Category: My Family

If You Make The Most Of Your Life

cup.jpgI’m in Oklahoma City today.  Visiting the youngest.  She was in the annual "Spring Sing" at Oklahoma Christian University.  A very good program!  Of course, I was primarily focused on my daughter’s group.  Lots of singing, color, video, movement, and funny lines. 

 
I watched the students last night at Spring Sing.  So much energy and life.  So many dreams.  Yes, there are some who waste their lives while in college and make lifestyle choices that only complicate life and perhaps prolong immaturity.  There are far more who really want their lives to count.  I continue to be amazed at the number of college students who have their heads on straight and who recognize that God’s vision for this world is much larger than themselves.  Some of them seem far more mature than I was at their age.

 
Meanwhile, today is my oldest daughter’s birthday.  She is 24 years old.  24!  It is hard for me to believe that she is 24, married, a college graduate and about to have a mortgage.  Most importantly, she walks with God.  Still, it is difficult to realize that so much time has gone by.

 
I have been thinking about the next ten years.  What will the future hold?  Of course, on one level, I have no idea.  The future, like all other matters, is in God’s hands.  However, I do think it is important to remember that time has a way of slipping by — quickly.  When the children are small, one day can seem like a year.  Then as they are growing older, one year can seem like a day.  All of a sudden, they are grown. 

 
I don’t say all of this to simply be sentimental about my children.  Rather, I want to remember that as a Christ-follower, I am living between gratitude and hope.  Gratitude for the past and hope for what God has promised me through Jesus for my future.  The question is, "How will I live in this in between time?"
 

  • Will I live in profound gratitude for what the Lord has already done in my life?
  • Will I live in hope, believing that the best is yet to come?
  • Will I live by faith, refusing to believe that my biological age defines my life?
  • Will I live in maturity, becoming more like Jesus as the years go by?
  • Will I live in authenticity, being forthright about my sins, my failures, my doubts, and the condition of my life?

Bottom line:  Will you and will I make the most of our lives on this earth?  Or, will you and I coast? 

Marriage and Sex (2)

clip_image001.jpg"Faithfulness."  I suppose the word might sound old, boring, and vanilla.  Maybe the couple eats at the same restaurant every week and they order the same thing.  "Why try something new instead of going back to old faithful?"  They don’t need to see the menu.  "I’ll have the usual."  Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it?

 
Yet, in a marriage, the word "faithfulness" may actually be what creates the environment for a wonderful life together.  A part of that wonderful life includes a couple’s intimacy — sexual intimacy.  Faithfulness is a word that finds its color and shape in the very character of God.  Now that character is anything but boring.  After all, he demonstrated faithfulness through thick and thin.  Through the lives of men and women in Scripture, he demonstrated over and over that he would be fully present with his people.  Such a constant presence freed his people to abandon themselves to his care, his love, and his will.

 
A part of faithfulness in marriage is the commitment to mutual service.  We can either voluntarily serve and give to our spouses or we can be self-centered.  Most of us are well acquainted with this one.

 
Far too many couples zero in on their "sex life" while they ignore their "life."  Most of the time, what would bless couples is to focus on the way they treat one another throughout the day.  After all, the most intimate moments of marriage are really a by-product of the way we are treating one another all day long.
 

  • Are we tender with one another?  Tenderness all day long goes a long way toward enhancing the most intimate moments of marriage. 
  • Are we considerate with one another?  Consideration is love with its eyes open toward your spouse. 
  • Are we gracious with one another?  Men and women feel safe and secure with spouses who never seek to embarrass or humiliate.

Tenderness, consideration, and graciousness create a powerful atmosphere in a marriage (and family) where the faithfulness of a man and woman to one another is a constant.   In such an atmosphere,  married people find the freedom to experience real intimacy with one another.  Marital sex becomes something very powerful that only matures over time.

 
Where do you begin as a married man or woman?   You might pray about these qualities in your own life: faithfulness, tenderness, consideration, and graciousness.   You might pray that God might help you be aware of moments where these qualities are slim if non-existent in your life with your spouse.  No, this doesn’t solve everything.  However, don’t underestimate the power of this kind of love.

Children, God, and Becoming Closer

ChildsHand.jpgOkay, I just lost my last teenager.  No longer nineteen but twenty!  Twenty years old!  So now I am the father to two women.  I know.  You are probably saying, "Hey, nineteen is really not a teenager.  She has been in college for two years."  You are right.  Maybe I just liked the sound of "nineteen."  To say "twenty" sounds very adult.  But then, I guess that is what she is.  That’s really okay.  I am incredibly proud of her and her sister.

 
I have learned so much through being a father.  I’ve learned much about patience, perseverance, and the need to practice both giving and receiving forgiveness.  Both of my daughters live away from "home."  Yet,  I try to stay very aware of what they are doing in their lives.  Just as important, I try to stay connected with their hearts.

 
I suspect there is no other human relationship that teaches us more about our relationship with God than that of a child and her parent.  My own children, through our relationship as father-daughters, have taught me much. 

 
A. W. Tozer wrote:

To speak of being near to or far away from God is to use language in a sense always understood when applied to our ordinary human relationships.  A man may say, "I feel that my son is coming nearer to me as he gets older," and yet that son has lived by his father’s side since he was born and has never been away from home more than a day or so in his entire life.  What then can the father mean?  Obviously he is speaking of experience.  He means that the boy is coming to know him more intimately and with deeper understanding, that the barriers of thought and feeling between the two are disappearing, that father and son are becoming more closely united in mind and heart.

So when we sing, "Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord," we are not thinking of nearness of place, but the nearness of relationship.  It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the Divine Presence.  We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God.  He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.

(Tozer, The Pursuit of God, pp. 61-62)

Those Early Jobs

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I will always be thankful for having a variety of work experiences in my past.  (Hmm.  I’m thankful now.  I can’t honestly say that I was thankful during the time I had these various jobs.)

 
I learned much through all of those experiences.  Much more than I realized at the time.  Years later, I often see how God has used those work experiences in a variety of ways.  These are the jobs I had in earlier years:

 
1.  A paper route for The Dallas Morning News.  My route consisted of four long streets in Dallas.  That meant getting out of bed by 4:00 AM and on my bike within a few minutes.  On Sundays, the papers were so large that my mom drove me, folding these papers while I threw them from house to house (the newspapers had to be on the porch in those days).  In the early morning hours, I began to notice much about these houses.  Different smells.  Who had a dog.  Whose lawn was manicured and who didn’t really have a lawn.

 
2. I worked for several years at a fast food restaurant.  It was a Jack-in-the-Box.  Drive through only.  However, it was on a major street in Dallas.  I worked nights and often throughout the night.  This was my first job in which I dealt with people — lots of them.  This was often dirty work.  I remember coming home at nights reeking of grease from the deep fryers. 

 
3. After I graduated from high school, I worked at Manor Bakery one summer.  This was the hardest job I ever had.  (This was a huge bakery.  Bread, rolls, buns that would be distributed to grocery stores and restaurants throughout north Texas.)  My job was working next to a huge bun oven.   A larger conveyor belt would take hundreds of buns through this oven at one time.  The buns would come out of the oven and huge suction cups would lift them out the pans and drop them onto another belt.  I would then grab the pans that had just come out of the oven.  It was a hot job in the Texas summer.  I have memories of lots of burns that summer.

 
4.  I worked for a couple of years for Hunt Oil Company in downtown Dallas.  Worked on the 27th floor of the First National Bank Building.  I worked in the file room shuffling files to this or that office.  Taking files to another floor.  Occasionally I would be sent to find a file in the archives, which was four or five blocks away.  Nice.  I would get there after morning classes and work the rest of the afternoon.   I worked with a middle-aged, single parent who lived in Oak Cliff.  She had no car and was totally dependent on the bus to get her wherever she wanted to go.   She had two dresses.  A blue and a red one, which she wore to work on alternate days. 

 
5.  For several years, I worked for United Parcel Service.  Loading trucks.  Unloading trucks.  Driving and delivering.   This was a good job.  I began working there my last two years of college.  I worked  nights again.  I have a lot of memories of conversations with the managers.  These were often people from other places who had been sent to work in Dallas from places like New Jersey, Salt Lake City, and Denver.  I begin to notice that some of these people had now been through divorces and affairs.  For some, work seemed to be the center of their world.  It wasn’t that they loved their jobs.  Rather, it seemed to be the absence of any other center.

 
No doubt you have had your own experiences.  You’ve had jobs maybe similar or quite different from these.  For me, these were valuable.  Now at the time, it didn’t seem that way.   Looking back, however, I can see how God has used some of these experiences in my life to help me connect with a variety of people.   Yet, in some ways it doesn’t really matter whether or not I see how these experiences have been useful.  (Their value is not based on my comprehension of their value.)  What matters is that I trust that God works through my history and through my present situation.

 
What about you?  Is there any particular job you’ve had in the past for which you are especially thankful now? 

Life is Happening Right Now

CoffeeCup_BW.JPGLast night, we drove to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to be with Christine (our older daughter) and Phillip.  We plan to spend a few days with them.

 
Christmas happened, and it was great!  Family.  Friends.  Lots of food.  The football game — the uncles versus the nieces and nephews.  Well, we did borrow a niece and nephew for our team.  Seeing young children who have grown.  Seeing older relatives who have aged.

 
I enjoy going to Florence (Alabama) each year.  My wife is from there.  Our children were born there.  Our family lived there almost eight years (when our children were very small).  Some of the most important and defining years of my ministry were spent there.

 
Christmas this year reminded me that life is happening RIGHT NOW.

 
Some people, on the other hand, seem to think that life is what happened in the past.  They refer to the past as if that was the time that real life happened.  Some parents show little, if any, interest in their adult children’s present lives.  However, they are ready to relive their high school senior play ("Remember, you had the lead role!") or a high school football game.  The problem is not their interest in the past.  The problem is that they see the past as the time when life happened. 

 
There are other people who get lost in what they hope for the future.  For these people, life is not what is happening now.  Life is what will happen "someday."
 

  • "One day, we are going to have a lot of money."
  • "One day, we will have plenty of time to spend together."
  • "One day, we will travel and go wherever we want to go."
  • "One day, we will be able to slow down and really spend some great time with our kids."
  • "One day, we will do all the things we’ve talked about wanting to do." 

 
One day …

 
Meanwhile, life is what is happening right now.

 
So, I want to open my eyes, take a deep breath, and live today.  Life is not wishing we could go back.  Life is not waiting for everything to finally come together.  Life is happening today.

Tip of the Week

This year, consider giving your child a "special day." 

 

When my girls were little girls, I began taking them on "special days."  This was a time when I would take one daughter by herself to McDonald’s or Hardee’s for breakfast.  We began this when they were VERY small.  It was just the two of us — one daughter and myself.  We would eat and linger.  No hurry at all.  Just a time to talk.

 

As they grew older, this turned into a lunch.  We went to a variety of restaurants.  The girls and I did this all the way through their high school years.  It was a special time devoted to one daughter.  We didn’t take a friend.  We didn’t take the other sister.  We didn’t sit with people from church if they were already at the restaurant. 

 

Most of the time, we just talked.  This conversation began when they were quite small.  The conversation continued as they grew older.  As I look back, these were such important moments.  (We shared these times together monthly.  They were even more often when they were small.  But, we had these days regularly and consistently.)

 
Listen to my daughter Christine (now 23 years old and married) as she reflects on those times.  She wrote the following yesterday: 

 

Special days bring back so many
great childhood memories for me.  They were such a special time that I got to
spend with my dad, just me and him.  It communicated to me that I was special,
worthy of taking time out of a day to spend time with, and that my dad wanted to
have a close relationship with me. Now looking back it really built a foundation
for our relationship. 

 

When I got to college I realized even more how special
those times were. I had several friends who didn’t spend time with their dad. 
The only time they went to their dad was for money, permission to do something,
etc.  There were several who I never witnessed speak on the phone to their dad,
it was only their mom.  That really made me realize how special my relationship
with my dad was and that it was a personal relationship.  That was very
important to me because not only did it build my confidence level (because my dad
had time for me) but it also modeled what kind of relationship I wanted to have
with guys who I might date in the future.  It showed me that I need to have a personal,
respectful relationship with guys, not one just based on getting money, etc. I
really value and appreciate those special days that were the beginning of a
great, honest, caring relationship with my dad. 

 

(Christine Martin Wood, November  6, 2006)

Are You Willing to Invest?

Doginmirror On Thursday of last week, I drove my mom and dad to Arkansas.  We went to the town (Wilmar) where she grew up.  It was fun to stay with my aunt (my mom’s sister) and see another aunt and uncle, a number of cousins and their spouses and their children (and even their spouses).  I had not been there in a number of years.  I was very glad I went.  As long as I am alive, these people in southern Arkansas will be family.  And–they are a part of some very good memories.

Sometimes, we grow up with people or become friends with people and then lose touch.  Perhaps we do not invest much in our friendships.  We may not invest very much in our own extended or even our immediate family.   For example:

  • Parents and adult children who rarely call or visit with one another.  Far too many adult child rarely call or visit their parents.  On the other hand, some parents will sit at home passively waiting for someone to call them (instead of taking the initiative to make the call themselves).  Siblings can do the same with one another.
  • Friendships that are one sided.  Have you had a friendship in which you were the one who always initiated getting together?  If you and your friend were ever going to get together, you were the one who made that happen. 
  • Churches where it is difficult, if not impossible, to break in.  Have you ever been a part of a church where it was so hard to make friends?  Maybe you invited people over or met some people at a restaurant.  Yet, no one else seemed to take the initiative to invite you over.  Perhaps you know what is like to be a part of a Bible class where everyone was buzzing about a trip some of them took to a state park.  You knew nothing about plans for such a trip.  You felt left out and awkward.

Many people are very passive about their relationships.  They wait for something to happen.  They wait for their wife or husband to make the first move.  They wait for a family member to call and yet never pick up the telephone to call that person.  They wait for a friend to invite.  They wait for someone to come see them.  They wait, wait, and wait.

Contrary to this, I believe I have to take the initiative with people most of the time.  Fair or unfair–that is just life.  I choose not to spend my life passively waiting for other people.  That is often a dead-end street.

Some people will disappoint.  Some people will be passive.  Some people rarely follow through ("We’ll call you and invite you over for dinner.").

Meanwhile–God does not disappoint.  He is active.  He follows through with whatever he promises.  He has taken initiative through Jesus.  I’m thankful he did not passively stand by.  Instead, he stepped in and took action. 

Making the Most of an Ordinary Day

Fog
Tomorrow, I will drive my parents to Arkansas.  We will go to Wilmar/Monticello, the southeastern part of the state where my mother grew up.  It has been years since I have been there.  But I look forward to going.  I have a lot of very good memories of going there as a child.  In particular, I enjoyed being there on Christmas. 

 

My grandparents lived in a white frame house on a two lane highway coming into Monticello.  They had a garden, a barn, a shed–all sorts of places where a city boy could explore.  I have wonderful memories of riding on the tractor with my grandpa.  At other times, he would take us to the woods.  He ran a lumber mill and seemed to know about every kind of tree.  I remember cold Decembers, riding in his pickup truck.  With the deaths of my grandparents, all of those memories seemed to come to an abrupt stop.

 

At the time, I did not realize that we were making important and significant memories.  I did not realize that one day I would look back and wistfully long to experience these moments again.  No–at the time I was just living.

 

Today, I suspect the same is happening.  Today I will just be living.  But–it could be that I will make some memories as well.  It could be that some of this "ordinary living" will actually turn out to be very significant.

 

As I think about today, I don’t want to be overly focused on the past or consumed by what will happen in my future life on this earth.  I do want to be very present in ordinary life.

 

As I think about the last few weeks, they have been ordinary in many ways.   That is, they are very similar to many other weeks:

  • Time spent in conversations with people about their children, their aging parents, sicknesses, etc.  I’ve talked in my office with a number of people.  On the telephone with a concerned parent.  A number of e-mails in which people expressed concerns and issues that were deeply personal
  • Time spent being with Charlotte.  Talking on the telephone with Christine, Phillip, and Jamie (my children and son-in-law).  Being with special friends.
  • Time spent mowing, weed-eating, dealing with loose insulation in the attic, and paying bills.

 

Ordinary stuff.

At the moment, I am sitting at my desk at home.  I am looking at a small clock on my desk.  The second hand sweeps around the face of the clock every 60 seconds.  At some point, the clock in my life will come to a halt.  Life on this earth will be over for me.  I know–we all know this.  Many of us just don’t think about it very much. 

 

How will I live in the meantime?  How will I deal with the ordinary moments of life?  Will I consciously live in the presence of God, even in the most mundane moments?  Will I be open to however God wishes to redeem the ordinary moments of my life?

Just thinking about this today…

 

Staying at Home

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Last night, Charlotte and I were taking the trash cans to the road.  The garbage pick-up guys come this morning.  For some reason, as we walked in the darkness back toward the garage, I said, "You know, we don’t have little children anymore."

 

Every once in a while, I long for the days when they were little.  When we were all together in our house.  I’ve known other people who every once in a while begin to feel wistful about the home in which they grew up.  They say that on occasion they would like to go back home and be a kid again.

 

In Lynn Anderson’s book Longing for a Homeland, Lynn reminds us that home is not a place.  Nor, is it a people.  After all, people don’t stay with us.  Children grow up.  Others eventually die.  Yet, many of us wonder if we can’t come to a place in life where just the right relationships with people will do away with loneliness forever.  He quotes Henri Nouwen (one of my favorite writers):

 

We desire to break out of our isolation and loneliness and enter into a relationship that offers us a sense of home, an experience of belonging, a feeling of safety, and a sense of being well connected.  But…when we are lonely and look for someone to take our loneliness away, we are quickly disillusioned.  The other, who for a while may have offered us an experience of wholeness and inner peace, soon proves incapable of giving us lasting happiness, and instead of taking away our expectation that another human being will fulfill our deepest desires, the pain grows even greater when are confronted with the limitations of human relationships.  (Nouwen, Here and Now, pp. 124-125)

 

Do you relate to this?  I look back to wonderful memories:

  • When Charlotte and I were with a young church and everything seemed so fresh and new.
  • The sound of my grandmother (Searcy, Arkansas) humming and singing at 4:30 AM as she cooked her breakfast.  As I write this, I can almost smell bacon and eggs.
  • Hearing a screen door slam behind us as we walked out of the house with my grandpa (Monticello, Arkansas).  It was December and usually cold.  We were about to get in his pickup truck and head toward the fireworks stand.
  • Being with our small children at Christmas.  Hearing their laughter.
  • Being with some of our closest friends in times that seemed less complicated.

 

What happens?  Well–people grow up.  They move.  They die.  Things change.

 

These moments never stay the same.  I’ve learned they are like snapshots.  These moments are here and then they are gone.

 

The one home that remains is the presence of God.  Or as Lynn writes,

 

...home–real home–can be anywhere, any time.  Home is not so much being present somewhere as it is a presence that can go with us everywhere.  And yes, oh yes, it is still wonderfully possible to get back home again.  (Anderson, p. 122)

 

Today, I want to live with a sense of God’s presence–my real home. He will be with me everywhere.  I will never be more at home than when I am with him and he is with me.   He is unchanging.  His love is perfect.  In his presence, I can always be home.

I’m Thankful

Panera_bread
Labor Day weekend is over.  I’m ready for the next one.   I could get used to long weekends.  And today…

I’m thankful

Saturday evening, we were with friends.  A good meal and then we –OK, two of us–watched bits and pieces of three different football games (the first day of football season).  It was a good evening.   We enjoyed just being with friends and catching up with one another’s lives.

We talked with both of our girls this weekend on the telephone.  Jamie in Oklahoma City, Ok.  Christine in Murfreesboro, Tn.  I was reminded again of how blessed we are to have two daughters who love us.

Yesterday morning, Charlotte and I went to Panera Bread.  Drank coffee, ate a roll, and read the newspaper with no pressure to be anywhere at anytime.  (When is the next holiday like Labor Day?)   Later, we returned home and worked around the house.

Last evening, we were with other friends and their children and grandchildren.  Again–a nice evening.  Good food.  Laughter.  Most of all, being with good people who we like and care about.

I really am thankful.  I’m thankful for moments of pleasure.  Being with my wife.  Being with friends.  Opening day of football season.  A nice meal.  A good cup of coffee.  The energy and innocence of lots of little children running around.  Working around the house.  Seeing a garage look better.  Sitting at Panera Bread, reading the newspaper. 

I take none of that for granted.  I thank God for these small but important moments in life.