It was “show and tell” day at school and I was tired of being on the outside looking in. I had stumbled across a “treasure” in my dad’s sock drawer. Carefully tucked away in a jewelry box in the back of the drawer was an old pocket watch. It’s white face had aged to a fragile yellow but when you wound it a bit it started right up. I guess it was my grandfather’s watch. I don’t remember my dad having any thing else from Mike Thomas except a handful of old pictures. Well…I copped the watch. I carried it to school and it was a big hit for “show and tell”. I could tell by the careful way my teacher handled it and showed it to the class that she had a sense of its importance. A few minutes of glory and then the class went on and I stuck the watch into my pants pocket. Then recess…mush ball…teeter totter…slide and swings. A fast game of “freeze” tag and then “dodge ball”, then back to class. I don’t remember when I checked the watch but from that awful moment I don’t remember anything but terror. I pulled it out of my pants pocket in three pieces. It was the end of the world. The end of the school day seemed to suddenly arrive and I was walking home running through every possible scenario that would not end in my death. I slipped into the house and slipped the three pieces of the pocket watch back into the jewelry box and then under as many socks as I could pile over it. Then I went off to my room to prepare for my doom. It was two agonizing days later that I came home from school to find the watch laid out in its three pieces on the dining room table. Dad was waiting for me. I immediately began to cry. I poured out my guilt and my sorrow and my fear in one log gushing sentence. “Dad, I’m sorry… Please don’t kill me!” One of those bittersweet moments. “Son, I want you to know that nothing in this world is more important to me than you and your mom. I’m never going to stop loving you. What I want you to learn is how much ever trouble you get into you’re always safe to bring it to me.” He reached over and took up those three watch pieces. He set them carefully in his hand and then took his other hand and pressed. And there it was…a watch again. He turned the stem a couple of times and the second hand began to move. He said, “Hiding your problems will never solve your problems. I know how to fix a lot of things. The best thing to do with a broken thing is to bring it to me. We’ll work it out.” There’s been more times than I can count when I found myself standing in the middle of a mess of some treasure ruined and broken…some dream…some plan…my best efforts. But I remember that day when Dad said…”I can fix a lot of things. The best thing to do with a broken thing is to bring it to me.” Then I remember that I have a Heavenly Father with healing hands.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:09:22 +0000
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