“Heaven’s standards” (10/14/2026)
My dad grew up in a home filled with love but short on resources. My grandmother Lena did the best job she could raising those 9 sons almost by herself after grandpa’s debilitating stroke. It was the Great Depression, and everyone was struggling. My grandma patched her son’s clothing because new just wasn’t possible. One time, her patch to my dad’s trousers looked a little like a heart, and the older boys in the one room schoolhouse took to calling him “Valentine.” My dad never forgot that, and as a dad, he had a rule – no patches!.
It was just a story to me until the year we moved from Georgia to Iowa and the students at my new high school were quick to label me and exclude me because of my southern accent and the assumption that I was a racist as civil rights was the issue of the day in the late 60s. After being locked in a locker and being told there was no room at the cafeteria table multiple times, I realized to some extent how my dad must have felt. And I swore that when I was a parent, that wouldn’t happen to my kids.
Fast forward a few years, and my children were school age. My oldest daughter truly struggled with her first two years. She’d been hospitalized with Rheumatic Fever and suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. She was small for her age and left-handed and struggled with a world engineered for the right-handed. And then it was determined that she had dyslexia. But through it all, she was a fighter. And then a boy in her class made up a song to taunt her at recess calling her “Slow Shrimp.” And I must admit, I did not take that news well.
As I sat and tried to comfort my daughter who was so deeply hurt by the cruelty and judgment of her peers, I kept asking the LORD silently, “Why?” And I got the oddest answer, or to me it was odd – “Heaven’s standards.” I had to ponder that one overnight, I must admit. But with prayer and pondering, I realized what I was being asked to do for my daughter – teach her heaven’s standards and what the LORD calls us to in times like this.
And so, the next morning, over breakfast, she and I spoke. Her two siblings listened in, as was their habit, knowing that this issue would probably arise in their lives someday, too. I explained to my daughter that it is normal to feel hurt by another’s cruel words. But I asked her to recognize that she was more than what the bullies could see, so much more. I asked her to think of her family and how much we loved her during those times. And it was her 1st communion year, so I reminded her that Jesus loves her, too, so much, and that He wants us to love everyone, even those who are not nice to us at times. My son piped in, “Yeh, it’s like Pa would tell Laura on Little House on the Prairie. Be better than that.” I thanked him for his addition. And the four of us agreed that we would try very hard to follow Jesus’ rules even if it was hard at times.
I thought of all this recently as I watched the interactions of some youth. Times may change, but some things never do. We are created in loving relationship with our Lord and one another, but the world has a way of attacking that heavenly design. But I thank the LORD to this day for that little thought that materialized in my prayer that day decades ago – “Heaven’s standards.” The LORD asks us to live according to His will, with love, mercy, forgiveness, and kindness. And sometimes, it isn’t easy. And that is the point. Reliance on Him, His love, His rules knowing that they are “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
As we continue on our journeys in a far from perfect world, let us take with us knowledge of heaven’s standards – the LORD’s all-encompassing rule of love. And may we reach for it whenever the forces of this world seek to disturb our journey. May we trust that His Way is the Way.
Until tomorrow, let us all love well.
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