I’ll never forget the morning when God used a carton of chocolate milk to teach me about being a good steward.

Yes, a carton of chocolate milk.

It was a bright summer morning and my friend Phillip and I were set to play tennis as we had gotten into the habit of doing on most days.

Phillip dropped by my house that morning to pick me up for the quick drive to the courts in our hometown.

On this particular day, Phillip had purchased a carton of chocolate milk for his breakfast. (Yeah, I know, it’s not the healthiest of breakfasts, but we figured we’d work it off playing tennis.

During a visit to Cape Cod we took a 40 minute ferry ride out to the Martha’s Vineyard island. And let me tell you … what a spectacular view!

Shoreland in brilliant fall colors. Sailboats gliding across the water. Lighthouses dotting the beaches. Seagulls floating effortlessly through the salty air. In a word, picturesque.

My wife and I just took it all in and enjoyed the moment.

And even though it was a beautiful sight to behold, guess what our 4-year old boy, Jacob, was doing?

When I was a freshman in high school, I picked up a tennis racket for the first time.

Three friends and I formed the tennis team at our school and we embarked on what would become a four-year trek together that left us with a flood of wonderful memories.

Wonderful memories - except for the district tournament during that first year.

You see, none of us really knew how to play tennis. And that was all fine when we played each other, but when we met up against other teams from other schools that were comprised of players who had been playing tennis for years, that was a different story.

My dad has always been my biggest fan. As a youngster, I excelled in sports…and my dad was always an active part of my athletics.

Early on, I played a lot of baseball. Summer after summer my dad would load up our truck and cart half of my team to our games. Home games, away games, regular games, all-star games, tournament games - my dad was at all of them.

He was always there, in the stands, cheering on his son, proud as he could be of me…whether I made that game-winning unbelievable catch in the tournament game or I struck out with the bases loaded. I was his son and he was proud of me.

Several weeks ago my wife and I, along with our little boy Jacob, were checking into a hotel when we spotted some complimentary cookies in a basket in the hotel lobby.

Now, Jacob loves cookies. (He gets that from me, I suppose And a cookie sure sounded good at that particular moment in time. (When doesn’t it?!)

And those cookies looked good lying there in that basket.

A moment later, we were chomping on a couple of those cookies, and, let me tell you, they sure tasted good as well!

Then, less than fifteen minutes later, it happened.

What a great way to spend some time.

With an active four-year-old boy always wanting to “go, go, go”, it becomes necessary to find ways to harness and refocus his energy.

Never is this more obvious than when we are “waiting” somewhere. Whether it’s waiting for a table at a restaurant, waiting in a checkout line or waiting in traffic, it’s important to keep him busy without letting him bounce around all over the place like Tigger from Winnie The Pooh!

So, we started revisiting some of the games we used to play when WE were kids. Games like “I Spy”.

It started shortly after my wife and I were married. One day, as I was backing out of the driveway, I saw her standing on the porch. She mouthed the words, “I love you.” Without really thinking about it, I lifted up two fingers as if to indicate, “I love you too (2).” The hand signal stuck.

After that, we would periodically hold up the two fingers to simply say, “I love you.” Whether we secretly flashed each other the sign while sitting next to each other at church or while we were standing in line at the grocery store or when one of us was headed for work, the simple signal became a show of love and adoration between us.

Then, on vacation a couple of years ago, the signal took on a new meaning.

When our boy Jacob was six months old, I learned the greatest lesson of loving and forgiving that I guess I’ve ever learned.

I went into Jacob’s room where he was playing quietly with some toys in his crib.

As Paula gathered up some things to take with us, I reached into the crib and said, “Come to daddy.”

He looked up at me with a great big grin on his face and stretched out his arms toward me.

I picked him up and held him over my head as we usually played together.

I didn’t realize that Paula had turned the ceiling fan back on. And when I pulled Jacob up over my head, his head went right into those moving fan blades.

Shortly after high school, I worked for a while waxing and buffing floors at a local grocery store. Then the time came when I wanted to find a “real job”, so I had my resume’ typed up to submit to potential employers.

Of course, one of the critical things that you list on a resume’ is your employment history, which in my case included waxing and buffing floors.

Now, that entry on my resume’ didn’t really stand out as something desirable for potential employers, so I did my best to make it sound as important as possible.