Split Second Decisions

All throughout middle and high school I swam for Greenville High swim team. As much as I dreaded the early morning practices in the summer, it was so fun. The summer before my senior year, there was one morning that has gone down in the Nickles' history books. It's a situation in which a quick impulse decision turned out so, so wrong... and funny.

One early July morning, my parents were both rushing out the door for work, I was already swimming, and my sister had spent the night out at a friend's house. My mom used to work three blocks away (literally) from our old house, and so, my mom figured with my brother being, 9, he was capable of sitting on the couch watching cartoons for 10 minutes until I got home from practice. I was literally on the way home from swimming when my mom walked out the front door . She told my brother "Wilson, keep the door locked. Don't go outside, just sit here and watch TV until Elizabeth gets home. She will be home in seven minutes." Sounds simple enough, right?

Wrong.

I figure about thirty seconds after my mom pulled out of the drive-way, Wilson was already thinking about what he was going to do with his minutes of freedom. So, my brother, in his boxers, figures he needed to go in the backyard and see about the dogs. Our old house, was a house in which had secret maneuvers in to close the back door. It was like a sacred learned dance. Only few had perfected the dance.  Only if you closed it with certain force and weight was is going to lock. Honestly, we only locked that door if we were going out of town. It was that kind of weird. It was almost impossible to get the dumb deadbolt to lock.

(Our Christmas Card the year of "the backdoor incident".  Totally candid. )

So, Wilson gets outside in his underwear (I don't even think he had fully finished wearing cartoon boxers at this age. So, he very well could have been outside in spiderman underwear.) at about 8:56 a.m. and runs around with the dogs a bit. Then, I'm sure, his internal clock told him it was time to get inside before I got home. So, he went to open the door. He thought it was "locked BUT, it was nearly impossible to do so.  He just had a lapse of judgement and began to panic. As so many of us do, when we are in panic mode (like loosing a credit card, or misplacing your iphone), our thought processing isn't always the most reliable or realistic. Wilson, in full fledged panic mode, instead of walking around to our side porch door that was unlocked, or just trying to push open the back door one more time, found a 2x4 that my dad had just bought to fix the picnic table in our back yard. What did Wilson do that 2x4? He rammed that sucker straight through the window panes in our backdoor.  He, then, realized the door wasn't locked and I'm sure, felt stupid. But, proceeded inside to sit back on the couch like nothing had happened.

Fast Forward 5(ish) minutes, and I pull in the driveway soaking wet, to see our next door neighbor sweeping up something off our backsteps, not sure if his animals had gotten into our back yard or if he was borrowing something. I waved to him and went inside, in hopes of being able to put on dry clothes, before I go outside to speak.

I walk in the front door and Wilson is laying on the couch, with his "rooster" bed-head just as he had been instructed, like he hadn't moved one inch since he had waken up. Here proceeds our conversation:

"Um, Wilson, Why is Mr. Ben in the back yard sweeping up glass?"

W: "Oh, He is?"

Me- "Yeah, what happened?"

W: "Oh, the glass of the back window broke."

Our sweet neighbor saw the after affects of Wilson breaking the window and watched him  go inside, so Mr. Ben was out in our backyard cleaning up his mess. Bless him.

The days after the "incident" Wilson learned:

1- How to replace glass in window panes. (He had to do it multiple times following this afternoon. The excitement of living with an elementary school boy, was never dull.)

2- How to think through reasoning before making impulse decisions

3- The importance of following directions

Starting THIS Sunday, the new Crossroads class, for young families, is beginning to meet upstairs in the pope room (the one with the balcony). Come with your baggage, with your own "incidents", your own failings at split- second parenting decisions, and let's begin to build a community around one another. Let's learn from other family's funny failings, let's learn how to better rationalize your decision making as parents and as followers of Christ. What will your split-second decisions look like, as parents, if you are completely trusting and resting in Jesus Christ? Let's learn and grow together as we open this brand new chapter of Family Ministries at CCP! I'm so excited to walk alongside of your families as you grow, challenge and encourage one another in faith. 

See you Sunday morning at 9:30- Rachel Cobb is going to introduce us to healthy boundaries and why they are vital to every human relationship.