Like most dads, rightfully so, I try to avoid such settings.

But today I was drawn to this thing by a promise. It was important to me that my daughter know I keep my promises — or at least that she knows I want to, especially when I make them to her.

Sitting in a crowded food court at a table watching people hurry past, I notice the lady sitting next to us is alone, all alone. She stares somewhere but I cannot figure out where she is looking. Our burritos in a bowl consume our first minutes but then Avery asks way-back questions about me, about my brother. How was it when we were growing up? She asks about Missy, my sister; how much did she weigh when she was born?

After recalling these facts as best I can – the birth weights of everyone on all sides of our family and speculating on others – a black bean with salsa lodges briefly in my throat. But the lump formed in my throat came not from the black bean but instead from the tightening muscles of my jaw as I struggled to digest where I was in that particular moment: My 14-year-old daughter is, in my very presence, assessing her genealogy to attempt to determine how painful her own children are going to be for her to give birth to. She’s wise that way. Always counting the costs before giving over her heart to a matter.

I have no idea what to think about this latest advance, much less what to say. Here is what I do know: I do not like thinking about my daughter bearing children, getting pregnant, marrying, dating, or even thinking about boys. We are here hustling on a Saturday afternoon to buy sports bras before a late afternoon soccer game. I am still trying to come to terms with the fact we need sports bras. Now this!

Stumbling for something to say, to think and also for air because of the black bean still stuck in my throat, I am happy to be interrupted by the lonely lady next to us.

She is smiling so hard as she speaks that the bottom part of her nose is pushing her thick-framed glasses high up on her face. Too high. Too far up. The skin in the corner of the loner lady’s eyes is thick and crinkled like a torn piece of a crumpled old brown grocery bag. Light from the nearby red Chipotle neon sign dances in the welling moisture of her reborn blue eyes and it is so noticeable it vies with her words for my attention. She is not entirely comfortable with the memory driving her to move toward us even if it is only for another moment so she can confirm an ability to feel something she knows all too well but is afraid to forget.

As she begins to speak I can sense her risen countenance being betrayed by something. The awkward displacement of her eyeglasses on her face forces her to stutter. She pauses, and adjusts them. I doubt she can see me clearly. It’s like she is straining to see me while also straining to look back, to remember, maybe, or perhaps to control the bastions of her memory.

“Your daughter is beautiful,” she says.

I don’t say anything, and Avery looks at me like, “Dad, say something.”

I can’t blame the black bean. It is gone. But I am lost in the moment.

The lady rescues me with another compliment as the youth carried by her memory from somewhere to somewhere is now resting comfortably on her face. It’s like I am looking at her face from 20 years ago now.

“You must hear that all of the time,” she says.

Her compliment is directed towards me about my daughter who is sitting directly across from me and, now, right next to her.

I smile at her. “Thank you so much. That is such a special thing to say. You’re so nice, so sweet!”

“I know you do,” she says, bubbling with life, “Hear it often, I mean. I know you hear it all of the time. She is so pretty. . . I had one just like that, too. Just like that.”

I wanted to know, to ask, whatever became of the “one you had,” but I was afraid to go there. I just smiled and started cleaning my own eye-glasses.

“Where to next, Avery?”

We both gathered our bowls and crushed them into the brown paper bag, preparing it for trash, smiled and said goodbye to the lady who had one just like me once upon a time.

“Forever 21, Dad,” Avery said. “Remember, you promised? Is that okay?”

Just last night, I had the “pleasure” of watching “Glee” again with her — my daughter loves musicals.

I admit the show’s in-your-face sexuality and drama makes me very uncomfortable to begin with but I am told it is an accurate snapshot of high-school life today.

On this week’s episode of Glee, I learned that the Bible is an okay book but that its message is just a little outdated. I learned we don’t have to take the Bible’s message seriously because, well, because for one they did not have the internet back then, you know, and it, among other things, makes life more complicated and things more difficult for us. If the Bible was written today, according to Glee, it would word things differently. The Bible, according to Glee, is not contemporary, but it’s kind of cute.

This kind of “programming” makes me sad. Furthermore, it also makes my skin crawl.

I posted my thoughts about this on Facebook. One of my friends said she shared my views, but that it was not so much the show itself that bothered her, rather the high percentage of the 6.2 million estimated viewers that make Glee so popular among teens who were not aware of the TRUTH. My friend capitalized the word TRUTH for emphasis, and pointed out that parents need to be on guard and aware of what children are watching.

The constant gardener blossoms.

Beaten, imprisoned, insulted and falsely accused of evil. Paul’s life was no bed of roses. Whatever roses he experienced were continuously tempered with thorns. As the constant gardener, however, Paul’s thumbs became leather. The thorns no longer drew blood.

In comparison to finishing the race; Paul considers his life worthless. The race he refers to is that of the Christian faith, fighting the good fight and completing the task. His focus is on the prize Eternal life. In this he pushes forward. Forgetting what lies behind, discarding the failures, the setbacks, the persecutions and his past sins (Phil 3:13-14). Paul’s mind is not on the hardships he has endured or those still to come. His mind and his heart are on Christ and Christ’s task for him.

Later in his life he would proclaim he had indeed finished the race, kept the faith and fought the good fight (2 Tim 4:7). Paul never gave up. No matter what suffering he experienced he kept on witnessing. When imprisoned he shared the gospel with fellow prisoners. When shipwrecked he consoled the crew with the gospel. When facing execution he reached out to Caesar’s imperial guard. Paul completed the task given him. He testified the gospel till the triumphant end.

As a Christian do we share this same burning desire that Paul ultimately had? Is our life of little worth in comparison to keeping the faith and testifying to the gospel of God’s grace? Often our priorities become muddled with those of the world. Get an education. Get a career. Get married. Get a house. Get a child. Get the child educated. Get them married. Get them a house. Get a coffin. An earthly race no different to any other non believer

This is far from the race Paul speaks of and ran himself. He discarded his own life in exchange for another. Through that exchange Paul realised that entering heaven, as in ‘eternity’, was far more important than any earthly exploit. His race was indeed a narrow path compared to others. Yet how far do we ourselves wander from this narrow path? Jesus’ words beckon our return “Enter through the narrow path”.

The honest man I talked with is much younger than me, perhaps early fifties and at one time had been regionally famous in the world of athletics. He won a scholarship to a big time college to play football and later local honors as a coach in another very physical sport. Three strokes plus old injuries have him wheelchair bound and his mind struggles in conversation, yet a true authenticity bleeds through. Most of us former athletes get better in our memories as the years go by, but not our honest man. He said, “Larry, I made the starting team as a freshman, but I knew in my heart that I did not belong and that I had developed into my best and it was not good enough to hold that position. That’s why I took the path into wrestling.” He was/is a small man as big time football goes, very fast but every time he took a hard hit he was seriously injured.

Whether you have a lot or a little, the faith life brings contentment. It is a by-product of Godly living. Paul writes, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.” Philippians 4.12. You might not have a lot of worldly goods and still you can be content. It can be an asset not to have a lot for some seasons, because it can keep you humble. You don’t feel you have to keep up with others and don’t have to compare yourself with them. Some people might be living by worldly standards around you but you don’t have to.

You can always ask God for more things though if you need them. There is nothing stopping you from asking God to improve your lot.