Waiting on Dad

    Throwing rocks at puppies is probably not a good idea. Throwing rocks at puppies when you are standing by a large window is definitely not a good idea. I looked up at the window and surveyed the damage. It didn’t shatter the glass, only made a rock-sized hole. Oh, yeah, and a noise. Oh, and one more thing: my mom was in that room.

    So I did what any guilty, rock-throwing, panicking eight-year-old would do. I ran. That was mistake number one. I ran to the back corner of the house, took a hard right, to the front corner, and then headed straight for the front door.

    By this time I had a plan: get inside the house so quickly that my mom would not suspect that I had anything to do with the broken window. That was mistake number two. If she had been eight years old like me, I probably could have fooled her. But she wasn’t eight, she was . . . older . . . and smarter. Somehow she knew that I was coming in the front door and there she was, drying a plate, and looking me over.
She asked, “What was that noise?”

    Looking as innocent as any guilty, rock-throwing, panicking, panting eight year old could, I remembered George Washington and the cherry tree. George told his dad the truth and things worked out. But I was no George Washington, and this was not my dad. So I decided to try a different strategy--I wiggled around the question. “What noise?” I asked. Mistake number three.

    She didn’t take the bait. She simply said, “Go sit on the couch and wait for your daddy to come home.” No pirate walking the plank could have felt more dread than I did. I walked to the couch and sat down, knowing it would be the last time I might sit down for a while. I said nothing. I sat in silence. I aged ten years in that few minutes. In my own little mind, I was spanked a thousand times. I thought, I prayed.

    Then I heard the car coming down the driveway, gravel crunching under the tires. I heard dad shut the car door. I heard his footfalls on the steps, and then he entered the house.

    The spirit of George Washington came upon me, and I threw myself on the mercy of the court, crying and confessing in a torrent of words and tears all mixed in with snuffles and sobs, “Puppies . . . rock . . . window . . . scared . . .  ran . . . mom . . . couch. I’m sorry; don’t spank me.”

    Surprisingly, he didn’t . . . spank me, that is. He listened, he understood. He called it an accident.

    He was just.

    I loved him; I respected him.

INTEGRITY: Mom and Dad must be one

“People who commit to relationships are much happier than those who don’t. That’s why married people are happier than those who just live together. When people commit to something that’s expensive or difficult to get out of, they report feeling happier. My girlfriend and I had been living together for a dozen years, and those findings seemed so clear to me that I went home and proposed. Now we’re married and I do love my wife more than I loved my girlfriend, even though she’s the same person. Commitment isn’t just a sign of love; it’s a cause of love.” (Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness)

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:26-27)

Male and female in His image: separate but one. God is Father, Son, Spirit: Three Persons yet One God. Man and wife are male and female: two persons yet one flesh. God created man and woman together to reflect him. Why? Look at Malachi 2:15.

15 Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

God made the man and woman “one” for this purpose: He wants godly children. So guard your relationship with your wife. When we were first married, I was quite insensitive to Patricia’s feelings and thoughts. Without meaning to, I would often hurt her feelings. I wanted to say, “Get over it; it’s not that big a deal.” That just wasn’t true. Unresolved offenses are a big deal.

It would be like having a new puppy that is not yet housebroken. He messes, you clean up right away. Now instead of cleaning up, what if we treated the puppy poop like we do our relationships: “Leave it alone; it will be okay. Just step over it.” Or what if we just took a bowl and covered it up? We would live our lives stepping over or around mess, all the time. Not a good plan!

Yet that is exactly what we often do with relationships. Instead of cleaning up our relational messes immediately, we allow them to linger and hope the problems go away by themselves. They don’t; and after years of this avoidance, many marriages are just one big complicated, stinking mess—almost impossible to clean up. Impossible to step around.

Adding to this, imagine the effect this has on children. And with these young impressionable little people in our home, they learn to repeat our patterns, carrying our baggage into the next generation.

Through the encouragement of others, Patricia and I learned to ask this daily question, “Are we clear?” If either of us had an issue to discuss, we would take the time to clear it up. This meant asking for forgiveness. Saying “I’m sorry,” was not good enough; but “Will you forgive me for ________?” It is not always easy to ask for forgiveness; and sometimes it is difficult to forgive. Simply put, Jesus helped us.

Going the next step, we agreed to present unity to our kids even if we did not feel unified. Often we would “conference” in our bedroom trying to reach the same mind on an issue. We had determined that God’s word would be our final word. We made mistakes in judgment, failed to act as one, yet kept trying. Establishing Biblical patterns of relating to one another changed us, and today we see fruit of it in our children. We have grown in our confidence that God’s truth is for daily life, for real relationships, for real marriages, for real parents.

For us and for you.

RELATIONSHIPS: Battling and bickering!

Staying at home with my kids was a great joy when they were younger. Being a teacher, I enjoyed planning little learning lessons for them to do. Happy and busy, things would rock along fairly well. Then there would come times when things were not good at all. Selfishness can rear its ugly head at any moment. You learn to hear it in their voices—the tone, the stridence, the pain showing as anger.

We handled this in different ways at different times. When I knew they just needed space, I gave it to them. I just told them to do different things away from each other. Anna: reading time, Patrick: piano practice, William: reading, Judith: reading, Jean-Luc: blocks, Danny: nap. Fortunately, you know your kids, so you know the different activities each one can do alone.

When harsh words were spoken, I simply said, “When sweets don’t come out, sweets cannot go in.” That child would receive no sweet treats and no desserts for the rest of that day.

Keith’s mom told us once, “You don’t need to ‘see’ everything. So let them work some things out themselves.” Sometimes they can work it out; sometimes they can’t. What we didn’t want was for there to be no resolution and for resentment to grow. If they weren’t making progress, we stepped in.

Relationships are so important to me because I grew up in a home where so many offenses were never resolved. As a single adult, faithful people walked me through a process of clearing my own heart of pain and unforgiveness.

As a young mom, I was reading in the Bible one day when I ran across the story of Moses and his father-in-law, Jethro. Jethro watched Moses setting up court and judging between the people all day long. He asked Moses, “What is going on?” Moses answered in Ex. 18:16,

Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me,

and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws."

Moses had over a million people to deal with, and he took the time to listen to them and help them resolve their issues. Surely I could do that for my kids.

1. I began to try to help them sort through the facts.

2. I listened to each of them so that they were “heard out.”

3. I made a decision as their arbitrator and explained why. Usually, I took them to the scripture.

4. We asked forgiveness as appropriate.

5. We prayed together.

A couple of other scriptures helped to guide us in these circumstances.

Ephesians 4:26-27 says, "In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

Ps. 133: 1 How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!

3 . . . For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

We made it a priority to keep relationships clear. It was work, it took time; but it bore good fruit. As our children have grown and reached adulthood, there is no greater joy than to see them encourage one another and pray for one another.

Take the time.

Every day.

Resolve the issues.

It is worth it.

RELATIONSHIPS: Resolve conflicts now, today, asap!!!

“Are we clear?”

We learned to ask this question of one another early in our marriage. We were checking to see if there were any hurts or offenses that conflicted our relationship. I admit it; I was a clueless oaf when it came to relating to a woman. I was selfish; I did not mean to be, but I was. I just didn’t get it. I would offend and never know it. This relationship question moved our marriage a giant step forward, because we agreed to ask it every day.

Even today, I am something of an oaf, but I am a nicer oaf.

When we began to raise our children, a whole new set of wills entered our home and they were often in conflict. Although most conflicts were small and probably insignificant, they were real. They disrupted the peace in our home when they were not addressed. When these conflicts finally surfaced, we often realized that we were dealing with an issue that might be days or even weeks old. Our children simply did not know how to resolve their problems with one another.

Patricia discovered this passage about Moses in Exodus 18:12-24. Verse 16 is the key: “Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws." Patricia saw that Moses took time to stop and settle disputes; she realized that she needed to do the same thing as the mother of this small tribe. It gave Moses an opportunity to teach God’s decrees and laws; and it would do the same for her with our children.

Here are four things we tried to get across:

1) Relationships became top priority! Everything stopped in order to make relationships right. If we had to be late, we were late. If dinner got cold, it got cold. Relationships came first.

2) Ask and extend forgiveness: Say, “Will you forgive me?” We insisted on this principle that Jesus taught. If you offend, go and clear it up. If someone asks forgiveness, forgive. This is God’s way, and it is a blessed way. (Now that our children are older—14 to 25—we are seeing the fruit of training them to take the time to ask and receive forgiveness.)

3) You can be right but not righteous. We approached righteousness as a relationship word: being in right relationship with God, people, and things. We learned that a person can be right and yet hurt others with his words. Damage could be done in the name of “being right.” We could not change what was right or wrong, but we could seek to be right in a context of humility and consideration of others.

4) Punishing the guilty brought resolution. There is something cleansing about punishment. Proverbs 20:30 is pretty clear about this: “Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.” When someone offended and no punishment was carried out, the offended one had no sense of justice being done. The guilty person knew that the issue was not resolved because there was no closure. An appropriate punishment coupled with forgiveness brought closure to an offense.

Some suggestions:

Bickering—We separated them for a limited time and gave them individual things to do like reading, playing alone, or practicing piano. We found this more productive than time-out. Before allowing them to come back together, we made sure issues were resolved.

Hurtful words—If sweet things did not come out of their mouths, sweet things were not allowed to go in (no treats or desserts).

Hitting, kicking, harmful play—We simply spanked them and then worked through the forgiveness issues.

In all of the above, we took time to explain, to use scripture, to ask and extend forgiveness.

A balancing truth: My mom was visiting with us once and she shared this bit of wisdom with us, “You don’t have to see everything. Let them work some things out themselves.” After you have trained them, give them room to work things out. Then you become the place of appeal: less hands-on but nearby for counsel.

Ephesians 4:26 encouraged us with this admonition and summarized what we wanted to teach our children: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.”

Resolve it now, today, asap!!!