My Resolution Revolution Revelation

So far, I have kept the New Year resolutions I made.  It’s January 30, that is a record!

I am especially excited about having kept the one I made to not yell at people.

I don’t yell at everybody, just the people I love the most.  Very few people have actually heard me yell in the way I am referring.  Its a yell of frustration or anger, and is usually in my house or car.  It occurs at times when my own frustration has mounted too high and I have not focussed on dismantling it.  

To be extremely specific, it mostly occurs when I have allowed time to get the best of me and I am yelling for everyone to get in the car or bed.  I can be VERY loud.  Like, causing the sweet little girls (and even boys) in my house to cry, loud.  Scary loud.  Let’s just understand that short of unexpected amnesia, my children will never be able to say “All my life I never heard Dad raise his voice to us”.  Nope, that ship has sailed.  They've heard it.  They probably need a T-shirt to commemorate the experience... or counseling.

It’s easy to say yelling comes with having children, especially as the family gets larger, but it is far more personal than that for me. It is reactionary.  It is also mostly ineffective, and a bit like the dad in “The Croods” - totally mindless.

This year I resolved to approach moments of frustration and anger differently.  I decided to take a mental step back, assess the situation, and keep my voice in check.  It has not been easy.  It has required much personal resolve and even more prayer.

It has come with significant accountability.  My kids know I have made this resolution.  I know they sit and wonder if I am about to pop, but so far, no.  On occasion they will tell me they think I am close and then follow that with an encouragement about the great job I am doing.  Sometimes they even say they would understand if I did yell at them.  I am starting to think they have made a secret challenge out of it for themselves.

What has been amazing to me [besides the fact that I have actually kept my resolution] is that my actions have redirected the actions of our home.  I have discovered that there is less yelling overall in the house by others, and the general intensity in the face of my kids' own conflicts or misbehavior has lessened.  That is incredible!

Actually, it’s proverbial.

• A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression. - 29:22

• A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. - 15:1

• A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. - 15:18

• Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. - 22:24

Children learn what they live, and they will embrace for the themselves the things we simply tolerate.  I want them to learn the right things from me, and modeling is a wonderful teacher.  My kids may never be able to say they haven’t heard me raise my voice at them, but hopefully they will be able to say they remember the year I stopped doing so.  When they do, I hope they shout it as loud as they can.

A Little Box of Soap Today

Yesterday I was listening to a conversation between two men about duck hunting.  Of course, too far into a conversation about such things gets me a little lost.  I usually nod like I know what they are talking about and locations they reference, but usually I don’t.  I did pick up on one statement from one to the other about duck hunting with his son; “If you teach him to do it, you’ll never have to do it for him.”

The other man has been spending the last several years doing just that.  Teaching the skill.  I stood there for a moment thinking about the statement and wondering to myself if there is something to the sport of duck hunting that makes that statement especially significant.  I mean, that makes sense to me when I think of fishing and cleaning your own fish.  Who really wants to spend time cleaning someone else's catch?  But, isn’t that true with any type of game?  who wants to field dress (that’s a term I know) someone else’s deer?  I’ll just have to ask one of my hunting friends when I get the chance.

Anyway, as I stood there I began to think upon the wisdom of the statement when it occurred to me that such a precept is true in all areas of parenting.  I suppose it is the same concept of teaching a man to fish instead of giving him a fish (might as well stay with the sportsman metaphors).

I began to imagine what it would look like if I was still tying my 9 year old’s shoes.  What about when he is 20?  What if I were to still be hand feeding my daughter, as a perfectly heathy and capable little girl when she is 15?  Sounds stupid, I know, but this is the truth in other major developmental stages of parenting.  I know of parents who currently do the homework of their high school students...they literally do the work for them.  Are you kidding me?

I immediately began to think upon the application of this principle in other areas from the most basic tasks on:  Teach him to clean up after himself.  Teach him to manage his money.  Teach him how to relate to others.  Teach him how to think for himself.  Teach him how to exercise common sense.  Teach him how to read and write.  Teach him how to eat with utensils.  

So many dysfunctional parenting relationships have rolled out of childhood and into adulthood because the concept of teaching instead of doing has not been followed beyond the basic skills and into the more complex areas of living.  Too often this reality becomes a terribly enabling relationship between parents and their children, and sometimes the cycle is never broken.  In many cases, adult children still act like children because they have never been taught to be adults.  They have relied on a parent to do things for them instead of learning the skill.  Both suffer the difficult consequences of that arrangement.

I know my readers who have adult children may not agree, or may feel there is nothing to do about it now.  While I’m sure it feels that way, changes can be made; perhaps that is a discussion for another blog.  In the meantime, for my readers who still have younger, impressionable children in their care, be diligent in training them in all things of life and living.  What profit is there in being a champion duck hunter and a worthless husband or father?  

The Bible instructs us to train up our children in the way they should go.  Such instruction is not limited to learning to tie shoes, button coats, or use the correct duck call.  It is a direction of self worth, right living, integrity, and building character.  It is teaching them what it means to be a man or woman.  It is teaching them what it means to follow a godly code of living.  It is teaching them to be well rounded individuals ready for this thing called life and culture.  It is teaching them to be a contributor to family, church, and community... not filling in the void and making excuses for them over and over, and over, and over.....  

1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

August 13th

I love my wife for so many reasons (see last years blog 17 Years and Counting).  One of the things I love about her, and our relationship, is that in all our years of marriage, we have neither become tired of each other’s company nor exhausted our conversations.

I remember when we were dating, we would look around a restaurant and notice seasoned couples who seemed to have nothing to talk about.  They just sat and looked at their plates, eating and never said anything to each other.  I remember telling Jennifer many times that when we are older and married a while, I don't want to be like that.  I don’t ever want to sit in a restaurant across from her and have nothing to talk about.  That would just make me feel so sad.

We always have something to discuss.  We always have stories to tell each other.  We always have things to laugh about.  We have spent many nights over the years sharing a bowl of chips and Queso or salad and endless baskets of breadsticks while having the best conversations of our lives with each other.  I love those moments.  I love those memories.

Those orchestrated moments have been farther apart and fewer in number in recent years, but Monday I look so forward to having one again.  We will celebrate 18 years of marriage on that day and though there are many things about that to which we look forward, the thing to which I look most forward is sitting down across a table for lunch and just enjoying our conversation.

We will sit and discuss the fact that it is just the two of us and we will try our best to recall what we did with our time before our children required it.  We will joke about what it is like to simply ask for a table for two instead of seven.  We wont need kids menus or high chairs.  We will be excited that the cost is significantly less as a result, and we definitely will not be getting stared at while seeing our kids being counted by others and the details our life theorized.  People are funny.  

We don’t have that rule you hear in sit-coms about not discussing the children on our date - we love to talk about them.  While doing so, we will also reference the fact that we are without the constant need of our children wanting crayons, trying to reach the chips, playing with the salt & pepper shakers, or having to go to the restroom at the same time.  We won’t have to worry with forks loudly banging on the table, spilled beverages, straw sheathes blown from the straw at us, or deciding whether to bribe with ice cream for good behavior.  We will find ourselves enjoying the moment of childlessness.  It takes a little bit for the stillness of that moment to sink in.

For me, the alone, adult time is nice, but not so much because they are not around.  It is because when the children  are not around, I also see that it is each other we still so deeply enjoy.  Moments such as these are not void ones either - there is no awkward spot where suddenly we don’t know what to do with ourselves.  Though our children are missed, they are not what holds our relationship together.  Their absence from us, even for a little while, reminds us that it is not our children that have kept us committed in our relationship - it has been the relationship itself.  Our calling to submit to oneness with one another.

My bride has been my bride since before the foundation of the world, and I have been her groom.  We have weathered many things together by now and anticipate an array of experiences to come.  Our life has been so full and blessed with surprises thus far, and has been an adventure beyond anything we would have knowingly signed up for 18 years ago.

I love my wife, and I still love calling her “my wife”.  I love that she loves me.  I love that we love being together.  I love that I love her far more today than I did back then.  Back then I didn’t think I could possibly love her more...but, I do.

I Corinthians 13:13

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Preacher Friendly

“You can’t have friends in ministry” is what a former pastor of mine once told me. He was adamant on this point and though I still do not completely agree, I understand what he meant.

The people we serve and serve alongside are also the people with whom we strive to build relationships. Unfortunately, [and unexplainably since we are the body of Christ] the local church dynamic seems to sometimes get in the way. Can you really be friends with the preacher? Do you really want to be friends with the preacher? Some do, some don’t, and some are bipolar about it. It is the way of ministry.

I am thankful that although the aforementioned philosophy may be truer than I want, God has granted me with those I can truly call friends through the course of ministry. I have some, not many, with whom I am comfortable to be vulnerable. That feeling is a tremendous thing for a minister. After all, who ministers to the minister? Who preaches to the preacher? It must be those in whom trust and reliance is found.

I love the friends that look me in the eye and call me out on my stupidity. I love the friends who discipline my children as their own and me theirs without fear of misunderstanding - I love those friends.

I love the friends who talk with frailty and welcome advice, who listen intently and respond with love and concern - I love those friends.

I love the friends who share a meal and laughter follows, who aren’t afraid to laugh at themselves. I love the friends who feel right at home in my refrigerator and aren’t afraid to take the last coke or piece of cake - I love those friends.

I love the friends who can lie around and watch a show and don’t feel like an explanation is needed for the dishes in the sink. I love the friends who stretch out in the floor, grab a pillow off the sofa and feel comfortable taking a nap if needed - I love those friends.

I love the friends that hug my neck and say they love me and neither of us thinks it’s weird. They make jokes, they make fun, they make faces, and all of it becomes a lifetime of memories together - I love those friends.

I have been thinking deeply about my appreciation of friends developed over years of experiences and journeys. Those relationships are relationships that have been tested, tried and proven along paths of imperfection. Growth comes through love, accountability, and forgiveness. As time marches on and miles separate people, strong bonds remain and new ones develop.

I hope we all have friends that no matter how far away they move or how much time passes, to come together is like the moments of our closest yesterday with them – I love those friends.