The Thought Counts For More Than We Know

​Last night, Elliott sent me a picture out of the blue, his first football game as a student at Virginia Tech.

On the surface it would appear to be just another snapshot of a ruckus Lane stadium, the crowd, the moment. But the picture was more masterpiece than snapshot; snapshots can't find the deepest parts of one like this picture did.

There’s something about surprise gestures like this. They remind us we’re being thought of, even when we don’t ask. They open a window into our kids’ world - what they’re seeing, feeling, living. For a moment a simple picture bridges the miles between Short Pump and Blacksburg.

The truth is, I needed that bridge. You worry about your kid when they go off to college. And maybe I worry a little bit extra because when I went off to college I really went off - and in many ways my life since then has been a giant fight to get back on.

It's also true that Elliott's birth was probably the biggest victory in that fight to get back on - a light in a dark life came on. I've never depended on that kid for that light, but I have sure treasured it.

I think that’s why when his picture came through joy swelled in a way that feels bigger than the picture itself. It’s not just the stadium lights or the maroon shirts in the stands, it’s the message behind it: “Dad, I wanted you to see this. I wanted you to be part of this moment with me.”

It strikes me that these small, simple ways of saying “I’m thinking of you” are missing in many relationships. We wait for the big conversations, the grand gestures, or the perfect timing, when most of the time what we really need is just a simple reminder that we’re on someone’s mind.

Is there a greater gift in life than to know we are on the minds of those whose minds we long to be on? Is there any easier gift to offer?

Connection isn’t as complicated as we sometimes make it. It lives in the ordinary. A picture. A quick text. A simple “I thought of you.”

Those are the moments that remind us we belong to one another. And they are never as small as they seem.

It is the thought that counts, they say.

Sometimes there is little that counts more.