Arms, Not a Distance

Last night at dinner, my son was telling me about a bug he found by the mailbox. A whole story — where it was going, what it was probably thinking, whether it had a family. I had my phone face-up next to my plate, and somewhere around “I think he was a daddy bug,” a text buzzed in and my eyes flicked down for exactly one second.

He stopped talking.

Not dramatically. He just quietly picked his fork back up and started eating, like the story wasn’t worth finishing anymore. I looked up half a beat too late and the moment was already gone — not because I did anything terrible, just because I did the thing we all do a hundred times a day without noticing we’re doing it.

I put the phone in the other room after that. Not out of guilt — or not only out of guilt. Because I realized my son doesn’t need me to be perfect. He needs me to be there, all the way there, for the two minutes it takes to hear about a bug with a family.

I think about the woman at the well a lot in this newsletter. But lately I’ve been thinking about the version of Jesus who had all of eternity’s business on his plate and still stopped for the kids people were trying to shoo away. He wasn’t distracted by them. He was interrupted by everything else, and chose them anyway.

That’s what I want. Not a perfect record. Just more of those two minutes.

The Study Nobody Wanted to See

A new study made its way through the news cycle this week, and it landed the way these things usually do — as a headline you scroll past feeling vaguely guilty. Researchers found that parents’ own phone habits, not just kids’, are shaping how securely attached our children feel to us. Nearly half of teens surveyed say their parents are at least sometimes distracted by their phones mid-conversation. The kids notice. They’re keeping score even when we think we’ve gotten away with it.

I don’t think this study is telling Christian parents anything Scripture hasn’t already said, just with better sample sizes. But I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to turn this into one more thing for tired parents to feel bad about — another way to fail quietly at the dinner table. That’s not the point, and I don’t think it’s the heart behind the study either.

Here’s what strikes me instead. In Mark 10, parents are bringing their children to Jesus, and the disciples — his closest friends, doing what looked like reasonable crowd control — try to wave them off. Jesus doesn’t just permit the interruption. He’s indignant about being kept from it. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them,” he says, “for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Then he takes them in his arms.

Not a blessing from a distance. Arms. A God with somewhere better to be, choosing not to be anywhere else.

I don’t think the fix here is a screen-time app or a new rule taped to the fridge, though those aren’t bad things. I think the fix is smaller and harder: noticing the one second your eyes drop to the buzz on the counter, and choosing, again, to look back up. Not perfectly. Not every time. Just the next time you remember to.

Presence isn’t a technique. It’s a decision you get to make again about ninety seconds from now, whether or not you made it the last time.

Scripture: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” — Mark 10:14

For the little ones: Ask your kids — when do you feel like Mom or Dad is really listening to you? How can you tell? Let them answer honestly, even if the answer stings a little. Then read Mark 10:13-16 together. Point out: Jesus didn’t just let the children stay nearby. He picked them up.

Discussion Questions:

Activity: Pick one meal this week — just one — where every phone (including the grown-up ones) goes in a basket on the counter, out of reach, out of sight. If a bug with a family comes up, let it take as long as it takes.

Oliver Hollis had walked past his grandfather’s well every summer of his life. He’d never once thought about it — no more than he thought about the mailbox, or the fence posts.

But this summer, it looked different. He couldn’t say how.

”It looks like it’s waiting for something,” his little sister Lilly whispered.

”It’s a well, Lilly. It’s waiting for a bucket.”

”That’s not what I mean.”

By midnight, the glow beneath the wooden lid was unmistakable. And by the time Oliver leaned in close enough to hear the sound underneath the quiet, he and Lilly were already falling — down through the dark, into a valley that had been thirsty for a hundred years, and a boy nobody in it would call by name.

That’s the opening of The Whispering Well, Book One in the Tales from the Well series — a new chapter-book adventure for the kids in your life who are ready for something bigger than a picture book, without losing an ounce of the faith at the center of it.

Pre-orders open July 20, and the book launches July 23. If you’ve got a reader in the 6–10 range at your house, this one was written for them — and I couldn’t be more excited for you to meet Oliver, Lilly, and the well that’s about to change everything.

We’ll send the Amazon link the moment pre-orders go live. [Amazon link — coming July 20]

May you catch yourself this week, mid-scroll, and look up in time.

May the people at your table know — not because you told them, but because you showed them — that they have your whole attention, even when it costs you something to give it.

And may you remember that the God who could be anywhere chose arms, not a distance, for the children brought to him.

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.

See you next Thursday.

— The Well & The Word