The Perils of Paradise

Our youngest son is preparing to move into his first apartment.  He graduated from high school and now he’s graduating from the dorms.  I could hear the excitement in our son’s voice as he described to me just how beautiful the apartment was.  Today was the day that I was finally going to see Buddy’s paradise.  I was the driver and Buddy was the navigator.  “Turn left, turn right, take this road, oh…we should have turned there.” After about fifteen minutes we entered the new community.  I immediately had some concerns.  I didn’t notice any other college students.  Nonetheless, I remained optimistic.  We finally arrived and I was at a loss for words.  I realized that Buddy and I had two very different interpretations of paradise.  Buddy saw a few cool cracks in the cement, I saw a crack house.  Buddy was thinking about a Labrador, I was thinking that there was probably a meth lab in the basement. Our son was excited about the rear entry and I was thinking about entry wounds.  Clearly, I had delegated too much responsibility to this child.  I regained my composure and decided to send a love note to the landlord who in my opinion, had taken advantage of our son and his roommate.  After days of back and forth with our son, I decided to allow him to live in his paradise despite the perils that potentially existed.  As my best friend once said, “sometimes you just have to cover your children with the blood of Jesus and send them on their merry way.”  That’s exactly what I did.  A few days later I learned that Buddy had taken me to the wrong apartment.  God had answered my prayers.  The new apartment while not in my ideal community, is ideal for college students with over active imaginations.