Parental lessons

I learned a couple of things this weekend as a parent.  One of those was the depth of emotion that you can feel simply because one of your children is hurting.  We finally lost the last goldfish in our house.  A nearly six year run came to an end Sunday morning when my wife found Dorothy floating motionless in the tank.  Jonathan had been very upset by hear near death experience a couple of months ago, so we weren't looking forward to breaking the news that she had really passed.  He took it quite well overall, but watching him cry over the goldfish that I never particularly wanted to have in the first place, brought more emotion to me than I had expected.  The second lesson from the weekend comes as a corollary to the first.  It is amazing the things we will do as parents for our kids that we would not do for ourselves.  I was reminded of the trouble I went through during our most recent move to make sure that this fish got into the hotel room so it didn't freeze overnight in the van.  And here I was Sunday afternoon, in the store here in town looking for a tin box big enough to put this fish in (there was no way this fish would flush) and then trying to find a shovel to dig the hole.  I had to ask the store clerk and then wait while they got a shovel out of the back, where they had packed them for the winter.  Then, when I took that shovel to the backyard, I quickly found out why the shovels weren't on the shelf.  The ground was so hard (frozen) that I spent a half hour to get a hole about an inch deep.  Definitely not big enough or deep enough for this box.  So we convinced our son to place the fish in our backyard shed to await burial in the spring.  I later had a brainstorm that resulted in pouring hot water into the starter hole to soften the ground, which actually worked, and we were able to bury the fish after all.  What does this have to do with ministry?  Nothing really, except that when I think of what I am willing to do for my own kids, I think with awe on what our Heavenly Father is willing to do for us.