Looks Good on Paper

I'll start out with a story.
Our whole crew went to the Olive Garden this evening (our favorite place to dine out.) and something happened that got me thinking.
Mike's son Titus, who is a strapping young man, ordered a coke from the overly polite waitress who proceeded to go around taking everyone else in the groups drink orders. When the time came however for the drinks to be brought out there was something on the tray that for a boy becoming a man can be a demoralizing site. It was, a kids cup.

Never underestimate the power that small things have on making a boy feel like a man.
Growing up you always want to feel as old as you can. My life has been an example of this dynamic. I turned fourteen and assumed my parents, following in the biblical tradition, would see me as a man, allowed to come and go as I please. To my dismay I realized I still had a curfew.

The whole incident reminded me of a time that my family and I were at Apple Bees. My brother at the ripe age of sixteen or so had just not quite hit puberty with the foray of facial hair and muscles that some boys do. Needless to say he did not look his age.

It was an experience that I will always remember when the waitress brought his milkshake out in a kids cup. Cody was not a happy guy that night.

I think that there is something in all men to want to be proved men. We from an early age desire respect, and will fight and struggle to take hold of such manhood. I know that I personally have been plagued with such feelings of inadequacy myself. It doesn't always come in the "kids cup" form but there are constantly things that cause me to double take, and respond, "I am no child."

I am determined to become an even better man daily.
but know this.
I am no boy.

LIVE
LOVE
YHWH
~cortland