Perspective

It started as a busy day back at work. The case sealer on the synthetic line had problems last night, PPMS was collecting dust on the shelf, my desk has been a mess for weeks because I've been out of the office or in the plant and haven't spent my lunch hours cleaning it off. The maintenance supervisor doesn't have any updated information for me and the plant engineer is sitting in my office discussing Cost of Goods credits on a $5M project that we are getting ready to roll out. Basically, my day is buzzing by. Other than 20 minutes of Alister Begg on the way into work, I haven't focused on God or anything other than work since I woke up. Then the phone rang and a sweet little voice on the other end says, "It's loose, the fifth one to the right in the back..." I had no idea what Caleb was talking about...then I put two and two together and realized that he was so excited about his first loose tooth that he wanted to call and share the news with me. What a sweet kid. It changed my morning. Instead of focusing solely on sprockets, cylinders, and mistake proofing equipment, my mind went to my family; To a wonderful wife who is battling the stomach flu herself but is willing to do anything for one of the twins who has signs of the same flu bug coming on; To my other daughter who goes out of her way to tell people what she likes about them; and to a little boy who wants to grow up to be just like his dad.

Nothing in my life changed in those moments. My family was there all along, but my perspective was refocused and the stress of the day was lightened just knowing that no matter what I did at work there would be three little smiling faces running to me when I got home and one of them would tell me how much she likes my shoes.