As a parent, I find that I learn so much from my children…

My oldest son, Garrett, has been asking for new soccer cleats for a while now.  He is an avid fan and dedicated player, and the cleats he’s been using have had their fair share of punishment.

He had some extra birthday money, so I decided to take him and his brothers to Sport Chalet; the store is closing shop after many decades in Southern California, so everything in stock is massively discounted.

We negotiated the chaos of the parking lot, making our way to the back of the store where the cleats were.  To our delight, there was a sign marking all cleats at 60% off.  To our dismay, the cleats were plentiful, but in a massive state of disarray as the soon-to-be-laid-off workers did their best to keep things relatively organized.

We searched the aisles for a bit while I fielded questions from the other brothers.  No, we can’t take the ocean kayak home with us, even though it’s on sale.  Sure, look for new flip flops, but there are three boys who all need Daddy’s attention right now, so you may have to actually sift through these things on your own. 

Three athletic boys in a sporting goods store with everything on clearance can be a nirvana of sorts—for the children.  The father trying to corral said children might have a slightly different outlook on the experience.

In the midst of the craziness, Garrett came running up to me with a shoebox—a pair of cleats his size.  We opened the box to reveal one Adidas Lionel Messi signature cleat.  One.

 

Some backstory:  If you’re unfamiliar with international soccer, Lionel Messi is arguably the top player on the planet.  Finding a pair of Messi cleats is like discovering a pair of Air Jordan’s on the discount rack, and the only pair they have happens to be in your size.

Except that the pair is incomplete.

These particular cleats have been on Garrett’s radar for quite some time—Messi is his favorite player; he has asked for them in the past, but they were too expensive for us to justify fitting his growing feet into. 

So it felt somewhat providential to find one box of Messi cleats in the store that just so happened to be his size.

From there it was all hands on deck, as the entire Westwick crew scoured every shoe in the building.  We looked up and down, high and low, on every single rack in the store.  We opened every shoebox, looked on every display rack, even begged the staff to rifle through the pile of discards in the employee-only storage area in the back of the store.

Nothing.

I’ve been reading a book on effective prayer lately, so I figured I could give that a shot.  I prayed that God would help us find the missing cleat.  I even called my wife asking her to join in the prayers.

We searched again and again, spending well over 40 minutes in pursuit of the missing cleat.

Still nothing.

 

I admit I was somewhat disappointed in God for not unearthing that cleat for us.  It felt slightly cruel to my son’s young heart, and I could see the letdown in his eyes as each sweep of the store rendered itself futile.

We kept searching until Garrett came up to me with a pair of salmon-colored Nike cleats.  They were not the Adidas Messi cleats we had spent all evening looking for. 

Look Dad, they’re my size!

Everything in me wanted to insist that we keep looking for the Messi cleats.  They were, after all, the shoes Garrett had been wanting for months.

Like a bad (or stupid) parent, I offered an are you sure you don’t want to keep looking for the Messi cleat?  As if by our persistence it would somehow appear out of nowhere.

Nope, these are great Dad.  I like these; now let’s stand in line and go home.

I was still disappointed that they weren’t the cleats we were looking for.  But the longer I observed Garrett, the more I was convinced that he was not only satisfied with his purchase, but he was genuinely excited about it.

Still a bit blockheaded, I continued to probe.  Until, with utter enthusiasm, Garrett exclaimed, Dad—Nike cleats for $20!  That’s a great deal!!

 

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I wish I could approach life more like that.

When disappointment strikes, rather than sulk that I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, I can observe my son’s gratitude for finding something that fits.

I am motivated by his resilience.  I am inspired by his excitement to show my wife his new cleats the second we got home. 

I am convicted that when God presents a solution that’s different from the one I imagine, I don’t embrace the solution with gratitude and enthusiasm.

 

Here’s to the salmon-colored cleats in life.  The ones that challenge us to grow in character and encourage us to approach life with a childlike enthusiasm. 

The ones that reveal that sometimes those prayers for Messi cleats are answered by opportunities to grow, opportunities to adjust.  Opportunities to learn, even (and especially) from our children.