Poppi, what are you doing?

By Jeff Becraft

One of our grandsons’ name is Caleb. He is almost two years old. We were visiting Caleb and his family back in August for several days.

A special treat for Brenda and I is to read the kids stories… and particularly at the end of the day, to read the bedtime stories.

One night, I was sitting on the couch with a book. Brenda, Caleb’s brother, Levi, and their parents were already on the couch. Caleb had put his milk cup on the couch and it kind of rolled around somewhat behind my back. The cup was mostly empty and I thought he was done with it. So, I took the cup and set it on the coffee table.

At this action, Caleb turned and stared at me and blurted out, “Hey!…,” and continued to stare.

I didn’t quite know what had happened.

He just stood there with other items in his arms, staring at me like, “Poppi, what are you doing?”

Then his parents explained to me what was going on: Caleb was gathering all his stuff to put up on the couch so he could climb up on that same couch for the bedtime story. And I had just taken one of his things, one of his items, and set it back on the coffee table, which led to the stare down… and the “Hey!”

Which just goes to show that we might not know what is going on in someone’s life or heart or mind or their motivation and we had better be careful about jumping to conclusions… and then trying to fix someone else’s stuff instead of focusing on what I might have to deal with in my own life.

Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope and the Director Emeritus for Youth Corps and has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. Our Place of Hope is a paradigm shift for people living with mental illness that encourages them to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. You can connect with Jeff at  [email protected].