There were dozens of these
little feathers of love floating around that were landing in obvious places,
but one of those seeds of love floated far from the camp and planted itself
in the heart of a partying bachelor, who will never be the same again.
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