"I have to tell my brother."

I escaped on a spiritual retreat on Sunday afternoon... to Panera for two hours. (I know: it's no desert. It's no forty days. But you take what you can get.)

I chose a quiet booth, a decadent panini, and the book of John. A great combination.

I sought to read it in its entirety (John - not the entire Bible) from beginning to end, and I made it most of the way through before a woman seated herself next to me and began doing algebra aloud.

Honestly.

But long before I became sorely distracted by her verbal exhortation of x over y, I found something I had never found before. I was reading about Jesus' first disciples, how he found them and how they each responded to his entrance into their lives.

And that's when I found this:

"The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him." (John 1:41)

It's a simple phrase, a simple verse, and never before profound to me. Except for this: now I am a mother. I'm raising a pair of brothers. And I watch them. As they encounter joy in their lives - a chocolate cookie, a surprise visit from Grandma, a reunion with a forgotten toy - their instinct is to tell one another. "Tyler! Come here!" or "Tucker, look!" They delight in the shared joy, seemingly even more than an independent discovery.

And suddenly I pictured Andrew and Simon. Andrew found the Messiah, and then he thought: "I found Him! I have to tell my brother!"

May it be so for my boys, God. May they find such delight in pursuing You, and may each one be forever overjoyed to tell the other what he has found. In You.

~ ~ ~

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth."

III John 1:4