The mantle of leadership felt too heavy on my shoulders today. It was the kind of day that made me wish (at least momentarily) that I could throw off the mantle and just count widgets for awhile. Maybe just for a day or two. At least then I wouldn't have to make decisions or walk tenderly around relationships - I'd just count. Counting I can do. In fact I'm quite competent at it. 1. 2. 3... This leadership stuff... I'm just not feeling quite as competent today.
A few days ago, when I was cleaning up a corner of the basement for "the renovation project that will see my hair turning grey before it's finished", I came across an envelope addressed to me in my father's unmistakable handwriting. I think there were only two or three times I ever got anything in the mail from my dad. I wrote about another one of those times here. I could never throw any of them out, but I don't quite know what to do with them, so they have a way of popping up now and then when I'm cleaning. When I got home from work today, I re-read the one I'd most recently found. I needed it.
On a little pink scrap of paper (something that had been discarded from the Auction Mart where he worked - my dad was into recycling long before it was trendy), was this very brief note.
"The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him." Proverbs 23:24
I don't remember what preceded this note. The postmark says 1999, but I can't remember if there was something significant that happened that year that made my dad send me a note that, in his own way, said "I'm proud of you. You are a wise child." Perhaps I'd accomplished something that he wanted to honour me for. Or perhaps it was a time when I was filled with self-doubt and he thought I needed to hear that I was capable and that he believed in me.
I don't remember how it made me feel to get that simple note in the mail. I'm sure it choked me up a little. I only know how it felt to find it this weekend, four years after he died. And I know how it felt to read it again after a day that left me feeling anything but "wise".
I think I'll frame it and put it on my desk. Tomorrow when I go back to work, I'm going to need a little boost to help me move forward. If my dad believed I was wise, then who am I to doubt it?
